Strategy Design and Its Management Systems
Strategic Choices, Constraints and the First Action
Format Workshop, one day
Strategy Design and Its Management Systems is a one-day strategy design workshop for leadership teams whose plan lists more objectives than anyone can fund and says nothing about what the organization will refuse. The team leaves with a first draft of a strategy of explicit choices, the constraint it will take on first, and the first management systems to keep those choices in force: one board for every initiative it has started, and checks at seven and thirty days.
What this strategy design workshop offers
A strategy can fail even when its choices are sound, because nothing in the way the organization runs changes to match them. The workshop treats the management systems as part of the strategy, so the team makes its choices and then designs the systems that keep them in force. The team states where it will compete and how it will win, says aloud what each choice gives up, and checks that it can develop the capabilities its choices need. It then traces its execution problems to the one constraint that limits what the whole organization can finish, and decides which challenge to take on first. Every proposal is challenged in the room by another table, so the weak points surface before the team leaves. Each member walks out with one action inside their own authority that fits the limits on the board and can start on the next working day.
What you will leave able to do
- Write their strategy as five linked choices, one sentence each (the winning aspiration, where to compete, how to win, the capabilities required, and the management systems that keep them in force), and state what the organization will not do.
- Trace a cluster of execution problems to the one constraint behind them, and say why relieving it first lets the other improvements work.
- Put every initiative the team has started on one board, with a limit on each stage, so the constraint governs what starts next.
- Write a one-page strategy brief that names the obstacles, the freedoms teams are explicitly allowed, and the signs that will show whether the strategy is working.
- Design one action within their own authority and check it against five disqualifiers: the opposite is not absurd, it includes numbers, it does not repeat a corporate initiative, it excludes something, and it does more than list things.
How the workshop runs
The day opens with a silent hunt for the bottleneck: each person writes down where work gets stuck, and the table clusters the notes, traces them to a common cause, and circles the one blocker that, relieved first, would clear the most. The team then writes its five choices in one sentence each, practicing first on a familiar company, and designs its first management system: one board for every initiative it has started, with a limit on each stage set below the current load. Each table writes a one-page strategy brief and presents it to another table, which challenges every part of it while the presenting spokesperson listens without replying, so the critique is heard in full. The day closes with each member designing one action, testing it against the five disqualifiers and a partner from another table, and committing to it in front of the room, with checks the next day, at seven days and at thirty days.
Questions about this workshop
- Who is Strategy Design and Its Management Systems for?
- Leadership teams whose plan lists more objectives than anyone can fund and says nothing about what the organization will refuse.
- How long does it run?
- Workshop, one day.
- What do participants leave with?
- A first draft of a strategy of five linked choices, the constraint it will take on first, one board for every initiative, a one-page strategy brief, and one action per person with checks at seven and thirty days.
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Portfolio Strategy, Flow and the Constraint
Deciding What to Commit, Kill or Transform
Format Workshop, one day
Portfolio Strategy, Flow and the Constraint is a one-day portfolio strategy workshop for portfolio and product leaders whose organization funds more initiatives than it can finish, and it leaves them with one view of everything they fund, the step that limits what they deliver, and a commit, kill or transform decision on each initiative.
What this portfolio strategy workshop offers
Many organizations fund more work than they can finish. In many of them, each initiative was approved on its own merits, few are ever stopped, and the people at the one step that limits delivery end up working on all of them at once. Starting more work at that step makes every piece of it take longer to finish, and the time spent switching between pieces and fending off new requests leaves the step less capacity, so a busy organization can finish less. The workshop puts everything the organization funds on one board, finds the constraint that sets the pace, decides how to get the most from it, and limits new work to what it can absorb. Leaders then order the work by what each week of delay costs and decide, initiative by initiative, which to commit to in full, which to kill completely, and which to transform and charter again. They also check how their effort divides across the core business, the emerging businesses and the options for later growth, and agree the measures by which each will be reviewed.
What you will leave able to do
- Put every funded initiative on one portfolio board, grouped into funded streams, with the people each one needs over the coming weeks.
- Find the step that limits how much the organization finishes, name how to get more from it before adding capacity, and set a rule for starting new work that matches its pace.
- Order initiatives by the cost of delay divided by the time each one occupies the people at the constraint, and state the assumptions behind each estimate.
- Compare the division of effort across core, emerging and future work with the division the strategy calls for, and reallocate.
- Make a commit, kill or transform decision on each initiative, with the data on its progress, its value to customers and its obstacles.
How the workshop runs
The day starts with the constraint: participants trace their organization's recurring delivery problems to a common cause, and a worked example shows why starting every project at once delays the value of each one, and the room names how to get more from the constraint before adding capacity. They then put all the work in progress on the wall, cluster it into funded streams, take a first ranking by spending a fixed budget of points, and compare the result with the split of effort they want across core, emerging and future work. Next they set the final order of the top initiatives by cost of delay divided by duration. The day closes with a commit, kill or transform decision on each initiative.
Questions about this workshop
- Who is Portfolio Strategy, Flow and the Constraint for?
- Portfolio and product leaders whose organization funds more initiatives than it can finish.
- How long does it run?
- Workshop, one day.
- What do participants leave with?
- One portfolio board, the constraint named with a rule for starting new work, an order set by cost of delay, and a commit, kill or transform decision on each initiative.
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Outcome-Owned Architecture
Deciding What Stays Human When Software Decides
Format Workshop, half day, or executive briefing, 90 minutes
Outcome-Owned Architecture is a half-day workshop on designing an AI operating model for executive teams that are being asked how much of their work AI agents can take on, and it shows them how to decide which decisions stay with people, who owns each one, and what the result is worth, in that order, because each step depends on the one before it. A 90-minute executive briefing presents the same method without the working session.
What this AI operating model workshop offers
Outcome-Owned Architecture, a method developed by Jamie Bernard with William Haas Evans, rests on the observation that adding AI agents to the steps an organization already runs keeps every queue, handoff and approval in place and runs them faster. It starts at an outcome the business owes and works back to the decisions that produce it. Every decision gets one named owner, including the decisions software makes, and every piece of software gets a written statement of what it will not decide, when it must hand a decision to a person, and who can override it or return the work to people. Each decision is priced with the cost of human review counted in, and a decision the team keeps with people stays off the list of automation investments, whatever its return. The method can conclude that a decision should stay human or that a step should stop altogether, and it is independent of any software vendor. Chief human resources officers see how to plan people and agents as one workforce, and revenue and operations leaders see how to rank changes by return in terms they can present to a board.
What you will leave able to do
- Trace one recurring decision as it runs today: what starts it, what information it needs, who decides, who commits the organization, and how the result comes back.
- Start at an outcome the business owes, work back to the decisions that produce it, and list those decisions before any org chart or software platform enters the discussion.
- Sort those decisions into the ones software can own, the ones a named person signs off, and the ones people keep, and name one accountable owner for every decision, including the ones software makes.
- Say what the written limits for a piece of software must contain: what it will not decide, when it must hand a decision up, and who can override it or return the work to people.
- See how each decision is priced, with the cost of human review counted in, and what return the work must produce, and plan a first change to one decision that can be made and measured within thirty days.
How the workshop runs
The session opens on four assumptions behind the current organization: information comes in batches, coordination is costly, execution needs a person, and decisions wait for a schedule. The team then works the first steps of the method on one outcome of its own, with real cases: tracing how the decision is made today, starting at the outcome and working back to the decisions behind it, and settling which decisions stay with people and who owns each. The remaining steps are presented in order: the written limits on each piece of software, tests for where the design will break, pricing, people and agents planned as one portfolio, the kind of team that owns each decision, and oversight once the system runs. The session closes on a first change to one decision, measured against the return the team agrees the work must produce, and the 90-minute briefing presents the same sequence without the working session.
Questions about this workshop
- Who is Outcome-Owned Architecture for?
- Executive teams that are being asked how much of their work AI agents can take on.
- How long does it run?
- Workshop, half day, or executive briefing, 90 minutes.
- What do participants leave with?
- One of their own outcomes traced back to its decisions, each decision sorted and given a named owner, and a first change to one decision planned for the next thirty days.
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Scenario Planning for Strategy
Test Your Plan Against Several Futures Before You Commit
Format Workshop, one day
Scenario Planning for Strategy is a one-day workshop for leadership teams whose strategy assumes a single future, and it tests their current plan and largest commitments against several plausible futures so the team can see which commitments work across them before it commits more.
What this scenario planning workshop offers
Many strategies assume one future, and few teams have examined that assumption. When a team asks which future to believe, the answer tends to follow the voice in the room with the most authority or confidence. The workshop sorts the drivers of change into trends already under way and uncertainties whose direction nobody knows, and writes two to four plausible futures from the uncertainties that matter most to the plan. It then tests the current strategy against each future while a weak commitment is still cheap to change. The team learns which commitments work across the futures, which depend on one, and what it would need to notice early. The day produces a first set of futures the team returns to, one Tuesday action per person, and early signs that tell the team which future is unfolding.
What you will leave able to do
- Sort the drivers of change acting on their organization into trends already under way and uncertainties, and rank the uncertainties by their effect on the plan.
- Write two to four plausible futures that differ in the conditions around the business, each coherent enough to walk through.
- Test the current strategy and its largest commitments against every future, and mark which commitments work in all of them and which depend on one.
- Set the present mess, the future mess it produces if nothing changes, and the future the team would choose beside the scenario set on the Strategic Futures Canvas.
- Design one action each to start on Tuesday, and assign each early sign of the unfolding future to an owner who watches it.
How the workshop runs
The morning starts with the present, as the team names the bottleneck that most limits it today and writes the drivers of change it sees over several time horizons, one per card and in silence before any discussion. The team also writes the most hopeful and the most alarming futures it can imagine, which name what it is reaching for and what it must avoid, and keeps them apart from the scenario set. It then sorts the drivers into trends and uncertainties, drafts plausible futures from the uncertainties that matter most, and in the afternoon tests each of its largest commitments against every future. The day closes on the Strategic Futures Canvas, with one Tuesday action per person tested against five questions and the early signs assigned to owners.
Questions about this workshop
- Who is Scenario Planning for Strategy for?
- Leadership teams whose strategy assumes a single future.
- How long does it run?
- Workshop, one day.
- What do participants leave with?
- Drivers sorted into trends and uncertainties, two to four plausible futures, the current strategy tested against each, one action per person, and early signs assigned to owners.
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