The Hudson Strategic Group

We Facilitate Annual Retreats and Other Planning Meetings

Ideal For Meetings of 7 To 30 Individuals (Boards, Management Teams, Sales Staff, etc.)

§ Instant Feedback for Participants and Sponsors

§ “Guaranteed” Agenda Completion

§ 100% Of Proceedings Documented (Every Item, Every Decision, Every Shared Idea)

§ Reports Published Within 48 Hrs (Word, HTML, Or PowerPoint)

Cross Functional Or Intact Management Teams

§ Planning, Team Training, Or Assessment Formats Are Supported

§ Use Your Own Agenda or One of Our Planning Templates

Generates Consensus and Buy-In (Ownership) to Action

When You Need Information to

Make A Difference . . . .

HsG Survey on Retreats – Your Views

Participation Builds Buy-In at every level and in every function, the people within an organization are the ones most critical to the development and maintenance of its capabilities. Outside experts can provide valuable input, however internal buy-in is the critical ingredient to ACTION.

To maximize the use of participant time needed too achieve consensus among an organizations’ executives as to what the operational priorities should be for the coming year (or planning period). The use of Computer Assisted Facilitation and structured Strategic Action Planning methods ensure that the retreat agenda is completed in a timely manor, with all issues appropriately addressed.

At the conclusion of the retreat the participants will have identified critical success actions and inhibitors, their order of importance, teams that should address each one, progress metrics, measurements for successful execution, and estimated time for completion. They will leave the retreat tasked with roles and responsibilities for designing implementation plans that the entire organization can execute. They will hold each other accountable through calendared meetings and conference calls. Finally, they will leave the retreat with a stake in the generation, execution, and ultimately, the success of the strategic plan.

Background

Overall Approach:

To involve all of the planning participants in a review of their top strategic ideas or initiatives during this one-day meeting, utilizing computer-assisted facilitation. Computer assisted facilitation will allow each participant to provide candid and critical input on each idea in a timely, efficient, and dispassionate manner. The introduction of anonymity will permit each executive to quickly express their true feelings on each idea and ensure buy-in to the final list of priorities.

The Sponsors’ overall priorities are to be used as decision criteria for the participants to develop a consensus assessment of each idea or initiative. By using decision criteria, we can further improve the buy-in to the ultimate short list of priorities. An Idea becomes important because it best meets the requirements laid out by the criteria.

The planning participants will be able to analyze each idea against the criteria in four (4) thirty minute work sessions. While this was a big effort, it is ultimately an investment in team building and consensus building. Additionally, this team building will be required if many of these ideas are to be accomplished within the short time remaining in the administration. In these work sessions there was an opportunity to identify requisite cross-functional support to maximize the success upon implementation.

The sessions will be used to create a framework for generating priorities while linking each idea to the various priorities. This linkage will facilitate the communication of the priorities through out the department (internally, externally, and to council/support entities), because the benefit of the projects will be both articulated and agreed upon by the management team.

Strategic Action Planning Retreat

Retreat Purpose

The Hudson Strategic Group utilizes performance improvement methodology in a novel way to assist our clients in translating their strategic plan into day-to-day organizational activities.

With the aid of hardware and software tools, we will facilitate senior planning participants, & organizational staff, if desired, along with other stakeholders through a performance information gathering process that will identify:

q The organizational mission

q Prioritized organizational values

q Prioritized critical success actions

q Prioritized inhibitors to success and potential corrective actions

q Stakeholders

q Success action work team leaders and members

q An implementation design plan

Participation in the retreat will result in the stakeholders immediately applying their considerable skills, knowledge, and decision-making capability to specific agreed-upon areas for the good of the organization. They will exit HsG strategic action planning and activity engage themselves as change agents in the actual integration of the strategy in the day-to-day business of the organization.

The following paragraphs outline the Hudson Strategic Group’s expertise, methodology, and approach.

Retreat Event

The Retreat will span one day for a total of 6 hours. The date and location is of the client’s choosing. HsG will conduct the retreat in a way that actively negates the participants with a combination of compute-aided facilitation and verbal discussions. The retreat data gathering will take place in the context of the financial, customer, internal process, and capability perspectives necessary to create a comprehensive strategy.

Retreat Tools

HsG will use as its primary facilitation tool networked laptops running Groupware Systems, a software tool designed to efficiently capture verbatim thoughts and ideas. This novel use of technology will help to create an anonymous environment for participants that will promote candid, provocative, and innovative discussions. Each participant will have a laptop for anonymous personal input, and through that laptop, access to anonymous input from every other participant. In this environment, the participants will gain a personal stake in the decision, and ultimately, in the action plans their collective input produces.

Computer-aided Activities

The participants will draw upon their skills and knowledge to generate, consolidate, and prioritize relevant lists. The laptops shorten the completion time of these exercises considerably. Brainstorming and documenting exercises that would normally take 90 minutes will be done in 20 minutes. Consolidating and eliminating redundancies that would normally take one hour will be done in 10 minutes. Ranking list items in order of importance would normally take 90 minutes, but will be done in 30 minutes. The laptop creates a truly egalitarian atmosphere because it eliminates recriminations, intimidation, forceful personality, and status. Thus, in environment ideas will rise or fall on their own merit.

Corporate: 404-768-1313 Fax 404-768-0898
Email: Info@hudgroup.com | URL: http://www.hudgroup.com