Team Accountability- Workshop 5 (Eagle Part 1)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Team Accountability is provided by Mr. Teschner MBA BA Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
Mr. Teschner is a transformational Leadership Coach and Trainer and Founder & CEO of VMax Group. VMax Group is a St Louis-based Leadership Development company specializing in teaching accountable leadership and high-performing teamwork to businesses across the globe. VMax Group has centered much of its signature training around the proper practice of Accountability. Real Accountability—positive, forward-focused Accountability centered around the process of taking Absolute Ownership for the outcomes the team achieves—is something Mr. Teschner and his team lived during their collective time as member of high-performance military teams. Now they’ve made it their mission to teach what they know to those who need to learn it.
A decorated graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Air University, and the National War College, Mr. Teschner is also both a Distinguished Graduate and former F-15 Instructor at the USAF Weapons School – the Air Force version of “TOP GUN”. It was there that he honed his craft of teaching accountable leadership to the top practitioners in the world. Additionally, Mr. Teschner was privileged to command an operational F-22 “Raptor” squadron, flying America’s most advanced air supremacy platform. Mr. Teschner was ultimately honored to be promoted to the rank of full Colonel but retired early as a result of a battle with colon-rectal cancer. Mr. Teschner has over 20 years of hands-on leadership experience in High-Performance, High-Reliability Organizations and brings all of that experience with him wherever he speaks, teaches or coaches.
Mr. Teschner has a special way of connecting with his audiences, blending high-impact stories of fighter aviation and personal humility to achieve the intended outcome. In addition, his story of his personal fight with cancer serves as the launch pad for talks about humility, growth, motivation, and constant improvement. Mr. Teschner is the author of the #1 bestselling book, Debrief to Win: How High-Performing Leaders Practice Accountable Leadership, and released his newest bestselling book Aiming Higher: A Journey Through Military Aviation Leadership, a book co-authored with 4 other former Air Force pilots, in May of 2022. His next book, Building Resilience, is due out in the Spring of 2023.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
Here we’ll introduce the theory of the EAGLE planning process. Outcome: the team understands how to tactically plan IAW EAGLE. Desired Learning Objectives: We understand the 5-Part EAGLE planning process. We understand how to apply the theory to planning examples.
Objectives
01. Tactical Planning: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Planning Limitations: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Self-Assesment: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Execution & Debrief: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Eagle Methodology: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
-5.1. Setting Expectations: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
-5.2. Apply Lessons: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
-5.3. Generate Backwards: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
-5.5. Evaluate: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
6. Red Teaming: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
7. Mindset: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
01. Tactical Planning: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Planning Limitations: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Self-Assesment: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Execution & Debrief: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Eagle Methodology: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
-5.1. Setting Expectations: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
-5.2. Apply Lessons: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
-5.3. Generate Backwards: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
-5.5. Evaluate: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
6. Red Teaming: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
7. Mindset: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
Tasks
01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Tactical Planning.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Planning Limitations.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Self-Assesment.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Execution & Debrief.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Eagle Methodology.
-5.1. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Setting Expectations.
-5.2. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Apply Lessons.
-5.3. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Generate Backwards.
-5.4. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Lay Out Contingencies.
-5.5. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Evaluate.
6. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Red Teaming.
7.. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Mindset..
Introduction
The significance of planning is frequently underestimated. We get it. Planning is boring. It’s far more thrilling to do things rather than plan them. It’s also a financial waste. All of these folks sit about making plans when they could be working!
Why can’t we just figure things out as we go? That sounds fantastic. But consider why that might not be such a good idea. Why Do People Undervalue the Importance of Planning? Everyone understands the significance of planning. The issue is that leaders are well aware that they must plan. They’ve heard remarks like “Failing to plan, is intending to fail”.
Unfortunately, it does not stick.
Today, workplaces are abuzz with talk about innovation. Sometimes, getting started and attempting new things is all that is required for innovation. There will be no lengthy approval processes; simply get started and see how things go. That’s okay some of the time. However, not for everything you do.
Many leaders want to check the box that they have a plan. However, they do not make advantage of it. They let someone else worry about the plan while they go about their business. This is equivalent to having no plan at all.
The desire to act is frequently too strong. Unfortunately, it’s a waste of money. Money and time saved by not planning are spent afterwards, when people are confused and things aren’t going smoothly.
How Planning Aids Leaders in Execution
1. Planning Assists Leaders Establish Expectations
One of the primary advantages of a plan is that it serves as a tool for communication. People are aware of when they should begin and when they should complete a task.
People know when things are going to happen, so they know what to expect. It often doesn’t matter whether your plan says something would happen in two weeks or two months. So long as people are aware of what is going on.
A plan also makes a management appear to have given some thought to what they are doing. When done correctly, this has the added benefit of garnering them respect and credibility.
2. Planning Aids Leaders in Resource Allocation
Many reforms and projects fail because the correct individuals are not available to execute the work. You’ll never know how many people you’ll need or when you’ll need them if you don’t have a strategy.
This means you’ll be locked in a never ending circle of “We’ll know the solution when we get there”. But…you never arrive. So plan ahead of time and think about it.
You don’t have to be operating a project to be concerned about resources. If any additional work will necessitate the assistance of your team, you must first determine how much effort is required so that you can recruit more support to complete your regular tasks.
In other words, a plan is for everyone, not just the one who created it!
3. Planning Assists Leaders Hold Individuals Accountable
Without a plan and deadlines, work simply continues until someone completes it. However, if you have leaders that understand the value of planning and keep individuals accountable to deadlines, people will suddenly start to appreciate the plan.
People’s behavior alters when they follow the strategy. The work is no longer elective; it is now time-sensitive. This is how you start delivering things on time rather than dragging them out over long periods of time.
Remember that in order to hold employees accountable, clear expectations and repercussions for missing deadlines must be established. The consequences do not have to be harsh, but they must exist. Nobody improves or learns anything if everyone just shrugs and goes about their business.
4. Planning Aids in the Reduction of Uncertainty
When confronted with a large problem or assignment, it might be intimidating. Building a bridge, adopting a new software system, and giving a training session to your entire firm are all significant endeavors.
So, how long does it take? You can guess without a plan, but you won’t have a decent notion. This ambiguity might be stressful for you and your team.
A strategy can assist you determine whether or not you’re in trouble. You’re flying blind without it!
Why Can’t We Just Figure Things Out As We Go?
Leaders may be tempted to merely figure things out as they go. “We won’t know till we arrive.” This is not always the case. You can sort out a lot of the answers and establish a strategy if the correct people are involved in the planning process. It doesn’t have to be flawless, but it’s a start.
When you merely figure things out as you go, you run into problems.
1. Future work has been postponed. There is a ripple effect when things take longer than intended. You don’t know if this will happen unless you plan for it.
2. Expenses mount. It takes money to keep things dragging on. Even if you use personnel who have already been paid, you are wasting money. Why? Because they might be doing something else.
3. Uncertainty grows. Nobody knows when things will happen if there is no plan. It’s a game of chance that adds to workplace stress and discomfort. —
The significance of planning cannot be overstated. Make a strategy today to take charge of your destiny. Your employees and colleagues will appreciate it.
Case Study: Having Right Leaders To Execute Plans
The army appeared to have lost its versatility just five years after World War II ended, when it found itself fighting in Korea. The same force that had defeated the Nazis and the Japanese empire was forced down the Korean peninsula twice in 1950 by poorly equipped peasant forces. It was harried south by North Korean forces in the summer, and then surprised by the Chinese army in late October.
Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway was sent to try to turn the war around at the end of 1950. On his first morning in Korea, Ridgway got into the bombardier’s compartment of a B-17 to fly over and study the peninsula’s rough topography. Later that day, he paid a visit to South Korea’s president. Following that, and most importantly, he spent the majority of three days visiting his combat commanders. He was astounded to see that the leadership of American troops was frequently as bad as their morale. The commanders had not researched the terrain on which they were fighting. They had kept their forces on the roadways rather than stationing them on peaks. They had also failed to coordinate with flanking battalions. “The troops were perplexed,” said Ridgway in Military Review in 1990. “They had been handled poorly tactically and logistically.”
How did mediocrity permeate an officer corps famed for its excellence so quickly? The emphasis on a single clear purpose and who was best qualified to pursue it was lost, and the criteria for evaluating leadership became confused by other concerns. One of the issues in Korea was that the army was seeking to offer officers who had been stuck on staff in WWII an opportunity to command in battle, partly out of fairness and partly to help season the officer corps in case of a confrontation with the Soviet Union.
Ridgway took decisive action. When he discovered that the army’s headquarters in Korea were 180 miles south of the front lines, he ordered that it be relocated closer to the combat. He also opted to fire a few of his top commanders. “Can’t execute my future plans with present leaders,” he wrote to the army chief of staff. He would remove one corps commander, five of his six division commanders, and 14 of his 19 regimental commanders during the next three months. Ridgway quickly succeeded in turning the war around; it was an example of transformative leadership that would have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t happened in a little, unpopular conflict on the other side of the world.
Tactical vs Operational Planning
When opposed to operational and joint level planning, tactical and service level planning, such as the army’s military decision-making process (MDMP), is relatively simple. Before delving into the specifics of managing and comprehending operational planning teams (OPTs), it is important to distinguish between tactical or service level planning and operational level of war planning.
Despite the hype of mission command, tactical planning requires clear guidance from higher levels of command. Indeed, the MDMP requires commanders and staffs to do a two-level analysis of the mission and objective. Battalions, Brigades, and even divisions can copy and paste their higher headquarters’ mission statement into their own mission analysis and subsequent orders. Planners at the joint staff and combatant commanders do not have this luxury. At the operational level of conflict, planners must decipher frequently ambiguous strategic direction. This direction could come in the form of presidential speeches, Secretary of Defense remarks, tweets and other social media postings, or publications like the National Security or National Defense Strategy. The last two may be two or three years old and say nothing about the current problem set, or they may be from a former presidential administration that considers them irrelevant. Strategic direction is not static, but rather changing.
Tactical planning is usually directive in character. When the commander decides on a course of action, the staff and subordinate units salute and move out. Planning and guidance are two-way conversations at the operational level. Officers working at the operational and joint levels quickly understand that they are rarely the expert on any given problem set. Planners at all levels must be comfortable picking up the phone and calling planners at higher levels to discuss published instructions in order to ascertain the intent or meaning of language in such orders. This demand exists because operational and strategic planners may be inexperienced and unfamiliar with joint level operations and processes.
At the tactical level, planners usually have the support of experienced key leaders who have dealt with comparable issue sets in the past. Indeed, within a battalion and a brigade, the operations officer (S3) and commander are often the most senior and experienced officers in the command. Junior officers have the comfort of assuming that the commander will steer planners in the correct direction. Life is a little more challenging for operational level planners. Officers working on the joint staff or inside combatant commands may be performing their first tour of duty above brigade level, away from their ship, or outside the cockpit. The possibility to phone higher headquarters or ask top ranking officers for exam answers is rarely an option.
When everyone in the room reports to the same boss, life is simple. At the tactical level, planners frequently congregate in a room, and the head planner commands the entire planning team. At the operational level, planners frequently seek consensus among personnel in the room. Members of the planning team may represent other combatant commands, government agencies, or other ally and partner nations in addition to the command. The directive method of “the commander said” does not work well at this level.
Not only must operational level commanders engage in communication with neighboring and higher level organizations, but that dialogue may result in non-doctrinal solutions or responses. Civilians working for the Department of Defense are not bound by short and simple mission statements. Indeed, at the operational level, mission statements of a combatant command or multi-national task force are a type of strategic communication to the rest of the globe.
Knowing and comprehending capabilities is another crucial distinction between tactical and operational planning. Naval commanders, air force wing commanders, and army and marine battalion and brigade commanders, along with their respective staffs, have in-depth understanding of the capabilities under their command. Furthermore, these commanders and staffs typically have intimate knowledge of where these capabilities are located on the battlefield and when they are accessible for use. When developing combat plans, operational planners must be comfortable with unpredictability. At the operational level, planners request capabilities, and when such capabilities are given to the command, the timing of their arrival and employability is frequently unknown. Indeed, operational level planning necessitates the use of capability requirements rather than naming the particular unit as is done at the tactical level.
The speed with which decisions are made is the final significant difference between tactical and operational level planning. The higher one works, the slower choices are made. While tactical commanders can make decisions based on gut instinct, operational and strategic leaders must carefully analyze their options against known and unknown information. Furthermore, the slower speed is crucial because the outcomes of higher-level decisions have a bigger impact on both the mission and the force. Indeed, decision-making at higher stages of combat is more deliberate and governed by a battle rhythm. At the tactical level, staffs can frequently walk into the commander’s office, whereas at the operational level, commanders plan their separate schedules around the decisions they make. When choices are taken outside of the typical fighting rhythm, it takes time for planners to get on the commander’s calendar and verify that the rest of the command and staff agree on the advice. This will take time.
Despite parallels in the service level and collaborative planning procedures, each requires a distinct skill set. Leaders of OPTs must take the time to evaluate and think through the nature and character of operational-level leadership and planning. Operational planning necessitates patience, the capacity to navigate complexity, and the ability to handle a diverse range of personalities, each with their unique set of skills.
The Importance of a System of Accountability
To various people, the term “government” might mean different things. “Now that the strategy has been developed, how can we track everything properly and on a regular basis?”
Consider that for a moment. How much time are you devoting to developing a procedure that will allow your strategic strategy to be executed effectively and consistently?
If you want to see your strategy through, you must keep individuals accountable for not only completing their tasks but also providing regular updates on the items they are working on. Most businesspeople understand the significance of the first idea because, after all, who wouldn’t be devoted to finishing the work allocated to them? The second concept, focusing on consistency, is still less widespread in today’s zeitgeist.
What Happens If There Is No Accountability System?
To be successful in your planning efforts, you must have access to real-time data. That can only happen if you keep your plan up to date.
Most organizations update seldom, and if they try to switch to a more frequent model, they face resistance. If your team is resistant to making monthly strategic planning updates, it is your responsibility as their strategic leader to persuade them of the value of the activity.
In comparison, if you promised your sales team that you’d only check at their figures once a quarter, you’d be fired. However, the mindset of “Eh, we’ll check in every now and then” pervades most strategic planning departments.
How to Design Your Accountability System
What can you do to set up an accountability system so that you can receive timely and accurate updates?
1. Obtain Support from Your Leadership Team
As the strategy leader, you must be certain that your executive team will commit to evaluating the plan on a monthly basis. I’m not simply talking about “glancing” at the plan once a month. I’m referring to setting aside time as a team to go over the plan.
2. Distribute Your Monitoring Strategy to EVERYONE
Once your leadership team has set aside time for in-depth monthly reviews, you must clearly communicate to the rest of the team a) how the plan will be evaluated in the leadership meeting, and b) the rules of engagement for providing timely updates.
“You have five business days from the end of the month to make your revisions,” for example, because the leadership team will be evaluating the strategic plan with the team on the sixth day of the month.
If you walk into the leadership meeting and discover that a number of people did not submit their updates on time, you must call out the offenders in front of the entire group. If people decide not to update even after clear communication about expectations, there must be repercussions to complete your new accountability system.
It appears harsh, yet it works.
Accountability = Dedication + Communication
You’ll notice a renewed sense of urgency from your leadership team and your team as a whole once you embrace this more public approach to planning with an accountability system.
It makes no difference how many times you tell your team how essential your plan is; only when you begin to demonstrate to employees at all levels the importance you place on your strategy will your organization begin to see genuine change.
Accountability Is Essential For Excellent Performance In Business, Just As It Is In The Military
It is not always easy to create an environment in which individuals feel mutually accountable. Colleagues rely on others, get complacent, and try to transfer blame elsewhere when things go wrong. That clearly would not be a viable situation in the military, where accountability is critical in high-stakes situations.
Former British army commander and Sandhurst teacher Dominic Mahoney emphasizes the importance of reviewing and reflecting in developing accountability in the book ‘The Leadership of Teams’. The squad will always review what transpired after a training exercise or a genuine battle with the adversary.
The following will be the basis for the questions: “What did we intend to accomplish?” “What did we discover?” What will we do differently the next time?
It’s a practice ingrained in all military training, and Mahoney believes it could be productively reproduced in business. He believes that teamwork in the corporate world is frequently poor, partially because teams are “wrapped up in cotton,” and failures, unlike in the military, rarely carry serious consequences.
So, what can the business sector learn from the military about empowering teams in which individuals feel individually and collectively accountable for what they do and how they behave?
Make it mandatory.
Accountability must be ingrained in an organization’s culture and DNA if it is to inspire employees to take responsibility. It needs to become an intrinsic part of “the way we do things around here”.
This is especially crucial in the intimate atmosphere of a SME, where a lack of trust or motivation is felt throughout the organization and can have a long-term impact. Team leaders must accept responsibility for fostering a culture in which accountability is a natural process for both individuals and the team as a whole, as it is in the British Army.
Encourage participation and debate.
It is critical to hear what the team has to say if you want to inspire dedication. Make sure to leave time for discussion of targets and goals. Allow people to share their ideas and views so that they feel truly empowered and have the authority to act in accordance with their obligations.
Contextualise
Make sure everyone understands the organization’s goal and vision so they can grasp the function of their team and where they fit in. This should be an ongoing conversation in which individuals are constantly informed and encouraged to discuss and share their ideas and perspectives.
Establish clear expectations.
Make it clear what you anticipate from individuals on the team as well as the team as a whole. This entails being transparent about the repercussions of both success and, more significantly, failure. There is a lot of room for miscommunication at this stage, so be precise when outlining your expectations.
Setting objectives and targets
Individual goals, targets, and objectives should be clarified. Ensure that everyone understands their job and responsibilities, and that they are aware that they will be held individually accountable for both their own contribution and the overall team goal.
Review
Frequent evaluations of both the process and progress toward goals are critical for developing an accountability culture and fostering trust and mutual respect. The military has used “bite-sized” reviews at the end of each team meeting to swiftly go over lessons learned and assure improved performance the next time.
Feedback
In the Army, the process of determining whether someone is performing is continuous and is acknowledged as part of the way the team operates. This occurs immediately upon performance, rather than in a yearly assessment.
As a leader, you should give and receive feedback while also encouraging peer feedback inside the team. Feedback is frequently interpreted negatively, therefore be prepared to provide both grateful and positive feedback, as well as the so-called “constructive” sort.
Executive Summary
Chapter 1: Tactical Planning
When faced with a business difficulty, businesses can address the matter in a variety of ways – and this is where tactical planning comes in handy.
It is sometimes vital to make a hasty judgment. Assume you own an online store that sells personalized corporate gifts. Your principal packing material supplier suddenly closes.
If you run out of packing materials or your stock runs short, you won’t be able to offer unique corporate presents. As a result, your supply manager must make a swift business choice – identify a new supplier within days (if not hours) so that business may continue as usual.
Making a tactical plan and thoroughly considering your next moves is frequently a better way to solve problems. Tactical planning entails creating a written blueprint of your actions to accomplish a goal or solve a problem.
So, if we return to the example of unexpectedly encountering a significant business-related problem, you already know what to do because you have a strategy in place.
This could indicate that your supply manager has many backup sources lined up, or that you adjust the way you provide your product.
Whatever the case may be, the bottom line is that you know what to do and how to act in an unforeseen situation.
Tactical planning is an important component of business, and it differs significantly from strategic and operational planning methods. The process occurs in real time, with the goal of achieving short-term outcomes and solutions.
Having a tactical framework in place allows your company to make quick decisions and flourish in a certain industry.
This advanced thinking technique is explained below, along with how it varies from strategic planning, what tactical plans contain, and everything else you need to know to improve your business operations.
What Exactly Is Tactical Planning?
Tactical planning is the systematic determination and scheduling of all tasks required to fulfill strategic planning objectives. These plans are typically shorter than strategic goals, and they are frequently carried out by independent departments.
Tactics, in general, are adaptable. In contrast, strategic plans, if they fail, can cause significant damage to a corporation. Tactical plans are subject to change and might cause modest damage to the organization if things go wrong.
If the strategic plan is five years in length, the tactical plan could be one year in length. The exact time depends on the sort of business and the rate of change necessary. Strategic plans differ from operational plans in that tasks are typically completed by small teams, which subsequently contribute to a company’s overall strategic and tactical goals.
Again, the key feature of tactical strategies is their adaptability. These plans should evolve in response to a company’s changing demands, as well as any emergencies or eventualities that may arise.
For example, if a company manufactures motorcycles and the CEO declares that increasing production in the following year is a major priority, tactical plans are required for each manufacturing plant. These plans should account for uncertainties like as supply shortages, mechanical malfunction, employee strikes, and so on.
Chapter 2: Planning Limitations
The planning function of management is the most important because it pertains to planning for the future and establishing many future courses of action. It is a preliminary step in the operation of a business. It is a planned action that specifies when, how, and who will carry out a specific task. Management’s planning function is also recognized as a detailed plan for future courses of action. Planning allows a company to examine all of its available and potential people and physical resources. This consideration aids in achieving effective coordination, involvement, and optimal balance.
Although planning is an important management role. However, if the following constraints exist, the planning may fail:
• Inaccuracy: because planning is about the future, which is constantly uncertain, forecasting the future is extremely difficult.
• Costs: The creation of plans requires excessive costs in the form of time spent, money spent, and so on, but sometimes there is little gain from the plan and it becomes a burden for the institution.
• The advance effect on decisions: some plans are stiff, and a manager has difficulties making modifications, whereas there may be constant change in the environment, requiring a swift decision in response to the new environment.
• Delay in actions: planning necessitates some time for thinking, assessing the situation, and making the final plan, so if an emergency decision is required, it will take time and the firm will miss out. Furthermore, delaying the choice will cause the action to be further delayed.
• Limited flexibility: There may be some changes in planning only to a certain extent because measure changes in plan will also attract changes in supporting plans, causing the entire system to be disrupted; additionally, changes in plans time and again will prove a waste of time and money spent on previous plans (pre-changed plan).
• Limited practical value: • Bad planning: planned/goal set lower than the capability of our resources and target set higher than the capacity of our resources are both considered improper planning since the lower objective will be easily attained and we will feel a false feeling of security.
• Planning is a time-consuming and costly procedure, which may cause action to be delayed in certain instances. However, it is also true that if adequate time is not allotted to the planning process, the plans created may turn out to be impractical.
• Another key element that hinders planning is resistance to change: In many organizations, this is a common occurrence. Sometimes planners like change, and other times they do not think it is good to bring change because it will create resistance among workers.
• Internal inflexibility in the organization may lead planners to adopt strict plans, discouraging managers from taking initiative and thinking creatively. As a result, the enterprise’s planners must have sufficient discretion and flexibility.
• Psychological considerations also limit the extent of planning: some people value the present over the future since it is less uncertain. These individuals are psychologically resistant to planning. However, it should not be forgotten that dynamic leaders are always looking ahead.
• The efficiency of planning is often limited: due to external factors beyond the planners’ control. External constraints are extremely difficult to forecast. The unexpected outbreak of war, government controls, natural disasters, and a variety of other variables are beyond management’s control.
Chapter 3: Self-Assesment
The Planning Methodology
Once your unit’s goals have been determined, you must meet with your personnel to make plans. Be wary of certain human inclinations when you plan with your group since they can derail even the best-laid ideas. For example, the employees may be entirely concerned with the short term, paying little attention to the long term. Or it could be overly hopeful, expecting that something unexpected will happen at this time to make the goals possible. Alternatively, your team might advise you to simplify the internal or external environment. For example, you and your unit may intend to locate more distributors for the firm’s products, ignoring the likelihood that competitors would follow suit, or your sales staff may perceive such an enlarged distribution network as competition and place roadblocks in your path.
If considerable change inside your unit is required to implement a plan, you may face opposition during the planning process. If the strategy threatens job security, your employees may be unwilling to confront the difficult subject.
The more specific you are in your planning, the better. However, don’t get too caught up in the planning that you lose sight of what you’re trying to do; instead, make sure that any potential problems are identified and remedies are in place.
Remember that the most crucial aspect in the planning process is the plan itself. To demonstrate that you have done a solid planning process, you should ask your staff the following questions at the end of the process:
• Is the strategy clear? Do we comprehend it? What about our colleagues?
• Does the plan align with the organization’s values and mission?
• Does the strategy address both threats and opportunities recognized by top management for the company and the unit?
• Does it identify the items that are important to our work unit?
• To what extent does it include precise, quantifiable goals and objectives?
• Is the plan a solid foundation for action?
• Does the strategy include contingencies in the event of a major internal or external event?
• Is there a mechanism to get feedback on the plan’s success?
• Is the plan adaptable in case it needs to be altered?
Chapter 4: Execution & debrief
You’ve established corporate objectives and developed a strategic plan. How will you ensure that it is completed?
The implementation of a strategic plan in order to achieve corporate goals is known as strategy execution. It includes the everyday structures, methods, and operational goals that will help your team succeed.
Even the best strategic plans might fail if they are not carried out properly. Poor execution is more common than you may think. According to Bridges Business Consultancy research, 48% of firms fail to meet at least half of their strategic goals, and just 7% of business leaders believe their organizations are good at strategy execution.
1. Create a Strategic Plan.
Before proceeding with execution, it is critical that all decision-makers and stakeholders agree on the strategic strategy.
According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, 71 percent of employees at companies with poor execution believe strategic decisions are second-guessed, compared to 45 percent of employees in companies with strong execution.
Committing to a strategic plan prior to implementation guarantees that all decision-makers and their teams are working toward the same goals. This develops a shared knowledge of the organization’s overall strategic plan.
2. Align Jobs with the Strategy
Many firms encounter a hurdle to effective plan implementation because staff roles are not developed with strategy in mind.
This can happen if personnel are hired before a plan is developed, or if jobs are designed to correspond with a previous corporate strategy.
3. Use Clear Communication to Empower Employees
The importance of clear communication in strategy execution cannot be overstated. Given that 95 percent of employees do not comprehend or are uninformed of their company’s strategy, communication is a talent that should be honed.
Strategy execution is dependent on each person of your organization’s daily tasks and decisions, therefore it’s critical that everyone understands not only the company’s broader strategic goals, but also how their individual responsibilities enable them to be met.
4. Performance Evaluation and Monitoring
Strategy execution is dependent on reviewing progress toward targets on a regular basis. Determine numeric key performance indicators (KPIs) throughout the strategic planning stage to effectively measure your organization’s performance metrics. A numerical objective provides a clear measure of success for you and your team to track and evaluate performance and determine if any changes are required based on that progress.
5. Maintain a healthy balance of innovation and control.
While innovation is an important driving force for corporate success, don’t let it hinder your strategy’s execution.
Develop a framework to review difficulties, constraints, and opportunities that exist in order to exploit innovation while maintaining control over your present plan implementation. Who makes decisions that may shift the focus of your strategy? What aspects of the strategy are unchangeable? Answering questions like these in advance can help with clarity throughout execution.
Building Skills For Successful Strategy Execution
Setting strategic goals, developing a plan, and executing a strategy all need different abilities and provide unique problems. Keeping in mind that even the best-planned strategy can be poorly implemented, consider honing your execution abilities before establishing strategic goals and implementing a plan. Developing these skills can have a long-term impact on the performance of your firm.
Chapter 5: Eagle Methodology
This Course manual focuses on learning the EAGLE Planning Methodology, and is comprised of five components:
• 5.1 Setting Expectations – The “Yardstick” against which we will eventually measure success and failure
• 5.2 Apply Lessons – Apply Lessons from the Past—reviewing previous Debriefs to determine what we can apply from the past to the now
• 5.3 Generate Backwards – Generate from the Target Backwards—the only way to ensure we’ll hit our mark; it is here where we will decide WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN
• 5.4 Lay Out contingencies —we have to ensure we think through and factor in areas that could disrupt execution
• 5.5 Evaluate – Evaluate As Our Enemy—we need to figure out how we would defeat ourselves, to ensure we fix the plan where possible and, worst-case, know where we’re buying risk. This is called “Red Teaming”
5.1: Setting Expectations
Strategic planning is the process of charting the course of your internet business from where it is now to where you want to go. Documenting and constructing this road map will enable your company’s mission, values, vision, and long-term goals to come to life. There are no goals for you and your team to work toward if you do not apply strategic planning in your internet business. By developing a strategic strategy alongside your business plan, you will be able to address what is most important with your employees, vendors, and investors. To accomplish so, you must first acquire the necessary information from your company’s key actors in order to identify the exact goals that must be met, as well as a strategy for achieving them. Success in business necessitates collaboration, adaptability, and alignment on what makes the company stronger.
Make a Strategic Plan
A strategic plan is a live document, and each employee must be confident in their expectations in order for your organization to reach its objectives. This necessitates a plan that is adaptable enough to allow for updates while still being consistently followed and referred to by all parties involved in your company’s success. Use the SWOT analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – to develop an effective strategic plan. Examining these aspects of your business will reveal where you need to improve as well as where you are presently succeeding but have room to improve productivity and success. A SWOT analysis will also demonstrate how you compare to your competitors.
Participation of the Team
Your team thrives in settings that encourage open communication. Involving your staff in strategic planning gives them the opportunity to contribute their concerns and thoughts toward an attainable objective. Identifying your company’s strengths and problems will help you see what needs to be done. This enables your company to develop and adapt while maintaining the required flexibility to get the job done. Involving your team in strategic planning can help increase productivity because there will be set goals to motivate and provide your personnel with a clear direction.
Be Practical
It is critical to set realistic goals for your company. Unrealistic goals can have an impact on productivity since they often show a lack of long-term vision. A lack of leadership, the use of incorrect data measurements, and poor communication can all cause your strategy plan to fail. Your OBM can halt these issues by assisting you in developing a single strategic plan that is solid but adaptable. This can help your company manage stress effectively.
Determine Your Success
It takes time to determine whether your strategic planning is effective. Setting particular success measurements will allow you to track your progress toward your objective. Success in your business may be determined by how frequently your strategic planning must be implemented and updated. Speaking with your staff, vendors, and clients will help you gain a better understanding of what success looks like for your company and in your strategic planning. If your goals are met ahead of schedule, it is critical that you revise your strategic plan in order to move forward with new targets. Your OBM will be a reliable resource in defining the metrics that your company will use to measure its success.
5.2: Apply Lessons
Lessons Learned: Using Past Problems to Improve Future Performance
Consider the classic film Groundhog Day.
Imagine this is your life, and you go to work every day, making the same mistakes. Every day, you replay the same dreadful repercussions of the same rash decisions.
It sounds like hell on Earth to us. It’s like being stuck on a nasty corporate mouse-wheel.
Unfortunately, this is how many businesses spend their days: repeating the same mistakes and never embracing them as a tool for progress. A lessons learnt approach is required to appropriately acknowledge past mistakes and avoid repeating them.
What exactly is it?
We frequently learn more from failure than from success, but if we are cognizant of the learning process, we will gain more from both. Encourage your team to consider what factors contributed to a success, an innovation advance, or a failure.
Provide as much detail as possible regarding what worked and what didn’t.
If HR hired someone for the factory floor before discovering they couldn’t lift more than 5kgs, consider it a learning experience with a plan to avoid it in the future. In this case, they would note a new policy of informing all applicants that the position entails lifting weights of up to 18kgs and asking them if they will be able to meet the physical requirement.
If there was an error on the production floor, such as an engine failure, ask the personnel involved what they learnt. What needs to be done differently to avoid the same outcome the next time?
How Does It Function?
You endeavor to foster a culture that views failure as an opportunity to grow. You accomplish this by not becoming enraged at the error and immediately transitioning from disaster reaction to “what can we learn from this?”
Some managers are concerned about this approach because they believe it would foster a culture in which individuals aren’t frightened to fail and thus don’t strive as hard. However, fear does not encourage workers, thus scaring them into not making mistakes does not work in the long run.
Aside from that, a learning culture that welcomes failures as a natural part of the process will be a breeding ground for creativity. This is the method that will allow you to outmaneuver the opponent.
As with any change management process, transforming your firm into a “lessons learnt” culture will necessitate the involvement of certain change agents. Gather a few influential employees from several departments and get them enthused about this new strategy. They’ll assist you market the proposal to their colleagues, increasing its chances of success.
You can have a weekly or monthly ‘lessons learned’ bulletin that is displayed in public areas throughout the office and also sent out through email blast. You’ll need to assign specific staff the role of evaluating previous ‘lessons learned’ bulletins and ensuring that the adjustments have been implemented.
What You Can Get From Lessons Learned
A process of lessons learnt provides clear benefits to business and industry. This holds true regardless of their product or specialty. Let’s take a look at the main advantages you stand to receive.
Decisions That Are Made More Quickly
With evidence of what has gone wrong in the past and why, your team can make decisions more quickly since they know what to avoid. This opens up the possibility of making more informed selections.
Stop Making Groundhog Day Mistakes
You will avoid repeating the same mistakes. If you’ve had a significant staff turnover, this could help you solve the problem. We understand that smart employees do not want to be trapped in a firm where they cannot advance.
You send the proper message to your top talent by demonstrating your desire to learn and develop from errors (and successes).
Establish a Can-Do Culture
A transparent lessons-learned process has the potential to influence corporate culture. Instead of workers avoiding responsibility and going to their management to make improvements and absorb the blame. Everyone is expected to point out flaws and make suggestions for improvement.
That’s a significant departure in company culture, and it’s exactly the kind of empowered self-management environment that millennials seek. This puts you in a good position to attract top talent.
5.3: Generate Backwards
As a manager or freelancer establishing your business goals, you will need to reach a variety of objectives, such as sales targets, enhancing team productivity, or improving client happiness, to mention a few. Visualizing your goals and picturing what success looks and feels like is an important part of accomplishing them. Following that, you should undertake backward planning to figure out exactly what you need to do to meet a deadline. To do backward planning, start with your goal and its deadline date, and then go backwards, calculating 5-10 sub targets that must be met at specific times to get you to your final goal. If you want to reach your goal in a year, you should make sub-goals for every month or every second month and work backwards until you get to what you need to do today! Backward planning is all about influencing the activities you take every day.
Each stage aim should have the following elements:
• A sub-goal deadline
• A tangible mechanism to evaluate the aim in relation to the time frame. Ideally, a numerical one, such as the number of sales.
• Intangible things to think about right now that may affect attaining future goals. For example, employee motivation levels, machinery conditions, and so on…
Once you’ve created your backward plan, you or your team members may need to create other backward plans for their unique roles in reaching the overall goal.
The goal setting of a backward plan must be supported by reflecting on how you are performing at each target time. Reflection should include an examination of why you did or did not meet your deadline. If you did not meet your goal, you should investigate what reasons contributed to your failure and re-plan accordingly to avoid a recurrence. Take action now if you can prevent those things from affecting your future aim because a sound plan effects what you do today. Similarly, if you exceeded your goal or exceeded it, make sure to understand why, since the elements that helped you or your team be more productive are things you should intend to intentionally replicate.
Simple technical instruments that assist you in reflecting in the designated sub-target moments are crucial. A basic one is a self-created Google survey form set up to go out to yourself and/or your team members prior to the target dates. This form should ask the participant to record how they are doing with their numerical targets, but also to reflect on why or why not they are on track and to provide feedback on the non-tangible parts so that nothing surprises them. A great manager will go over these forms and look for trends that may require action or attention to keep the team on track and, if necessary, replan.
So, from now on, if you want to be a great leader, of a team or of yourself, who meets your goals, practice backward planning and reflect on why or why not you are meeting your objectives. Backward planning ensures that your aims are relevant to the actions you perform on a daily basis, and that they are aligned with your success lists. Most essential, make it more than a task – something you do – and seek to convince any team members to embrace it in the same way.
5.4: Lay Out Contingencies
“But what if?”
Throughout their careers, business continuity professionals are plagued by this question. Of course, there are a million other things that could happen at any time. Creating a company contingency plan, on the other hand, assists you to prepare for the unforeseen.
We’ll look at the fundamentals of business contingency planning and how to develop one for your own company.
What Is The Definition Of A Corporate Contingency Plan?
A business contingency plan is a plan of action that your company would take in the case of an unforeseen incident or situation.
A contingency can be beneficial, such as an unexpected flood of money, but it usually refers to a negative incident that harms an organization’s reputation, financial health, or capacity to stay in business. A bad event might be a fire, a flood, a data breach, or a big IT network failure.
Contingency plans are an essential component of your overall business continuity strategy since they assist ensure that your organization is prepared for anything. Many major enterprises and government organizations develop many sets of contingency plans in order to thoroughly analyze potential risks and extensively train their actions before a crisis occurs.
Consider contingency planning to be a proactive strategy, whereas crisis management, the other component of the business continuity puzzle, is a reactive strategy. A contingency plan ensures that you are prepared for what may occur, but a crisis management plan allows you to handle the response after the catastrophe has occurred.
What steps should I take to develop a business contingency plan?
A contingency plan necessitates some research and forethought. Working ahead on each strategy, on the other hand, will be worthwhile in the long run.
Follow this five-step structure to establish a contingency plan for your organization:
1. Determine and prioritize your resources.
First, conduct some internal research to identify and prioritize the resources that your firm cannot live without, such as workers, IT systems, and specialized facilities and physical assets.
2. Identify the primary risks.
Determine the potential threats to these vital resources next. Meet with employees, executives, IT, and other important staff to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the events that may have an impact on your resources. Consider bringing in a consultant who specializes in risk identification if necessary.
3. Create your backup plans.
You should then create a contingency plan for each of the identified hazards. However, it is advisable to begin with the highest-priority risks, which are usually those that are most likely to occur and have the greatest impact. Then, as time goes on, you can focus on developing plans for each lower-priority risk.
As you write each strategy, consider what measures would be required for the organization to restart normal operations. Consider communication, employee activity, staff roles, and timetables (what needs to happen when). Then, for each risk, develop a step-by-step plan.
4. Make your plans available to everyone.
Once each plan has been prepared and authorized, ensure that it is easily accessible to all employees and stakeholders. Consider using an issue and crisis management app to provide contingency plans and related documentation directly to each employee’s mobile device for this critical phase. This method replaces traditional hard-copy ring-bound files and ensures that each employee has rapid access to the most recent plan in the event of an emergency.
5. Stick to each strategy.
Keep each plan up to date as your organization undergoes changes such as hiring and firings, as well as the adoption of new technology. Furthermore, practice implementation with stakeholders on a regular basis to ensure that each team member understands their responsibilities.
Which contingencies do you believe are most likely to have an impact on your organization? How are you preparing for them now?
5.5: Evaluate
Though its origins can be traced back to the Israeli team formed after the 1973 war, the Kriegspiel exercises developed by the Prussian Army in the early 1800s, and even the “Office of the Devil’s Advocate” established by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, modern decision support red teaming was primarily developed by U.S. military and intelligence agencies in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the disastrous wars that followed. They created a set of tools to challenge assumptions and investigate situations from all angles, based on the latest research in cognitive psychology and human decision making by Dr. Daniel Kahneman, Dr. Gary Klein, and others. By incorporating critical and contrarian thinking into their planning procedures, they aimed to avoid the kinds of failures of imagination that led to their mistakes.
This strategy was so successful that foreign military and intelligence agencies quickly began building their own red teaming programs.
Some of these strategies are already being used by the most innovative and disruptive organizations. Companies like Amazon and Google are built on critical and contrarian thinking. Some of the same tools are used by the best venture capital companies, such as Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, to screen potential investment candidates.
What Exactly Is Red Teaming?
Red teaming is a systematic approach to include critical and contrarian thinking into any organization’s strategic planning process. It includes a comprehensive collection of tools for challenging assumptions, exposing hidden threats, identifying lost opportunities, and stress-testing plans and strategies.
These approaches assist businesses in thinking differently about their business and anticipating how customers, rivals, and other important stakeholders will respond to market changes before they make them. Red teaming may also teach businesses how to capitalize on disruptive situations.
Why Do Businesses Need Red Teams?
No organization can afford to take anything for granted in today’s volatile world. Every day, new rivals, difficulties, and opportunities emerge. Because the finest firms understand that change is the only constant, they continuously reassess their goals and look for ways to improve what they do. You can’t grade your own homework, as we all learned in elementary school. You’ll need another pair of eyes to put your strategy and plans through their paces.
That is provided by a red team. This type of independent evaluation is provided by a group separate from your usual planning staff.
Red teaming is not a better planning process; rather, it is a process that improves your plans.
There are numerous approaches to incorporating red teaming into your organization’s planning process. You can form a permanent or ad hoc red team within your organization, or you can employ an outside facilitator to oversee a red teaming assessment.
Regardless of the strategy you take, red teaming employs a variety of analytical, innovative, and contrarian techniques to challenge your planning assumptions, evaluate alternate views, and investigate the potential causes of failure so that it can be avoided. These tools compel you to think about your business in the same way that a rival or new competitor would, which can help you become one of the disruptors rather than one of the disrupted in your sector.
Chapter 6: Red Teaming
The 5 Steps to Forming a Red Team
It’s not as simple as employing a group of people and labeling them as members of the Red Team. There are several critical procedures to take to guarantee that you are recruiting the proper personnel for the work at hand with a specific aim in mind. Here are the five essential elements to forming a successful Red Team:
1. Have the Proper Environment
When looking for work, many people look for a good cultural match. A place where they will be challenged and will not become bored or uninspired, resulting in their not reaching their full potential.
The same is true for those who appear to be members of a Red Team. These people are highly talented and critical thinkers who thrive in a variety of work contexts. That being stated, you should intend to create an open learning atmosphere in which employees may constantly try new things and enhance their skills. This provides an appealing setting for ethical hackers everywhere, enticing them to join a team where nothing is done in a “cookie-cutter” manner. Pushing the envelope in terms of varied tactics for penetration testing and escalation throughout an environment is encouraged – within limits – and will result in a more diverse and well-developed team in the long run.
2. Establish Specific Goals
Plan for red teaming from the start. When you initially realize you have the resources to form a red team, define your team’s purpose first. If this is an afterthought, you won’t be able to measure the results. A Red Team should be an intrinsic component of your security posture, with concrete goals in mind.
We’ve talked about setting SMART objectives in previous weeks. Now is the time to put this into practice. Setting clear objectives from the start can help you build out your team with the right personnel on board and an understanding of the project’s expectations. Keeping your final goal in mind while you construct and plan the team and project at hand will provide a clear picture all around.
3. Obtain the Appropriate Tools
Red teaming entails more than just penetration testing. Ascertain that your team has the necessary testing, vulnerability management, and other assessment tools to complete the task. Members of the team may have used different tools to do the same task in the past, so ensuring you are not duplicating tools that can do the same thing is also crucial from a commercial standpoint.
You’ll need a tool that can scale with your team as it expands. Consider tools with named user pricing so that you can add people as needed and within your budget.
4. Assist the Team
Their skill set is highly technical, and once employed, you can rely on them to complete the task at hand. Working as an ethical hacker is likely not their first time climbing within a network, which means they have the abilities and intelligence to attempt multiple approaches and confront the network with everything they have.
5. Concentrate on Critical Issues
Quality thought and recommendations should flow from red teaming, not qualitative outcomes. As a result, ensure that you are utilizing your Red Team for the purpose for which they were employed. It all comes back to identifying goals before forming a team. Keep in mind that as soon as one project is completed, they are likely to move on to the next.
Key concerns might signify many different things to different businesses. Make sure the team understands that the priorities for day-to-day work are fluid and might alter depending on the dangers in your infrastructure. Remember that if all you want is a list of vulnerabilities, you should use a scanner rather than a Red Team. This staff is available to help you with your most important challenges, no matter what they are or when they arise.
Chapter 7: Mindset
If you check up the meaning of “warrior,” you’ll discover various versions, but in general, “warrior” is defined as “a person engaged or experienced in warfare” or “a person who fights in conflicts and is known for having courage and expertise.”
Warrior carries a favorable connotation. Even if a warrior loses a battle, he or she does not give up and accept defeat. They continue even when they are bloodied, torn, and defeated. They keep fighting, holding their shield against whatever is thrown at them, and putting one foot in front of the other until they reach their target or are triumphant.
A warrior mindset then takes on its own life. It’s something that takes on its own life. It is something that must be constantly improved and strengthened. A warrior mindset fights conflicts even after it has been reduced to bare bones, bloodied, battered, and defeated.
In the world of business, social media marketing, podcasting, public speaking, self-employment, direct sales, or whatever you want to call it, your mindset will either make or ruin you. It’s actually that easy. You cannot be successful if you have a wounded “poor me” mindset. You can’t keep focusing on the losses, what crushed your spirit, and prior setbacks while also moving forward. You can, however, take a moment to reflect on what threw you off balance and put you on your behind. You can then utilize what you’ve learned in your next bout. But how will you maintain success and victory in your life if you wallow in defeat and relive it in your head over and over?
It will require practice and self-control to refrain from throwing pity parties whenever someone says “no” to your product or pitch. It will require a lot of mental fortitude to put yourself out there and follow your own path while everyone else is hurling stones carrying their own personal traumas and disappointments. You must have a strong mindset in order to keep pushing forward even on days when you want to quit up.
When we establish a warrior attitude, we do things like make a rigid timetable for ourselves. We decide the tools we need to keep going forward and succeeding. We decide the limits we need to set for ourselves. Those boundaries serve as mental and emotional armor for us. We try. We fall short. We try once more. We’ve failed yet again. But we keep getting back up, inspecting what knocked us down, and putting new tools in place to prevent it from occurring again. A warrior mindset accepts loss and defeat but never lingers on it or surrenders.
Focusing on the success you want to see and feel helps you develop a warrior attitude. You rely on your strongest qualities and assets while learning and developing your weaker ones. You create a shield or boundaries to defend yourself when stones are thrown at you. You learn to let fear lead you rather than take you out of the game entirely. You create passion by having the fortitude to go against the grain and achieve extraordinary things. If you want to feel the success, victory, and championships of a warrior, you must first change your thinking. The battle for success begins in your head.
Curriculum
Team Accountability – Workshop 5 – Eagle Part 1
- Tactical Planning
- Planning Limitations
- Self-Assesment
- Execution & Debrief
- Eagle Methodology
- Red Teaming
- Mindset
Distance Learning
Introduction
Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Team Accountability corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.
Study environment
You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.
Study tools & rules
Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.
Successful distance-learning
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.
Self-assessment
Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.
Accepting responsibility as a student
Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.
Planning
By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.
Management
Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.
Study objectives & tasks
The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.
Study forecast
As a guide, the Appleton Greene Team Accountability corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.
Performance management
It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.
With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.
With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.
Keeping in touch
You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.
Work colleagues and family
You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.
Making it relevant
The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.
Distance-learning check-list
Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Team Accountability corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Team Accountability program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Team Accountability corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Team Accountability corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Team Accountability Specialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Team Accountability – Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
Online Article
By Sunny Li Sun, Yanli Zhang & Zhu Zhu,
Montclair State University Digital Commons,
August 2021.
“Turning Disruption into Growth Opportunity: The Red Team Strategy
Our world today is becoming more disruptive than ever before, with various forces of creative destruction working simultaneously alongside each other, such as the deepening of the Internet, artificial intelligence, clean energy, robotics, cloud computing, blockchain, COVID 19, and the list goes on. One of the biggest challenges for executives nowadays is how they can maintain their companies’ success and avoid downfall in a highly disruptive world. Under the devastating impact of COVID 19, companies across industries are now putting digital transformation on the top of their agenda, even though some industries had not deemed it as an urgent task before the pandemic. Established automakers such as GM, Ford, and Volkswagen are aggressively transforming themselves to refocus on the rapidly expanding electric vehicle market, and GM has even announced that it will phase out vehicles using internal combustion engines by 2035. Since Christensen’s pioneering work on disruptive innovation (Christensen, 1997) and the many examples of companies who have failed among disruptions (e.g. Kodark, Motorola, Blockbuster, and Sears.), the need for companies to constantly adapt to new disruptive forces has been a top concern among business executives and academics alike.
What is the secret to not only surviving a disruption, but turning it into a growth opportunity? We have all witnessed companies who are masters at adapting to disruptive forces and have been able to sustain their leadership positions through technological change, by embracing the changing markets with lightning speed and quickly moving from one successful product or service to the next (e.g. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft). In essence, they have obtained dynamic capabilities (e.g. Teece et al., 1997) – a much sought-after goal of business strategy to combat the changing environment. To achieve that, they have to engage in both exploration and exploitation: taking on innovations that upgrade companies’ capabilities and lead to future growth while conducting their bread and butter businesses (March, 1991). While most managers recognize the need to achieve such dynamic capabilities and explore future growth in addition to exploiting current businesses, how to achieve these in practice has remained elusive and is much easier said than done. Furthermore, the vast majority of companies don’t have as deep pockets as the big technology giants who can invest a lot of resources on new innovations and become super spawners of new businesses. Therefore, there is still a lack of concrete methods to guide executives in how to cope with disruption and succeed in a highly disruptive world.
Inspired by the idea of red teams from the military context and building upon our study of many successful business cases throughout our careers, we propose a red team strategy that can help executives not only survive but also thrive in today’s increasingly turbulent environment, and turn disruptions into growth opportunities. Before we elaborate on this strategy, we first explain what the red team is in the military context, its origin, and its common uses in businesses today.”
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Online Article
By Leão José Fernandes & Francisco Saldanha da Gama,
Researchgate.net,
No date.
“Contingency Planning: A literature review
Abstract
In any large organization, it is essential to have mechanisms that ensure constant operation. This is the reality faced everyday by the large logistics companies operating worldwide. When there is an unexpected disruption, an appropriate contingency plan can make a huge difference. The definition of an optimal contingency plan is a complex problem involving diverse resources of which the following be highlighted: systems, equipment, spare parts, services and specialized manpower. The contingency solution involves alternative processes and recovery strategies so that in the case of a contingency, all the necessary resources are available in order to bring the system back to normal operation using the minimum resources and in the least possible time.
In this paper we survey the existing literature concerning contingency planning. In particular we focus on different fields of activity pointing out the corresponding (specific) features. The extensive literature is organized into various topics including business continuity plans, contingency planning, project management, millennium bug, terrorism threats, government bodies, military and space missions, informatics resources, norms, standards and implementation methodologies. A general guidance model for contingency planning is also reviewed.
Introduction
Frenetic globalization has reorganized the global economy into giant supply chain networks which are characterized by constant mutation and innovation in their quest for survival. In these complex structures, fighting new threats or adapting to new oportunities is a constant business reality. In the face of extreme situations, as in accidents or disasters, the urgency to return to normal conditions within the shortest time is crucial to the survival of those affected. Faced with the threat to their own survival, companies rarely accept delays in reestablishment from disruptions even if it is due to an accident or unexpected fact. Recovery and resumption procedures, best known as contingency plans have emerged to remedy from post-disaster situations. The ultimate goal in the event of a disaster is to avail of the appropriate resources to ensure quick restoration to normalcy.
There are different areas of interest for contingency plans. We find good examples in the areas of planning for health systems, organizing of major events, urban infrastructure emergencies, systems equipment and automated process failures, terrorism combat plans, military operations and in natural and environmental disasters like droughts, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and spills.
A mediatic and current example concerns the health systems, particularly in the context of combating pandemics and epidemics, which include recent phenomena such as SARS, and avian flue. The contingency plan for pandemic influenza prepared by the Ministério de Saúde do Brazil [24] in 2005, involved a network of laboratories, the basic health care services, a network of specialized assistance, including hospital structures, vaccine acquisition, marketing, distribution and utilization facilities, besides the surveillance in ports, airports and country borders”
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Online Article
By Akram Jalal Karim,
JISTEM,
2011.
“The significance of management information systems for enhancing strategic and tactical planning
ABSTRACT
Management Information Systems (MIS) is the key factor to facilitate and attain efficient decision making in an organization. This research explores the extent to which management information systems implemented to make successful decisions at two selected financial organizations. The research examined whether the selected financial institutions of Bahrain vary as to the use of Management Information Systems leadership of decision making for strategic and tactical planning purposes. The research adapted the quantitative research design to examine two research hypotheses. A total of 190 forms were equally distributed to those who are working at different management levels at the selected organizations. The results of the research showed that MIS was primarily used to enhance strategic planning in both financial institutions. The regression analysis revealed that Tactical planning is found to have no effect on Decision Making, while Strategic planning has a clear effect on the Decision Making Effectiveness in both organizations.
1. INTRODUCTION
Currently, organizations are in the race for enhancing their capability in order to survive in the competitions of the new century global market. Therefore, organizations are attempting to advance their agility level by improving the decision making process to be more efficient and highly effective to meet the successive fluctuations of the market. In an effort to achieve this, many modern organizations, either mid or large sized, have concerned with a cycle of progressive investments in and adopted new management information systems components. During last decade, a high percentage of financial organizations frequently used Management Information Systems to facilitate the provision of services; and that the speed of the adoption is expected to grow further as the technology expands.
Whitten et al. (2004, p.12.), stated that “information is an arrangement of people, data, process, and information technology that interact to collect, process, store and provide as output the information needed to support an organization,” which indicates that information system is an arrangement of groups, data, processes and technology that act together to accumulate, process, store and provide information output needed to enhance and speed up the process of decision making. In a Bank’s information system, there is always a potential crisis which makes the bank endure an insufficiency; thus, an advanced information system supported by a superior mechanism control is required to make certain that an information system has achieved the required processes.
If the relevant information required in a decision-making process or an organization planning is not available at the appropriate time, then there is a good change to be a poor organization planning, inappropriate decision-making, poor priority of needs, and defective programming or scheduling of activities (Adebayo, 2007).
Information is essential for the endurance of a financial organization in the global and competitive market.
The nature of globalization and competitiveness in the market stress on the importance of developing an organization capability through better enhancing MIS.
Accordingly, the stored information must then be recalled and distributed for the use of an organization leadership and top management as well as mid-level managers to take effective long term (strategic) and short term (Tactical) decision-making. MIS is deemed to be a system which provides organizations top management and, even lower level management, with appropriate information based on data from both internal and external sources, to allow them to make effective and timely decisions that best achieve their organization goals and satisfy stakeholder requirements (Argyris, 1971, p. 291).”
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Online Article
By Sascha L. Schmidt & Matthias Brauer,
Corporate Governance: An International Review,
06 January 2006.
“Strategic Governance: how to assess board effectiveness in guiding strategy execution
Subsequent to a host of corporate corruption scandals, boards of directors are facing amplified pressure from investors, creditors and shareholders in a bid to ensure effective corporate governance of their investments. In previous research and public debate, the effectiveness of corporate governance structures has come under close scrutiny. However, boards’ effectiveness in fulfilling their strategic role by guiding strategy execution mostly has been left unaddressed. Due to the high degree of secrecy and sensitivity of strategy issues, board’ effectiveness in guiding strategy execution is much more difficult to assess externally compared to structural governance issues. Against the backdrop of these difficulties and based upon insights from strategy process research, we suggest taking “strategy consistency “between a firm’s resource allocation and its announced strategy as a proxy for boards’ effectiveness in guiding strategy execution. In doing so, the paper contributes to extant research by going beyond structural governance issues and paying direct attention to strategic governance issues. Specifically, the paper develops a new approach and set of standard measures to assess boards’ effectiveness in strategy execution.
Introduction
After several years of numerous corporate governance scandals, endless regulatory inquiries, new codes of conduct (e.g. Cadbury Report in the UK, Preda Code in Italy, Vienot Report in France, German Corporate Governance Code) and increased shareholder activism (e.g. driven by CalPers and TIAA-CREF),the ominous cloud over corporate America seems to be lifting gradually. “We have made more reforms in the past two years than in the past twenty years. Companies need time to absorb these changes”, says Jeff Henley, chairman and chief financial officer of Oracle(Michaels and Roberts, 2004, p. 3). Consequent to the increase in legal regulation of governance issues, corporations have been forced primarily to institutionalise suitable governance structures. For instance, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act regularises how internal controls must be revamped, tested and audited. Furthermore, boards have been reconstituted to increase the number of non-executive directors and audit committees are encouraged to drill external auditors.
What still remains evident is a general loss of investors’ trust in corporations’ governance capabilities. Integrity and competence of boards of directors have been questioned publicly and scrutinised by governmental corporate governance commissions (e.g. Berlin Initiative, Cromme commission) and institutional shareholder service agencies (e.g. Institutional Shareholder Services). Within the climate of new corporate governance rules, the question arises as to whether or not boards of directors, motivated by the fear of protecting reputation and limiting liability, are now focusing too heavily on checklists and box ticking instead of strategic issues (Van der Walt and Ingley, 2001; Sonnenfeld, 2004).”
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Course Manuals 1-12
Course Manual 1: Tactical Planning
A tactical plan is essential if you want to implement your business strategy. A strategy is an overarching vision for your organization, but it is meaningless unless it is implemented. This is when a tactical plan comes into play.
Tactics are the measurable action items you’ve devised to achieve the goals you’ve specified in your strategic plan. This is where you start working. This is where things get done. This is where you’ll notice whether you’ve strayed off course.
A tactical plan takes some time to develop, but once completed, everyone knows their marching orders. It’s the most effective technique to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that every action is focused on the strategic vision. When a tactical strategy is developed and implemented, busy work is almost always eliminated.
What Exactly Is Tactical Planning?
Tactical planning is an integral component of every corporate strategy. It all comes down to developing and implementing short- and long-term plans to assist attain goals.
This will assist the company in making strategic decisions based on the present environment and in adjusting plans as needed. Tactical planning also assists businesses in better understanding their existing situation and what has to be done to achieve their corporate objectives.
Tactical planning is also useful when a team or company needs to respond swiftly to specific concerns or conditions. For example, a company may need to adapt to meet a specific requirement from a client that wants to launch a TikTok platform.
To help meet this requirement, the company can use tactical management to look into a variety of tiny tasks, such as registering an account and researching tiktok small business ideas.
This distinguishes it from strategic and operational planning, which serve different purposes. They differ in the following ways:
Tactical vs. Strategic Planning
The distinction between tactical and strategic planning is dependent on the sort of goals and the time required to attain them.
Strategic planning focuses on the long term, with overarching goals that a firm or individual desires to achieve. Tactical planning supplements the strategic plan by defining the immediate tasks and actions that must be completed.
Tactical Planning vs. Operational Planning
Operational plans are concerned with the organization and how it will normally carry out actions in order to attain the organization’s goal. Tactical plans, on the other hand, raise precise questions about what needs to happen in order to attain a strategic aim.
Technical planning’s purpose is to meet present and future needs while avoiding risks.
This is why the technical planning process comprises analyzing the business’s environment and scenario, acquiring information about available tools and resources, and comprehending the goal’s requirements.
You can anticipate the plan to be successfully implemented if it has a well-defined strategy and a solid technical plan.
When Should Tactical Plans Be Used?
Technical planning can be used to manage a range of various parts of your organization, such as:
• Website design
• Development schedules
• System enhancements
• Marketing initiatives
• and more
Tactical planning, in a broader sense, can be employed in a variety of situations.
• When a firm needs to make a choice as soon as possible.
• When a diversion tactic is required to identify opportunities or avoid issues.
• When a team or organization must select how to proceed in order to achieve the goals of a previously executed strategic plan.
• When an organization or group prioritizes short-term gains over long-term objectives.
Case Study: Coca Cola’s Tactical Planning
Coca-Cola executives devised a strategic plan to increase their market position and establish themselves as market leaders. As part of this expansion strategy, Coca-Cola acquired a number of global independent bottlers to form a new alliance known as Coca-Cola Enterprise. This new initiative was launched because the firm detected a key threat: continual dissatisfaction among independent bottlers who packed Coca-Cola drinks due to widespread environmental worries over empty bottles.
Coca-top Cola’s executives initiated a tactical plan by purchasing the bottles. This aided in addressing the immediate threat posed by independent bottlers while also providing Coca-Cola with great brand recognition. As part of the tactical plan, the corporation’s new venture resulted in increased profitability, market stability, and increased power in the hands of the company. As part of the company’s strategic plan, this tactical plan assisted in repositioning the company in the market and increasing revenue.
With all of the benefits of tactical planning, it’s vital to remember that technical planning isn’t magic; it merely allows you to foresee future difficulties more effectively and take appropriate steps.
The business should fulfill its medium or long term business goals through planning, implementing, and completing the specified tactical strategy.
The Components of a Tactical Plan
There are several components to developing your tactical plan.
It is critical to highlight that each part of your tactical planning process should be assessed utilizing SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and SMART (Specificity, Measurability, Averaged Resilience to Trends, Time-frame).
This will help you grasp both the benefits and drawbacks of each factor, allowing you to make informed decisions about how to best manage them.
With this in mind, consider the following five elements for your tactical plan:
Goals
The goal of tactical planning is to achieve objectives. You may make your goals more attainable by using the SMART analysis since it makes them easier to specify.
For example, rather than describing your objective as increasing organic traffic through content, which is too broad, you could instead state your aim as writing 5 articles per week that produce 500+ social shares and 2,000+ organic visits.
Tactics
Tactics are approaches that can be used in tactical planning to achieve corporate objectives. When it comes to tactics, there is no set timeframe for completion, but they do help move things along in the right way.
The techniques involved in publishing 5 articles every week would be as follows:
• Research the latest trends in online marketing to obtain inspiration for topic articles and ranking keywords
• Create focused, relevant themes using the appropriate keywords.
• Use an appealing writing style • Learn how to use ctr to get more clicks
Actions
The following step is to take action in order to achieve each short-term goal that has been set. This is where precise steps are described to assist you in achieving the desired outcome.
Continuing with the article example, this entails identifying the most popular themes and ideal keywords to employ in order to reach the aim. This could also include recruiting professional writers who can write in a more engaging style.
Resources
Achieving goals involves not only strategy and effort, but also resources. A good tactical plan may necessitate the use of materials, people, equipment, financing, outsourced products, and other resources.
This includes leveraging available internet systems to locate relevant keywords, as well as using Google Drive to store up written information.
Case Study: Google’s Army Of Contractors
As your firm expands, your requirement for additional staff must be met in a cost-effective manner. As a result, outsourcing will continue to be a valuable cost-cutting tool.
According to recent statistics, Google outsources more than half of its staff.
Over 130,000 Google employees are contractors who are managed and paid by staffing and EOR firms such as Adecco, Accenture, and Cognizant.
Some of these contractors work from the Philippines and India. The remaining 123,000 people are directly employed by Google.
Google’s outsourcing approach relies on contractors from staffing agencies to address talent gaps for specialized tasks.
Contractors are frequently employed to cover for permanent staff who are on vacation or on maternity leave. Google also outsources a big percentage of their personnel to staffing agencies in order to relieve them of the burden of managing general operations.
Aside from the operational advantages of using employment agencies, Google benefits from not having to pay contractors as much as permanent employees. The employment agency or the contractors themselves handle health insurance and other requirements for permanent employees.
“In 2018, the number of Google contractors outnumbered the number of direct workers,” according to Bloomberg.
Google’s close collaboration with its hiring agencies also implies that new contractors require less training. Furthermore, customizable contracts with each temporary employee allow Google to make swift decisions depending on their own immediate needs.
Specialized staffing services source workers from countries with high educational standards and consequently a vast pool of talent. Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam are examples of countries that meet the bill.
The Philippines and Indonesia, in particular, have a big English-speaking workforce with advanced education.
Companies situated in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Singapore can staff a major portion of their workforce at a fraction of the cost. A typical salary for a customer care professional in the Philippines is around USD500 per month, whereas the same job in Australia would cost USD4000 per month.
Time
Because the goal is to complete tactical planning as fast as feasible, timing is critical. Everything must be accomplished in the correct order, thus the actionable tasks required to get there should be stated. Without it, a substantial amount of time and money will be lost in the process.
So, if your content’s strategic planning approach requires it to be completed within the next year, the tactical plan must do so in less time.
In our example, you might wish to aim for this in the next 6 months instead. Setting a timeframe or deadline will assist you in moving forward and achieving your goals or obtaining a positive outcome.
Pros and Cons of Tactical Planning
While it may be tempting to get right into tactical planning, it is still vital to weigh the benefits and drawbacks because it does present some problems. Here’s what you should know:
Take all of this into account when you plan your tactical strategy.
Steps Involved in Tactical Planning
While working on your tactical planning, it’s critical to follow these procedures to keep on track:
1. Always Align With Your Company’s Goal
Tactical planning should always be aligned with your company’s vision, as all tactics should be focused toward it.
If the company’s objective is to be the best in Malaysia, the tactical approach should reflect this. Being unclear or fuzzy about it costs your firm valuable time and resources.
2. Define the Goal Clearly
Don’t be ambiguous about your tactical plan’s goals. Make sure the goals are clear so that everyone on the team knows what they need to do.
Managers must evaluate the productivity and effort of team members while developing plans in order to avoid establishing unrealistic expectations.
3. Assign The Appropriate Action
All team members should be allocated actions so that they understand what has to be done to meet the specified goals. This makes better use of the available resources while avoiding any potential confusion and distraction that could lead to further delays.
4. Ensure That Actions Are Linked To Objectives
Assigning the action must also be linked to goals, as this will increase the likelihood of team members achieving them. For example, preparing innovative material as an action with the purpose of reaching the target of 200+ social media shares can help them feel more accomplished.
5. Make a List of KPIs
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are designed to guide you toward your goal. They’re an excellent resource for assessing the progress of your tactical plan. Employees can also benefit from clear KPIs and a vision.
To stay on track, make a list of goal-oriented KPIs such as profit, sales targets, organic traffic, social media shares, and so on.
6. Maintain Your Flexibility
Being adaptable is essential in tactical planning. This might be reassuring for teams, as the stress and tremendous pressure to perform tasks and meet objectives can have a negative impact on the company’s overall performance.
It’s vital to remember that every firm is unique, and things can change over time. Having a flexible tactical plan leaves you open to new possibilities.
7. Make A Backup Plan
Because of its adaptability, having a Plan B is vital. After all, nothing ever goes as planned, and having a Plan B in place helps you avoid many hazards and uncertainties, keeping your team motivated if things go wrong.
Furthermore, this reduces the bad consequence and keeps the firm on track, which is why having an emergency plan to help cope with the potential loss is important.
8. Figure Out Who And What Is Involved
Always involve the people in the tactical plan. This not only assists you in defining the SWOT analysis, but also in building the technique to meet the needs of the department.
This is why it is critical to assign tasks to those who are most suited to execute them.
Access to appropriate training, production platforms, tools, and resources is also beneficial, so involve those as well. This can aid in achieving the desired results, perhaps providing the organization with significant financial returns.
Your team should never work on tactics without first understanding your company’s strategic vision. They must be able to grasp the broad picture and understand how their function fits into what you are trying to accomplish. They might have excellent ideas that can be adopted, or they might know how to save time and money. All the better if you can involve your staff in strategy development. They understand their profession better than anybody else and can assist in developing the finest action items and KPIs to meet objectives.
One of the most significant benefits of having a tactical plan is that no one is left wondering what has to be done. When things get too busy, silos form. When you sit down with a team member to check in on their tactical plan and KPIs, you’ll see how far they’ve come or if they’ve struck a snag and need assistance.
A tactical plan allows you to tangibly witness momentum build and your strategic strategy come to life.
Exercise 5.1: Plane crash
Course Manual 2: Planning Limitations
What Are The Limitations Of Planning As They Apply To Leaders?
Planning is not a replacement for executive judgment, but rather a help to it. It does not ensure success. It has the following shortcomings:
1. Planning is dependent on forecasts, which are never perfect. Because the future cannot be foreseen with total accuracy, accurate premising is not feasible. The conditions in which plans are carried out may differ from those envisaged.
Forecast accuracy and reliability decrease as the forecasting period lengthens. The facts on which a plan is built determines its dependability. Planning becomes unrealistic when solid forecasts and data are unavailable.
Plans developed by inept managers may be deceptive. Accurate facts and information may be unavailable due to personal prejudice or poor data collection processes.
For precise planning, an effective forecasting and research system is required. Planners must be totally competent and employ effective planning strategies.
Case Study: Firestone
As the 1970s began, Firestone had enjoyed seven decades of continuous expansion. It sat atop the thriving American tire business, alongside Goodyear, its crosstown competitor in Akron, Ohio. Managers at Firestone had a clear view of their company’s positioning and strategy. They saw the Big Three Detroit automakers as their primary clients, Goodyear and the other big U.S. tire manufacturers as competitors, and their main difficulty as simply keeping up with the continually expanding demand for tires.
The company’s management and capital allocation strategies were designed to capitalize on the brisk demand for tires by rapidly ramping up new manufacturing capacity. Frontline personnel, for example, discovered market possibilities and transformed them into suggestions for investing in more capacity throughout the capital-budgeting process. The most promising solutions were then chosen by middle managers and offered to top executives, who tended to approve the middle managers’ recommendations quickly.
Firestone’s long-standing success provided the firm with a strong, cohesive sense of its strategy and values, customer and employee relationships, and operating and investing procedures. In short, the corporation had a clear recipe for success that had served it well since the turn of the century.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, everything changed. Michelin, a French manufacturer, brought the radial tire to the American market. Radials were safer, longer-lasting, and more cost-effective than standard bias tires because of a design breakthrough. They had already come to dominate European markets, and when Ford announced in 1972 that all new cars would be equipped with radials, it was evident that they would also rule the American market.
The debut of radials did not catch Firestone off guard. It had experienced firsthand the European markets’ fast embrace of radial tires during the 1960s thanks to its huge European activities. It had also created estimates that clearly suggested that radials would be quickly accepted by both automakers and customers in the United States. Firestone anticipated the arrival of radials and acted quickly: it invested roughly $400 million—more than $1 billion in today’s dollars—on radial manufacture, constructing a new facility exclusively to radial tires and renovating several other factories.
Although Firestone’s response was prompt, it was ineffective. Even while it invested in the new product, it maintained its old working methods. Rather than redesigning its manufacturing methods, it tinkered with them—despite the fact that the creation of radial tires demanded significantly higher quality standards. Furthermore, despite strong indicators of their eventual obsolescence, the business postponed dismantling many of its factories that produced bias tires. Active inertia had set in.
Firestone was in serious financial difficulty by 1979. Its mills were operating at 59% capacity, it was renting warehouses to store unsold tires, it was beset by costly and humiliating product recalls, and its domestic tire business had burnt through more than $200 million in cash. Although overall tire sales in the United States were plateauing, owing partly to the fact that radials last twice as long as bias tires, Firestone’s CEO held to the notion of ever-increasing demand, assuring the board that he saw no reason to begin closing plants. Firestone’s hard analysis and activity were ultimately futile. The company lost much of its market share in the United States to foreign corporations, and it was subjected to two hostile takeover bids before being acquired by Bridgestone, a Japanese company, in 1988.
2. Planning is both time-consuming and costly. Time, effort, and money are necessary for data collection and analysis, as well as plan formulation and updating.
Planning is only useful when the predicted benefits outweigh the costs. Conditions may have changed by the time plans are finalized, leaving the entire effort obsolete.
Planning does not guarantee that objectives will be met. No company should spend more on preparing than it expects to gain. However, determining if planning is worthwhile is difficult.
3. Planning can lead to internal inflexibilities and procedural rigidities that stifle initiative and individual freedom. Planning can sometimes cause a delay in decision-making.
When a speedy judgment is required, a manager may become stymied by rules and processes. Detailed and tight planning tends to limit subordinate executives’ initiative and development.
When established policies and procedures become engrained and people do not like to change them, people frequently create rigid habits of thought and behavior.
They have a habit of carrying out tasks in a strict manner. In practice, there is frequently a desire for detailed and explicit plans.
Rigidity in planning may result in a failure to adapt to a changing environment. It may be checked by reviewing and revising plans on a regular basis.
Case Study: Xerox
When Xerox’s management surveyed the competitive battlefield in the 1970s, it regarded IBM and Kodak as the adversaries, its 40,000 sales and service people as troops, and its patented technology as insurmountable fortifications. Xerox’s frameworks allowed the corporation to fight off old competitors with tried-and-true strategies, as well as to thwart repeated attempts by IBM and Kodak to target its core market. However, the strategic framework blinded Xerox to the new threat posed by guerilla warriors such as Canon and Ricoh, who were targeting individuals and small businesses with high-quality compact copiers.
When Xerox’s management recognized the gravity of the threat posed by the new entrants, it initiated a belated but aggressive series of quality projects aimed at beating the Japanese at their own game. These tactics did help Xerox regain market dominance, and the company’s win versus the Japanese was celebrated in novels like Xerox: American Samurai. The emphasis on defeating the Japanese, on the other hand, diverted Xerox’s management’s attention away from the burgeoning war for the personal computer. Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center was at the forefront of key technologies that started the personal computer revolution at the time, including the graphical user interface and the mouse. Xerox, on the other hand, was unable to capitalize on the new opportunities since they fell outside of its strategy framework.
4. Planning frequently necessitates a change in the existing setup; if the essential adjustment is not forthcoming, planning may be inefficient. Change resistance is a significant impediment in planning.
A forward-thinking attitude is also required for planning. However, because the future is unknown, people frequently prioritize the present. Internal flexibility is often reduced by organizational policies, processes, and norms. Long-term commitment may sometimes stymie necessary adjustments.
Case Study: McDonald’s
McDonald’s is another corporation whose procedures have dulled its response to changing market conditions. In the early 1990s, the fast-food corporation’s operations handbook was 750 pages long and covered every facet of a restaurant’s functioning. For years, the company’s unwavering concentration on standardized processes, all set by headquarters, had allowed it to quickly roll out its winning formula in market after market, maintaining the stability and efficiency that drew customers and frightened competitors.
However, by the 1990s, McDonald’s had fallen into a rut. Consumers were yearning for new and healthier foods, and companies such as Burger King and Taco Bell were capitalizing on this trend by introducing new menu options. McDonald’s, on the other hand, was slow to adapt to the changes. Its previous strength—a single-minded focus on developing its mass-production processes—became a liability. The corporation inhibited creativity and delayed action by forcing menu selections to go through headquarters. Its central development kitchen, which was isolated from the actual restaurants and their customers, churned out a slew of goods, including the McPizza, McLean, and Arch Deluxe, but none of them were successful.
5. Planning may provide a false sense of security in the firm. A manager may believe that if the plans are implemented, all problems will be solved.
In fact, management must constantly alter plans and monitor their execution. Planning can also be hampered by psychological issues such as the tendency to prioritize the present over the future.
6. Powerful persons and other vested interests may exert pressure on the plans to ensure that they support their own interests. Furthermore, the planner may be unduly affected by the ‘big boss’s pet projects’ and fail to conduct an objective study of the available alternatives. It is quite difficult to accurately assess the efficiency of planning.
7. Some managers may have a negative mindset when it comes to planning. They may value the present over the future and may be resistant to change.
They believe that the future cannot be adequately predicted and that all planning is wrong. This is a mental impediment to planning.
8. The effectiveness of planning may be harmed by external forces outside the control of individuals responsible for plan preparation. Government control, natural disasters, political climate, technological change, labor organization, and other unforeseen occurrences may cause difficulties in plan implementation.
9. It is extremely difficult to forecast and plan for such external restrictions. In times of fast change, working on a daily basis may be more cost effective than working on a weekly or monthly basis.
Humans are plagued by Cognitive Biases
There has been a lot of research into why people are so bad at planning, and specialists have discovered that humans are a rabbit hole of cognitive biases, both conscious and mostly unconscious. Here are a few biases that have a direct and unfavorable impact on our planning abilities.
Optimism Bias: Most planners (even the most conservative) exhibit what is known as the optimism bias, especially when they are involved in — or worse, leading — a task.
The propensity to overestimate the likelihood of happy events while underestimating the possibility of negative events is known as optimism bias. As a result, planners lean toward best-case possibilities while ignoring worst-case eventualities.
Wishful Thinking: Wishful thinking appears to be something that reasonable planners would not experience, yet evidence shows otherwise. In fact, many of us view the world based on our beliefs rather than evidence, facts, and realities. We do so largely because we think ” it’s so good, it must be true”.
Furthermore, because we have never encountered the other circumstances, we believe they do not exist. We’ve let our guard down and brought danger to the project when we allowed our wishful thinking get the best of us during a planning exercise.
Self-Serving Bias: If you’ve ever worked in sales, you’ve probably seen salespeople who will attribute a good sales month to their own hard work and superior sales technique — but will quickly blame poor sales performances on the market, product flaws, and so on. A classic case of self-serving prejudice in action.
Self-serving bias is caused by people’s desire to control how others perceive them. This bias causes us to overestimate our power to influence successful outcomes and to construct causal linkages with success where none may exist. In the context of planning, self-serving bias causes people to reject and/or dismiss poor outcomes in the past and blame them on sources other than their own ability. This can also lead to underestimating a project’s time, expenses, and hazards.
Getting The Fundamentals Right
Strong, effective planning involves a great deal of focus, hard effort, and cross-functional collaboration. The typical method is to say, “Let’s bring data to the table and make data-driven decisions” – true, but not sufficient.
Planning leaders must continually monitor for cognitive biases and question themselves and their teams about the assumptions underlying their suggestions. They must delve into the plan’s most crucial details while minimizing information asymmetry. It is not possible to plan from a distance. One must either get their hands filthy during planning or be prepared for unforeseen (and unpleasant) surprises during execution.
We live in a period when quick preparation and decision making are lauded, as they should be. However, our plans (no matter how rapidly they are put together) must allow for how to deal with insufficient information as well as how to identify misrepresented and biased information. The former is transparent and generates known hazards, but the latter generates unknown unknowns, which are far more difficult to deal with. Finally, while we should all aim for quick and efficient decision-making, when we have the luxury of time, let us use it to make better ones.
Exercise 5.2: No Limits to Limitations
• A3 paper or flipcharts
Hint:
Course Manual 3: Self-Assesment
The Power of Planning
Most leaders recognize the need of planning. Individuals at all levels of an organization feel more at ease when a strategy is in place because it reminds them of their aim. A strategy outlines the best course of action to pursue and guides them to their destination.
According to research, the time spent planning is well worth the effort. Did you know that half of all new firms fail within the first two years? According to Dun & Bradstreet, 33% of all new enterprises fail within the first six months, 50% fail within the first two years, and 75% fail within the first three years. Lack of planning is the most common cause of business failure.
Even though many leaders understand the need of preparing (and the risks of failing to plan), others still reject investing the effort upfront to do so. It has a negative connotation for others because it involves a lot of time and work.
The first step for leaders is to shift their perspectives on planning. It doesn’t have to be anything that requires a lot of time or effort; it might be something that is relatively straightforward.
A simple plan should address the following three issues:
• What am I doing now?
• Where would I like to go?
• What steps am I going to take to get there?
What Am I Doing Now?
It is critical to establish a baseline so that you know where you are presently. How will you know if you made any progress if you don’t have this information? If you know you weigh a certain number and wish to lose ten pounds, this question may be pretty simple to answer. However, if you’re describing core elements like your mission and guiding principles, this inquiry can be more thoughtful. In any case, identifying and acknowledging this reality is a key first step.
Where Would I Like To Go?
You are defining your destination by answering this question. Ask yourself, “What will it look like in the future?” to aid you with this phase. Where are we going? “What kind of future do we want to build?” Because no one knows what the future holds, answering these questions should be enjoyable. So be inventive. Take chances. Take a risk.
What Steps Am I Going To Take To Get There?
Answering this question may take a little longer because determining how and when you’ll arrive at your destination is the heart of your strategy. This is where you’ll write your goals and detail the particular steps you’ll take to get there. An effective goal clearly specifies what you want to accomplish, when you want to accomplish it, how you intend to accomplish it, and who will be held accountable. Each objective must be explicit and measurable.
After you’ve put down your goals, you need outline precise action items to carry them out. Include the start and end dates. You should also discuss your objectives with people who report to you so that they are aware of your plans and can develop and implement their own objectives accordingly.
Many wonderful things will happen if you answer these three questions. For one thing, you will most likely be more inspired to pursue whatever goal you have set for yourself. You’ll also be less stressed since you’ll know exactly what you need to do and how you’re going to do it.
Importance of Self-Assessment
Self assessing the sufficiency of our current tactical planning processes is vital for moving forward. In this course manual we ask participants to document what their current tactical planning methodology is. Then we ask them to assess: – Whether everyone on the team plans the same way; – Whether the methodology is sufficient; – Whether that methodology can flex—whether the same methodology can be used to plan the baking of a birthday cake all the way through the planning for a multi-stage project.
Strategic planning models are intended to assist businesses in developing an action plan to achieve their objectives. There are numerous strategic planning models available. We are aware. That is why we compiled a list of the most popular ones and described the scenarios in which they are most beneficial.
1. Balanced Scorecard
Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed the Balanced Scorecard as a strategy management framework. It considers your:
• Objectives, which are high-level organizational goals.
• Metrics that let you understand if you’re strategically achieving your goal.
• Initiatives, which are critical action programs that assist you in achieving your goals.
A Balanced Scorecard can be created in a variety of methods, including utilizing a spreadsheet tool like Excel, Google Sheets, or PowerPoint, as well as reporting software.
This is only one of many “views” available in scoring software once your BSC is complete. It provides high-level information about your measurements and initiatives and allows you to dive down into them by clicking on them. Each target, measure, or initiative’s RAG state is visible at a glance. (Green implies that everything is proceeding as intended, whereas yellow and red signal that there is some difficulty with whatever is being examined.)
Overall, a Balanced Scorecard is an excellent, time-tested method for getting your team on the same page with your strategy.
2. SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis (or SWOT matrix) is a high-level model used at the start of strategic planning in a business. It represents “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” Internal elements are strengths and weaknesses, whereas external factors are opportunities and threats.
The following is an example SWOT analysis from the Queensland government in Australia:
Including a SWOT analysis in your strategic business model helps a corporation discover what it is doing effectively and where it may improve.
Case Study: PactSafe
PactSafe, a SaaS startup, entered the e-signature market with its current signing methods, such as click-to-sign (a single click to approve a contract) and text-to-sign (sign by just answering, “Agree” over text.) PactSafe Chief Product Officer Eric Prugh says that with companies like DocuSign on the “competitor” side, they focus on product features that:
• Provide unexplored, greenfield opportunities;
• Discover a large market that appears to be underserved;
• Are consistent with their perception of where things were heading;
• Their main competitors do not have;
• Improve their main weakness: Dealing with organizations such as DocuSign.
PactSafe uses this information from SWOT analysis to inform its product plan, which includes the creation of a Legal Center where users can manage all of their contracts, which DocuSign does not offer. PactSafe prioritized a gap in its customer base when developing their Legal Center: A centralized site for managing old and new contracts, changes, acceptances, and other details.
3. The PEST Model
PEST, like SWOT, is an acronym for “political, economic, sociacultural, and technological.” Each of these elements is used to examine an industry or business environment and evaluate what might have an impact on the health of a firm. The PEST model is frequently used in tandem with the external components of a SWOT study. You may also come across Porter’s Five Forces (see #4 below), which is a similar approach to looking at your business from many perspectives.
You may come across the PEST model with a few extra letters. PESTEL (or PESTLE) denotes that an organization is also considering “environmental” and “legal” factors. STEEPLED stands for “sociocultural, technological economic, environmental, political, legal, educational, and demographic.”
4. Porter’s Five Forces
Porter’s Five Elements is an older strategy execution framework (developed by Michael Porter in 1979) centered on the forces that influence an industry’s or market’s profitability. It investigates the following five forces:
1. Threat of new entrants. Could other companies simply enter the industry, or would there be several entry barriers they would have to overcome?
Case Study
What is the first brand that springs to mind when you hear the phrase “electric vehicle”? That’s correct—Tesla! it’s This company is an excellent example of an industry where the threat of new entrants is extremely minimal. Why? It’s one thing to create an EV prototype and show it off at trade fairs; it’s quite another to mass-produce these vehicles and deliver them to customers. Even established automobile manufacturers find it difficult to compete with Tesla. As a result, a new entrant is extremely unlikely to pose a threat.
2.The threat of substitute products or services. Can customers readily switch from one product to another?
3.The bargaining power of customers. Could specific buyers put pressure on your company to cut prices, for example?
Case Study
Let we now discuss Apple. Many reports claim that the production of an iPhone costs between $500 and $600. Nonetheless, iPhones can cost up to $1000, about double the cost of production. The reason for this is that Apple’s operating system and product are unique. This means that Apple’s smartphones currently have only one competitor: Android phones (source). As a result, Apple has a large number of customers and passionate followers. As a result, clients’ bargaining power is reduced, and the corporation can demand a premium price.
4.The bargaining power of suppliers. Could huge retailers put pressure on your company to reduce costs?
5.The competitive rivalry among existing firms. Are your present competitors set for rapid expansion? Could a new product or a new patent have an impact on your company?
The level of pressure on each of these forces can help you predict how future events will affect your company’s future.
5. Issue-Based Strategic Planning
The issue-based strategy model is focused on the present and looks ahead. It seeks to identify the primary hurdles that your firm is now facing—in other words, you start with the problems and work through them before expanding, adjusting your strategy, and so on. This is usually a short-term (6-12 months) internal process. Issue-based planning is excellent for organizations that are young or have limited resources.
As a first phase, the leadership team or stakeholders identify the major concerns and goals. Following that, your company will develop action plans to address the concerns, which will include funding allocation. You will then execute and monitor progress. After implementing an issues-based plan and resolving the primary issues you identified, your business may consider changing to a larger, more complicated strategic management model.
6. Goal-Based Strategic Planning
Goal-based strategic planning is the inverse of issue-based strategic planning. This method operates from the future to the present. It all starts with the vision of your company.
Vision statements are ambitious and forward-thinking by nature, but they require specifics to be realized. Goal-based planning addresses this issue by establishing measurable objectives that are consistent with your vision and strategic plan. Following that, time ranges for objective achievement are established. Because this is a long-term strategic planning tool, the normal goal time span is three to five years. Stakeholders will next develop action plans for each target and begin tracking and measuring progress.
7. Alignment Strategic Planning Model
The alignment paradigm, like issue-based planning, begins by looking within to build a strategy. This model is intended to align the internal operations of the business with its strategic aims.
Your strategic planning will begin with the identification of a goal and the analysis of which operations or resources must be matched with that aim. Then you’ll assess which components of operations are going well and which aren’t, brainstorming ideas for problem-solving from the successful portions. Finally, you will develop a set of proposed adjustments to operations or processes to achieve the necessary strategic alignment. When a corporation wants to revise its objectives or address persistent difficulties or inefficiencies that are impeding growth, the alignment strategic planning approach comes in handy.
8. Organic Model Of Strategic Planning
The organic model is unique in that it focuses on the organization’s vision and values rather than plans and processes. With this concept, a corporation employs “natural,” self-organizing systems derived from its ideals and then leverages its own resources to achieve goals, save money, and function efficiently.
When applying the organic model of strategic planning, there are three basic actions to take:
1. Stakeholders define the vision and values. This is a collaborative process that may include both external and internal stakeholders—who attends the meeting is entirely dependent on your organization’s final goal for the planning. The goal is to create shared visions and ideals among all stakeholders.
2. Individual action plans are developed by stakeholders. This is where the model’s unconventionality comes into play. Stakeholders, divided into small groups, establish the actions and duties for each person to work toward the goal (according to the values).
3. Stakeholders report on the outcomes of action plans. Each member will take responsibility for their strategy and report back to the group on their progress. This is a collaborative approach to accountability, and the progress presented may be more qualitative than quantitative.
What kind of business would benefit most from the organic strategic planning model? If your business has a broad, diverse collection of stakeholders that must find common ground, a long-term vision, and a strong strategic emphasis on vision and values (rather than structure and processes), this may be the model for you. It would also be advantageous for younger groups seeking money without submitting a formal strategic plan.
Is One Strategic Planning Model Superior To Another?
That’s a wonderful question, yet the solution isn’t simple. Some of these frameworks have been around longer than others, or have been employed in different ways in numerous case studies. And sometimes, for a variety of reasons, supervisors prefer one over the other. We recommend identifying which of these strategic planning models best fits the way your firm thinks.
If you are determined to pitch a specific strategic planning model to management, be prepared to provide an example of another successful organization that has used that model. A tangible evidence of achievement will help to make a rather abstract subject more concrete.
If you’re weighing your options, consider both developing your strategic plan and putting it into action. It’s pointless to have a strategic plan if you don’t use it.
Exercise 5.3
• A3 paper or flipcharts
Course Manual 4: Execution & Debrief
A clever plan, blockbuster product, or game-changing technology can put you on the map, but only solid execution can keep you there. You must be able to follow through on your intentions. Unfortunately, according to their own admission, the majority of corporations aren’t particularly good at it. In a survey of 1,000 companies, government agencies, and non-profits from over 50 countries, when asked if they agreed with the statement “Important strategic and operational decisions are rapidly turned into action,” the majority of employees at three out of every five organizations replied negative. Thousands of decisions are made every day by employees acting on the knowledge they have and in their own self-interest.
Most organizations focus on structural measures to increase performance since changing lines around the org chart appears to be the most obvious option and the changes are visible and concrete. Such steps typically yield some immediate short-term efficiency, but they merely address the symptoms of dysfunction, not the core reasons. Companies typically end up at the same location where they began. Structural change can and should be part of the path to better execution, but it’s preferable to think of it as the crowning achievement, rather than the cornerstone, of any organizational reform. In fact, research suggests that activities involving decision rights and knowledge are significantly more important.
Case Study
Consider the situation of a multinational consumer packaged products corporation that went through a reorganization in the early 1990s. Dissatisfied with the company’s performance, senior management did what other corporations did at the time: They reorganized. They reduced managerial layers and widened control spans. Management staffing costs were quickly reduced by 18%. But it was déjà vu eight years later. Layers had crept back in, and control spans had shrunk once more. Management had tackled the outward symptoms of poor performance while ignoring the underlying cause—how people made decisions and were held accountable.
This time, management focused on the mechanics of how work was completed rather than lines and boxes. Instead of looking for methods to decrease expenses, they concentrated on improving execution—and in the process, they found the actual causes of the performance gap. Managers lacked a clear understanding of their distinct roles and responsibilities. They didn’t comprehend which decisions were theirs to make naturally. Furthermore, the link between performance and rewards was tenuous. This was a firm that valued micromanagement and second-guessing yet lacked accountability.
Armed with this knowledge, the corporation created a new management model that defined who was responsible for what and established the link between performance and reward. For example, it was not uncommon in the business for this corporation to promote employees fast, between 18 months to two years, before they had a chance to see their efforts through. As a result, managers at all levels continued to do their old tasks even after they were promoted, gazing over the shoulders of their direct reports who were now in charge of their projects and, all too often, taking control. People nowadays stay in their positions longer in order to follow through on their own projects, and they’re still there when the results of their labor begin to bear fruit. Furthermore, the outcomes of such projects continue to matter in their performance assessments even after they’ve been promoted, compelling managers to live up to the standards they set in their previous roles. As a result, forecasting has grown more accurate and dependable. These measures resulted in a structure with fewer levels and greater spans of control, although this was a byproduct of the adjustments, not the primary goal.
The Components of Strong Execution
The 17 Fundamental Traits of Organizational Effectiveness
1. Everyone is aware of the decisions and acts for which they are accountable.
As a corporation grows older, decision powers begin to blur. Young companies are sometimes too focused on getting things done to explicitly define roles and duties from the start. What’s the point? It’s not difficult to find out what other individuals are up to in a small organization. So everything work out okay for a while. However, as the company grows, executives come and go, bringing with them and taking away various expectations, and the approval process becomes increasingly confusing and muddy. It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine where one person’s accountability begins and another’s ends.
2. Critical information regarding the competitive landscape is rapidly communicated to headquarters.
Headquarters can play a significant role in spotting patterns and disseminating best practices across company sectors and geographic regions. However, it can only serve as a coordinator if it has accurate and up-to-date market intelligence. Otherwise, rather of deferring to operations that are much closer to the consumer, it will tend to push its own agenda and policies.
Case Study
Consider the case of Caterpillar, a heavy-equipment company. Caterpillar is now a $45 billion worldwide firm, but a generation ago, its organization was so poorly misaligned that its very existence was threatened. Decision rights were hoarded at the top by functional general offices based in Peoria, Illinois, while much of the knowledge needed to make those decisions was held by sales managers in the field. “It just took a long time to get judgments moving up and down the functional silos, and they weren’t really strong business decisions; they were more functional considerations,” one field executive observed. Current CEO Jim Owens, who was a managing director in Indonesia at the time, indicated that any information that made it to the top was “whitewashed and polished multiple times over along the way.” Because they were cut off from external market information, senior executives focused on the organization’s internal workings, overanalyzing issues and second-guessing judgments made at lower levels, costing the company opportunities in fast-moving markets.
Ironically, the best method to ensure that the appropriate information reached headquarters was to ensure that the proper decisions were made much lower down the company. Top executives were able to focus on larger global strategic challenges by delegating operational responsibilities to those closer to the action. As a result, the corporation reorganized into business units, each with its own profit and loss statement. The functional general offices that had been all-powerful vanished overnight. Their ability and expertise in areas like as engineering, pricing, and production were distributed to the new business units, which could now design their own products, devise their own manufacturing procedures and schedules, and determine their own prices. The shift significantly decentralized decision-making authority, giving units influence over market decisions. As return on assets became the universal metric of success, business unit P&Ls were now measured similarly across the firm. Senior decision makers at headquarters may make wise strategic choices and trade-offs with this accurate, up-to-date, and directly comparable information rather than using old sales data to make useless, tactical marketing judgments.
3. Decisions are rarely reversed once taken.
Whether or whether someone is second-guessing you depends on your perspective. A more senior and broader corporate viewpoint can bring value to a decision, but managers further up the chain may be slowing progress by redoing their subordinates’ work while shirking their own.
4. Information is freely exchanged across organizational boundaries.
When information does not move horizontally between departments, units act like silos, foregoing economies of scale and the transfer of best practices. Furthermore, the organization as a whole misses out on developing a cadre of up-and-coming managers who are well-versed in all elements of the company’s operations.
Case Study
A cautionary tale comes from a B2B company whose customer and product teams failed to communicate in addressing a critical segment: large, cross-product clients. The corporation had built a customer-focused marketing organization to handle connections with significant clients, which devised customer outreach initiatives, novel pricing models, and targeted promotions and discounts. However, this group could not provide clear and consistent reporting to the product units on its initiatives and progress, and it had trouble gaining time with frequent cross-unit management to discuss important performance issues. Each product unit communicated and planned in its own way, and it took a lot of effort for the customer group to comprehend the different priorities of the units and personalize communications to each one. As a result, the units were unaware of, and had little faith in, the new division’s positive inroads into a critical client category. The customer team, on the other hand (and appropriately), believed the units paid only cursory attention to its plans and couldn’t elicit their cooperation on issues crucial to multiproduct clients, such as potential trade-offs and volume discounts.
Previously, this lack of collaboration was not an issue because the company was the leading player in a high-margin market. Customers began to see the firm as untrustworthy and, in general, a tough supplier as the market became more competitive, and they became increasingly hesitant to enter into beneficial relationships.
However, once the flaws were identified, the solution was simple, requiring little more than encouraging the groups to communicate with one another. The customer division was given the responsibility of sending regular reports to the product units outlining performance versus targets by product and geographic region, as well as providing a root-cause analysis. Every quarter, a standing performance-management meeting was scheduled, providing a space for face-to-face information exchange and discussion of unresolved concerns. These actions fostered the larger organizational trust necessary for collaboration.
5. Field and line staff usually have the information they need to understand the long-term consequences of their daily decisions.
Employees’ access to information forces them to make rational judgments. Managers will constantly pursue incremental revenue if they do not grasp the cost of capturing an incremental dollar in revenue. They can hardly be criticized, even if their decision is incorrect in light of all available evidence.
Setting the Conditions for Successful Debriefs
Your team has recognized an important goal to achieve, a difficulty to overcome, or an opportunity to pursue. You hold a meeting or two, identify objectives, create a plan, and begin to execute. On paper, everything appears to be in order.
But then your strategy runs into some difficulties. Certain goals are more difficult to achieve than you anticipated. Critical players are diverted to another project. Timelines take longer than you expected. The impact is less than you want it to be.
At this point, you have three options: (1) continue muddling through with your fingers crossed, hoping for the best, (2) ditch the plan entirely, or (3) readjust and jump back in. In general, number one never works, and number two is ineffective in the long run. Only number three can promote long-term growth for your team and company. This is when debriefing, a simple yet effective method, comes into play.
Debriefing is a disciplined learning process that allows plans to adapt while they are being carried out. It started in the military as a method of learning quickly in rapidly changing situations and dealing with mistakes or changes on the field. Debriefing has been widely documented in business as being crucial to expediting initiatives, developing fresh ways, and meeting difficult goals. It also pulls together a team, strengthens relationships, and promotes team learning. In my experience, teams that debrief on a regular basis are more cohesive than those who do not. They communicate more successfully overall. They are more in sync in terms of ideals and purpose. In essence, they become more effective teams.
The frequency and duration of debriefings are determined by the nature of your employment. When the New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 2011, they held debriefings 1-2 days after each game to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Many software development teams do mini-debriefs every morning to assess the previous day’s progress and today’s objectives, as well as lengthy debriefs every month or two to grasp major project wins and issues. As a general rule, start with one debriefing every week to see what works best. You might also wish to hold one following major events or project achievements. Too many or too few debriefings can both reduce their value, therefore you must consider acceptable frequency with your team.
Here Are Four Steps To A Successful Debriefing:
1. Establish a consistent time and location.
The goal here is to make the debriefing expected, so that everyone adopts a learning mindset even before the activity at the heart of the debriefing occurs. When individuals know they’ll be coming together thereafter and can predict the basic structure of the chat, they’ll start accumulating insights ahead of time. The more you debrief, the more successful and efficient the entire process will become.
2. Establish a learning environment.
Expectations should be set such that individuals understand that learning is more essential than one’s place on the org chart. The Army has a saying: leave your stripes at the door. The tone is set by the most senior executives in the room. When they make themselves vulnerable and admit to mistakes, it allows everyone else to do the same. Another important part of building a learning atmosphere is to avoid pointing fingers. The outcomes, both good and terrible, should be regarded team outcomes, acknowledging that everyone contributed to their creation.
3. Go over four essential questions again.
This is the heart of an effective debriefing. Request that all attendees arrive at the meeting with prepared answers to the following questions:
• What were we attempting to achieve?
• Where did we succeed (or fail) to meet our goals?
• What caused our outcomes?
• What should we begin, halt, or continue?
4. Document the lessons learned.
Make a point of recording lessons learned in a usable way for future reference/use. At the very least, this entails taking notes and distributing them to the attendees. Other approaches can make the content more accessible to a larger audience. R&D professionals at Procter & Gamble, for example, submit Smart Learning Reports (SLRs) to a database based on monthly research lessons learned, which can be searched by anybody in R&D worldwide.
The most difficult part of debriefing is just getting started, especially if you come from a society where open communication is not the norm. If that’s the case, start with some short projects and a small team to test the process. When you start doing it, you realize how natural and intuitive it is. We tried some things, talked about what worked and what didn’t, and then used that knowledge to improve our next set of tests, etc. That wasn’t so difficult.
The most effective transformation approaches are typically the simplest.
Exercise 5.4: Strength Building exercise
Instructions
Method
The consequences
Course Manual 5: Eagle Methodology
This Course manual focuses on learning the EAGLE Planning Methodology, and is comprised of five components:
• 5.1 Setting Expectations – The “Yardstick” against which we will eventually measure success and failure
• 5.2 Apply Lessons – Apply Lessons from the Past—reviewing previous Debriefs to determine what we can apply from the past to the now
• 5.3 Generate Backwards – Generate from the Target Backwards—the only way to ensure we’ll hit our mark; it is here where we will decide WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN
• 5.4 Lay Out contingencies —we have to ensure we think through and factor in areas that could disrupt execution
• 5.5 Evaluate – Evaluate As Our Enemy—we need to figure out how we would defeat ourselves, to ensure we fix the plan where possible and, worst-case, know where we’re buying risk. This is called “Red Teaming” (here’s an article to review from
5.1: Setting Expectations
A Summary of Strategy Expectations
Everyone has been there. Our organization had a strategy, and it appeared to be a good one – the proper way to go. We were expecting it to work. And then, at some point, or more likely over time, it collapsed.
Internet articles often explain the primary reasons why strategies fail, but one important aspect of failure that is often overlooked is the managing of expectations about how and why we thought our strategy implementation would actually work.
Finally, your strategy is only as good as its implementation; it must become a who, where, when, and how of achieving your desired goals, which must be conveyed throughout the organization.
The implementation phase include ensuring that everyone involved understands their role, as well as the benefits and expected outcomes of the new strategy, which will unavoidably result in a wide variety of expectations.
Expectations for Strategy
Expectations play a significant role in the implementation and execution of your plan:
• Our expectations about the benefits of the new strategy impact our enthusiasm for making the necessary changes and painful decisions to realize it.
• If people do not have a clear understanding of the benefits, you risk losing (or not gaining) support and buy-in from your team, either because they do not perceive the benefits or because they are expecting things that will not happen.
Furthermore, if your team has realistic expectations for the outcomes, you’ll get much better feedback from those closest to the implementation as it unfolds, allowing you to revise or adjust your understanding of the advantages and deadlines.
• How and where we think we can make compromises along the way are determined by our expectations about the “cost” of changing the organization and its direction, such as the expenses in time, effort, money, and opportunity (to name a few).
If your managers, team leaders, and anyone else in charge of staff, money, or other resources do not have clear expectations about what needs to be “spent” to make the necessary changes, your implementation will stall as soon as there is any conflict between current day-to-day business and working toward your new approach. It’s critical that this comes from the top; nothing sets a negative precedent like senior management not investing their own resources to plan implementation.
• Our expectations of our own abilities to follow through when things go tough, which determines how successfully we anticipate we’ll handle competing priorities, resourcing issues, clashing personalities, and so on.
Making significant changes to your business practices is difficult. Maybe what you’re attempting to accomplish needs to be refined, maybe it’s how you’re doing it or the timescales you’re expecting, or maybe something in the larger environment has changed – whatever the case may be, there will be difficulties. If you and your team don’t set realistic expectations for managing risks and making difficult decisions when they come, you’ll be significantly less prepared, and your ability to make excellent judgments quickly will suffer.
We base our decisions on implementing and executing our plans on our expectations of the journey and outcomes.
When reality sets in, if our expectations are not met, the focus is lost, enthusiasm and participation wane, and our company softly (or not so quietly) drifts away from the course we established.
Implementing a new strategy (or simply improving an existing one) is an investment decision.
There is a benefit and a cost, with a set of risks, concerns, dependencies, and considerations, and an implementation path to make it happen, just like the business cases you’ve had to develop or analyze for other business expenditures (see our article on the strategy business case for more on this topic).
We may not think about or present our plan in this manner, but the pieces are all present.
Consider your plan as if you were presenting a case for another company investment: how would you identify and manage expectations, and what would cause you concern?
Here is a set of questions and statements concerning your strategy implementation – they are by no means exhaustive, but they are indicative of the state of expectations surrounding your strategy implementation (I’m sure your experience will offer you with many more). How many people can you honestly say “yes” to?
Benefits Expectations
• When we were developing the plan, the benefits were contested from a practical “reality” standpoint.
• All of the managers in charge of the strategy’s formulation, implementation, and execution can agree on where it is leading us, in terms of important quantifiable targets or more intangible key outcomes (e.g., cultural transformation).
• Those same managers can predict when these benefits will be realized – and they agree.
• I know who has different expectations than me and who is likely to be concerned about execution concerns.
Cost Expectations
• Change requires effort; are we certain that we understand where further effort is required to accomplish these changes?
• Does every manager in charge of delivering this endeavor understand how they will do so and how it will affect their current work?
• Was any direct financial expenditure indicated as part of the strategic change, and if so, are those managers whose budgets are directly affected on board with the plan?
• Do all managers have a strong grasp of where hurdles to planned improvements will most likely be found in their team and processes?
Expectations Of Willingness And Capacity To Execute
• Would all of the managers involved in delivering the plan respond yes if you asked them if the adjustments and additional effort required were at the top of their priority list for the future time, at the expense of some concentration on day-to-day operations (or any other proposed projects)?
• Asking all managers engaged if they believe the organization’s leaders are willing to make difficult decisions and sacrifices in their respective areas, would they reply yes?
• If you asked all of the managers involved if, if the benefits took longer to manifest than expected, the organization’s leaders would be willing to continue pushing for those benefits, would they respond yes?
This last point is the most difficult to consider. This is because it forces you to analyze yourself, your team, and your organization.
It is about determining whether the “organizational will” to implement and execute the strategy exists. Managing the impact of anything to which you replied “no” here, in our experience, will be important to your success.
Expectation Management As A Major Implementation Tool
So how did you fare? Many of us find it difficult to reply “yes” to many of these questions, regardless of where we’ve worked. That, by the way, is entirely typical.
Anything you had to say “no” to should be viewed as a danger to the success of your approach. Don’t be hesitant to approach expectation management like you would any other investing decision.
When developing your “business case,” consider the risks and essential success elements, and be prepared to actively manage expectations during the implementation.
Setting Realistic Expectations: A Complete Guide
Participate in the planning process.
One of the most serious issues is that upper management frequently assigns project deadlines. This means that deadlines are established without regard for whether they can be met. As a result, deadlines are set based on when management wants things completed rather than when a project can be completed. This is why it is critical to be involved from the start of the planning process. You can then collaborate with top management to develop important quantifiable targets on which both parties can agree. Going at it this manner makes a huge difference because you will know more about the project’s goals and what senior management is expecting, and you will then be better positioned to direct your team to success.
When you first start off, define the scope of your project.
It is critical to have a very defined scope when starting a project. This is critical since individuals will always strive to expand the scope, which might be one of the major causes of project failure. Scope creep is always the result of little modifications that appear insignificant at the moment but end up piling into a major issue. Identifying and addressing potential hazards and mitigating steps is the best method to manage scope creep and, hopefully, avoid it entirely. Any adjustments to the baseline plan must then be extensively evaluated, particularly in terms of cost and timeliness. It makes no difference how tiny you believe these changes are; you must measure their impact.
Monitor metrics
You must establish critical development metrics. After all, how can you create reasonable project expectations for prices and timelines if you don’t have any data to base them on? Project metrics are useful because they serve as a foundation for you and your team. You can evaluate the performance of prior projects. This will allow you to see how much time was spent on similar project features in the past, giving you a more accurate view of what would be required this time around, allowing you to bring project expectations to reality. If you don’t compare data, your estimates will be more speculative, which is not how you want to approach your projects.
Have an escalation strategy in place.
Because nothing ever goes as planned, you must keep project expectations in control. Any project manager will tell you about all of the instances that projects have gotten off course or something unexpected has happened. In reality, it will be incredibly difficult to identify a single example of a project that went exactly as planned. This is why having an escalation strategy in place is a smart idea. You should collaborate with management to set clear guidelines on what should be escalated. You must also specify what does not require escalation, as not everything will. After that, you can share your recommendations with your team. It is critical that they all understand how to escalate and what should be escalated. When your team is ready, they will have the responsibility and accountability to sort things out at their level.
Include all parties in the process.
You must obtain everyone’s feedback on project expectations and timetables. We don’t mean every single person who will be working on the project when we say everyone; we mean all of the stakeholders. Consider IT initiatives as an example. You should involve all IT workers, from the lowly coder to the CIO. After all, the guys installing a new server or writing the code are more familiar with the project than anybody else. Their opinions are quite valuable.
Ensure that everyone understands their tasks and obligations.
You must establish reasonable project expectations for everyone, including top management, right from the start. Make it clear what their responsibilities and tasks are for the project. Each team member should have a clear idea of how he or she contributes to the overall success of the project. They must understand how many components are interconnected in order to comprehend what they are working towards. You must be clear about the level of engagement and time commitment you anticipate from all executives and team members. Don’t underestimate the significance of this for CEOs. They frequently load their schedules weeks in advance, so you must be clear about what you expect of them. Everyone should have a clear understanding of KPIs, deadlines, and goals.
Maintain regular status meetings.
Last but not least, it is critical to hold regular meetings to discuss the project’s status. You should also schedule reminders to ensure that everyone attends. There are many various ways to hold meetings today, from face-to-face meetings to conference calls, so getting everyone together should not be an issue – even if you have a team with many remote workers. However, simply organizing a meeting is insufficient; you must also ensure that it is productive. This means being open, honest, and inclusive. The ideal method is for all parties involved to talk directly. This allows you to communicate about the project’s status, handle any challenges or blockages, and work as a team to move the project ahead as efficiently as possible.
Case Study: RadioShack
As CB radios grew popular in the 1970s, RadioShack (established in 1921) opened three new stores every day. In 1977, the business released the TRS-80, one of the first mass-produced personal computers, which quickly outsold Apple. Unfortunately, by the 1980s, businesses like Dell and IBM were selling more powerful computers, so RadioShack shifted their focus to cell phones in order to profit on a new market.
As the cell phone industry grew, RadioShack shifted its focus to selling not only cell phones but also service plans and accessories, even negotiating deals with cell phone carriers to collect a share of customers’ monthly expenses. By 2011, cell-related revenues accounted for 51% of RadioShack’s $4.4 billion in sales.
Because of their popularity, RadioShack discontinued stocking legacy products and trained its employees primarily to sell cell phones. Carriers, on the other hand, quickly began opening their own retail storefronts. Between 2000 and 2015, RadioShack’s marketing lost focus, and management shifted often. This resulted in six new CEOs between 2006 and 2016, as well as slogans like “You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers” and “Radio Shack: Let’s Play,” which confused and failed to connect with customers. On top of that, retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart began to spring up. They competed with RadioShack by offering lower prices and e-commerce possibilities.
While RadioShack still had 4,300 stores in North America in 2014, many of them were too close to each other (in Sacramento, CA, there were 25 stores within a 25-mile radius), causing profit losses and inventory issues. This, combined with new competition, overconcentration in the cell phone market, management issues, and financial missteps — RadioShack took out a loan from Salus Capital with the condition that they couldn’t close stores without Salus’ permission, resulting in cash burns — resulted in RadioShack losing $1.1 million per day, according to quarterly figures from the end of October 2014.
The company was delisted from the NSYE on February 2, 2015. It defaulted on its Salus loan on February 3. RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on February 5. That same year, General Wireless paid $26.2 million for RadioShack’s assets (the overall amount of the bid for RadioShack’s assets was actually around $220 million). RadioShack declared bankruptcy once more in 2017.
Exercise 5.5.1: Snowballing
5.2: Apply Lessons
How to Effectively Apply Lessons Learned to Avoid Plan Failure
Every project is an opportunity to learn. Failures warn us not to repeat the same mistakes. Our successes help us navigate our current and future projects more successfully. A proper process for capturing these failures, successes, and areas for improvement is required for successful project management. The project lessons learnt method does this.
In this piece, we’ll look at how to effectively avoid failures by applying lessons learnt. The templates provided in this post can be edited online. Use these to get started on your chores.
What are Lessons Learned?
Lessons gained are the crucial – both positive and bad – experiences gathered throughout a project’s lifecycle and at its completion. By reflecting on this information and insight, you can apply what you’ve learned to enhance current systems and processes and ensure the success of future projects.
For some businesses, lessons learned are an informal process in which they discuss and document experiences during the closure phase. Other organizations hold a lesson learned session at the conclusion of each planning phase. Managers, team members, and team leaders can all attend the lessons learned session to go over the reports and decide how to put the knowledge gained into action.
Lessons learned sessions can be held at various stages of the planning exercise depending on its complexity; at the end of each phase, at the end of the project, or in real-time as it occurs.
Why Should Tactical Planning Incorporate Lessons Learned?
Having the lessons learned documented and communicated throughout the organization aids in the avoidance and reduction of failure. It also helps generate best practices that can be implemented into future projects.
Case Study: Amazon’s zShops
Even Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, probably the world’s most successful entrepreneur, asserts as forcefully as he can that his company’s growth and innovation are based on its failures. “If you’re going to take bold bets, they’re going to be experiments,” he remarked shortly after Amazon purchased Whole Foods.“And if they’re experiments, you don’t know ahead of time if they’re going to work. Experiments are by their very nature prone to failure. But a few big successes compensate for dozens and dozens of things that didn’t work.”
Jeff Bezos created zShops in September 1999. The idea behind zShops was to create a platform where all types of online vendors could auction their products through their own online storefront, comparable to eBay. His concept flopped badly, to the point where Jeff Bezos joked that the only clients who had ever visited a zShop were his parents and himself. However, Bezos never gave up and, through his determination, built Amazon into the billion-dollar corporation that it is today.
Conducting lessons learned meetings also aids in the development of trust among team members by allowing them to offer their own perspectives on what went right and wrong during the planning, making them feel more involved and encouraging them to be more supportive of the planning process.
Finally, lessons learnt can have a real impact on organizational procedures and team operations.
The Process Of Lessons Learned
The lessons learned method contains five steps. They are intended to elicit critical lessons learnt during the planning exercise from meeting participants and to determine how to successfully apply that information to achieve greater results in future projects. The steps are as follows:
Step 1: Determine the lessons learnt.
Begin by reviewing what went well and what did not go so well during the project you just finished, as well as what needs to be improved. This should be done during the lessons learned session, which should be attended by the major stakeholders.
• In advance of the session, the facilitator should email a survey to the participants. It should include detailed questions about the various parts of the project (i.e. project management, resources, communication, requirements, etc.). It’s also crucial to get their input on what worked, what didn’t, and what could be improved. Responding to the survey will not only help participants better prepare for the session, but the responses will also help direct the dialogue between them.
• During the session, summarize the survey results and analyze them alongside other critical data to identify failures and successes. By the end, recommendations for future improvements should be discernible.
Case Study: ‘New Coke’
In May 2017, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey addressed the company’s long-standing fear of failure, which he claimed has dogged the company since 1985.
He dubbed the anxiety that firms have of trying new things and taking chances the “New Coke Syndrome,” referring to the botched rollout of a new Coke recipe in 1985. Only 13% of consumers said they enjoyed the new beverage, indicating that the new formula was rejected. Needless to say, it was a complete disaster.
However, the organization learned an invaluable lesson about customer expectations. In the month after Quincey took over as CEO, he pushed employees to welcome such errors and regard them as proof that the organization was doing its best.
To capture the feedback and major points mentioned throughout the session, use a comparable chart like the one below.
Step 2: Write down the lessons learned.
The results will be documented in a full report as the following step in the process. It should include the participant’s input on the strengths and faults, as well as suggestions for development.
When the report is finished, distribute it to the appropriate internal and external stakeholders. While you can provide a summary of the detailed report to the leadership, the full report can be supplied as an attachment for additional reference.
Step 3: Examine what you’ve learnt.
Analyze and arrange the lessons learnt throughout this stage of the process to determine how to apply them. The necessary personnel training and enhancements to planning exercise methods are then determined.
You can then build an action plan including the required steps, responsible parties/departments, resources, and a timetable.
Step 4: Save the lessons you’ve learnt.
Keep any lessons learned documents in an easily accessible area, such as a shared drive (such as Google Drive), so that the team, as well as other teams within the organization and stakeholders, may access them.
Step 5: Retrieve the learned lessons
To improve the present processes, consult the lessons learned materials. Create folders for each sort of project and appropriately organize them by date or project name to improve the retrievability of these papers. It would be much easier for anyone to get the reports if the technology you use to store them included keyword search capability.
Lessons Learned: How to Avoid Failures
To ensure planning success, add the following elements into your lessons learned approach.
Conduct lessons learned workshops on a regular basis.
In a project, many things can go wrong or right, especially if it is a huge complex effort. As a result, rather than waiting until the end of the project, critical information should be recorded sooner. As time passes, you may lose critical insights or, in the case of a failure, information may be purposely overlooked.
Have a standard procedure and toolkit.
Because they lack a structured methodology, many businesses frequently fail to capture lessons learnt during initiatives.
A suitable set of steps in place makes it appear more necessary and can help the team get into the habit of recording the lessons learnt during the planning. Similarly, having a specified set of tools to utilize for gathering information, storing reports and documents, and sharing them across the business can assist to streamline the process even more.
Make use of the lessons learnt during risk assessment.
Refer to previous lessons learned reports of relevant projects during the risk assessment of a new project to easily identify potential dangers. Following that, you can build mitigation techniques.
Create a team to apply what you’ve learnt.
Throughout the planning exercise, you can use the lessons learned method or actively capture experiences, insights, and impressions in real-time. Clarify how you will use the method and form a team to participate in and play an active role.
A smart practice is to include members from various fields to obtain diverse viewpoints. Keep the team size between 3 and 10 people.
Keeping such a record of experiences will allow you to run more effective lesson learnt workshops.
How Would You Apply Lessons?
In this manual, we described lessons learned in project management, the lessons learned process, and how to effectively apply the approach to avoid project failure, as well as provided valuable templates.
Ensure that every planning exercise includes the capture, analysis, and learning from lessons learned. It is also critical to plan for the following set of steps in order to successfully utilize the lessons learnt. This continual endeavor will aid in the development of a culture of continuous improvement inside your firm.
Exercise 5.5.2: Start. Stop. Continue. Change. Debrief
5.3: Generate Backwards
Why Do the Most Innovative Teams Work Backwards?
You’ve probably heard the term “success is a journey, not a destination.” Obviously, the authors were not product managers. Product teams aren’t judged and praised for the various processes they take—all it’s about the results. However, we are often so preoccupied with the process, routine, and never-ending cycle of construction that we forget none of this matters if the end result does not satisfy our expectations.
That is why the finest strategies begin with the end result. FranklinCovey, the productivity gurus, even patented this as one of their seven habits: Start with the eventual goal in mind.
Many innovative companies have adopted this working backwards mindset to keep staff focused on the end objective and avoid distractions during the development phase.
Case Study
For example, Amazon begins each project with the product manager writing a press release outlining the present issue. They investigate why existing solutions aren’t working and how they’re fixing problems for the client with their yet-to-be-built product. Throughout the product development process, anyone can use that document as a guidepost to ensure that everything they do is in line with the press release.
The fact that the press statement is written in ‘Oprah-speak’ is a crucial feature. In other words, in an understandable manner. This enables Amazon to bypass technical language and details that would only confuse the user in order to present a popular product.
What Exactly Is Working Backwards?
Working backwards entails beginning with the intended end result in mind and then determining how to get there. Although this is something that everyone should do, it isn’t always the case.
The key to working backwards is to be clear about where you want to end up. This entails delving into the specifics of what the desired end result should be (more sales, happier customers, better workflows, and so on), what the product must be capable of in order to reach those goals, and what success would entail.
With Apple’s clean and successful product line, it’s clear that Steve Jobs was right when he said, “you have to start with the consumer experience and work backwards towards the technology.”
With an agreed-upon vision, the team may then break down all of the necessary actions to get there. This is distinct from a more exploratory, iterative, “let’s see where this leads us” approach, or simply building stuff for the purpose of building something.
Case Study
John F. Kennedy did not begin by announcing that he intended to create a team of engineers, and then they would figure out how to get the materials to build a spacecraft, and then…. His statement said unequivocally that he wished to land a man on the moon within ten years and safely return that man to Earth. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. His speech was so compelling that it didn’t matter that no one had ever done it before and no one knew if it was even possible, but it galvanized people to figure out how to make it happen. And, of course, it did so on time.
Why Do The Most Successful Teams Work Backwards?
Working backwards results in a more concentrated and efficient process. Teams don’t get distracted or plan incorrect tactics when they have a clearly specified destination in mind. Instead, they know exactly what the end goal must be capable of, making it significantly more likely that they will get it correctly the first time.
This strategy also keeps the team from getting bogged down in the details and focusing on implementation rather than results.
When you work backwards, the WHAT is already well-defined, and no one will dispute whether the end output fits expectations. This not only provides explicit parameters for tactical planning; it also provides QA with specific items to look for during testing and gives sales and marketing a head start because they know what they’re getting.
Prioritization benefits from this technique as well; if a specific item does not drive the product closer to the targeted finish line, it is replaced with ones that do. It focuses everyone on satisfying customers and providing value in return.
How to Motivate Your Group to Work Backwards
Working backwards is a state of mind, but getting the rest of the team on board may require something more tangible for them to grasp. Here are three ways to use “rewind” instead of “quick forward.”
Begin with a news release.
The working backwards method, popularized by Amazon, is a favorite of many teams and thought leaders. A press release is typically issued as the final step in the development and launch process. “Here I am, this is what I can accomplish, and this is why you should care,” it says to the world.
To be effective, the author must avoid the trap of technobabble and speak in words that are understandable to the target customer.
However, fighting to get the press release right is part of the process; if you can knock it out in an afternoon, you haven’t done your homework and made it bulletproof enough to drive a full development cycle.
And, because the press release is designed to highlight the company’s success with the product rather than just its availability, there must be a substantial commercial rationale for it as well, which corresponds to Amazon’s strategy to picking new features. For example, wide client requests drive 90% of Amazon Web Services’ plan, suggesting early knowledge of a definite demand.
Conducting a pre-mortem
A post-mortem (or post-project assessment of everything that went right or wrong) is a common approach for businesses to learn from previous mistakes and accomplishments in order to perform even better the next time around. It’s a group effort in which representatives from across the organization weigh in on what worked well and what didn’t.
A pre-mortem basically puts the same group of stakeholders in a time machine and asks them to imagine everything that could happen before writing a single line of code or mocking out a design. The purpose is to anticipate and wargame the situation, spotting all conceivable possibilities so that the squad is prepared for potential roadblocks and land mines.
These sessions start by discussing every imaginable disaster that could happen to your company, from total market rejection to compromised user data to sluggish performance and incapacity to scale. It’s an opportunity to bring to the surface every worry and uncertainty lurking in people’s minds and determine which are more likely to occur.
If the mitigation method is not evident, each outstanding issue can be assigned to a sub-team. The team can then figure out how to cope with it if it arises (or fully preventing it from occurring at all). With every possible horror show conclusion in mind, the team may work backwards to minimize or avoid as much as feasible.
Believe it or not, forcing the team to detect and deal with potential unpleasantness and utilize their problem-solving skills could function as a team-bonding activity.
Conclusion
Regardless of how you implement a working backwards mindset in your product team, the component that holds everything together is actually knowing what customers require before you begin working on things. If you haven’t done your homework in that department, your flawless final product may fall short, resulting in a post-mortem that doesn’t help the product team.
Backward Goal Setting: How to Set Achievable Goals
Setting goals may be a time-consuming, thought-provoking, and daunting endeavor. Indeed, it is frequently one of the most postponed activities by busy entrepreneurs. This is because setting objectives that not only clearly indicate where you want to be, but are also made up of distinct, measurable, and action-oriented activities requires a lot of thought, planning, and foresight. It’s understandable that many of us put it off.
Goal planning, on the other hand, does not have to be an all-or-nothing, eight-hour marathon effort that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and unprepared. While many people believe that setting specified, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based (SMART) goals is a good idea, there are instances when you might want to start with something simpler. These simpler chores will assist you in moving past inaction and toward progress.
You can begin goal planning by following this basic technique of working backward from a big-picture end goal to a weekly or even daily task list that gradually moves you closer to your ultimate goal. This is how you do it.
Step 1: Begin with a Big, Broad, and Far Goal.
You most likely already have numerous long-term goals in mind. They most likely do not appear feasible or even attainable at this time. They could be more hazy notions or even wishes you have from time to time. You might desire to establish a business, purchase a house, reduce weight, or write a book, for example.
The objective you choose for this activity could be long-term, meaning it could be realized in two or more years. It will, however, work with shorter-term goals if you can speed up the process and actually complete a lot of targeted actions in a shorter amount of time.
To begin, choose one aim that stands out above the rest and make it your primary emphasis. We’ll use the objective of starting a business as an example to show how it might work.
Step 2: Subdivide your large goal into smaller (easier) goals.
Now that you’ve decided where you want to travel, consider what you’ll need to accomplish before you get there. Aim for three to five supporting goals that lead to a larger goal.
In the case of beginning a business, we might determine that we need to:
• Write a business strategy
• Determine the nature of the items and services we are offering
• Secure initial expenses
• Select a place for our firm or establish a home office
• Develop and implement a marketing strategy
Each of the five supporting goals will be required to achieve the primary aim. As you progress through the process, each of these objectives should be viewed as a separate objective, even if they are part of a larger picture.
Step 3: Break down the smaller objectives into specific targets.
The next step in the process is to break down each of the minor goals you listed into precise targets. For example, we could divide “create a business strategy” into the following specific actions:
• Determine the type of business plan you require;
• Research your target market;
• Determine what distinguishes and differentiates your company; and
• Gather financial data for your business plan.
This type of breakdown would be carried out for each of the supporting goals you established in the previous stage.
Step 4: Make a Master List of Individual Actions.
The final step is to create a list of single activities that will help you achieve each supporting objective that will take you to your main goal. The key here is to keep each action item as straightforward and detailed as possible. Finally, you want a straightforward list of chores that you can easily perform one at a time in a short amount of time.
Identifying specific activities is critical since it will aid in the development of momentum and motivation. It may appear like there are many parts, but if you make a list for each, you will have a clear understanding of what you need to do. You’ll see the order in which you should do tasks in order to come closer to your objective. Once finished, you may put your goal through a SMART goal check using a SMART Goal Setting Worksheet, and then begin executing each activity one by one.
Throughout the process, remember that even the slightest action is preferable than inaction, and you’ll be well on your way to attaining your objective before you realize it.
Exercise 5.5.3: Working Backwards
2. Working backwards from this goal, create a step-by-step plan on how they would theoretically achieve it. This can be done by breaking it down into smaller achievable goals.
3. Ask if any volunteers would like to share their plan with the group.
4. Open the floor to discussion:
• Could any of the goals have been broken down further?
• How would you present this to your team if it was a business goal?
5.4: Lay Out Contingencies
A business contingency plan is a backup strategy for your company or team. It outlines how you’ll react if unforeseen circumstances derail your goals, such as how you’ll pivot if you lose a key customer or what you’ll do if your software service goes down for more than three hours. Obtain step-by-step directions for developing an effective contingency plan, so that if the unexpected occurs, your team can jump into action and get things back on track.
Nobody wants Plan A to fail, but having a solid Plan B in place is the greatest way to be ready for anything. With a robust backup plan in place, you can successfully respond to unforeseen circumstances and get back on track as soon as feasible.
A contingency plan is a proactive technique that can assist you in dealing with bad occurrences and ensuring business continuity. Learn how to develop a contingency plan for unexpected events and recovery tactics to keep your business running smoothly in this course manual.
What Is The Definition Of A Corporate Contingency Plan?
A business contingency plan is a strategy for how your company will adapt to significant or business-critical events that derail your initial goals. A well-executed business contingency plan may reduce risk and help you go back to business as usual as soon as feasible.
You may be familiar with contingency plans for natural disasters—businesses and governments frequently develop disaster recovery plans after floods, earthquakes, or tornadoes.
Case Study
Chiara Bersano, SAP’s global HR value adviser, has a unique viewpoint on contingency plans. In 1999, she was working for a multinational corporation with a factory in Izmir, Turkey, when a terrible earthquake killed over 17,000 people and left 250,000 homeless. Employees at her company, on the other hand, did better than most.
The organization moved immediately, supporting and assisting employees and their families during difficult times. This ensured the company’s and its employees’ long-term trust and loyalty. However, it sparked an early interest in contingency planning at a time when the technology to support such an effort was limited in comparison to today’s capabilities. Nonetheless, many of those employees remain at that company two decades later, not merely for greater salary or the possibility of career advancement, but also because they know the corporation has their back in times of crisis.
However, contingency planning are equally crucial for commercial hazards. For example, you may develop a contingency plan explaining what you will do if your top competitors merge or how you would pivot if a key client leaves. You may even devise a plan for minor situations that would have a significant impact, such as your software service falling down for more than three hours.
What Are The Distinctions Between A Corporate Contingency Plan And A Project Risk Management Plan?
The process of identifying, monitoring, and addressing project-level risks is known as project risk management. Apply project risk management at the start of the project planning phase to prepare for any potential risks. Create a risk register to identify and track potential project risks. If a danger occurs, you can utilize your risk registry to proactively target it and resolve it as soon as feasible.
A contingency plan, like a project risk management strategy or a crisis management plan, assists you in identifying and resolving hazards. A corporate contingency plan, on the other hand, should encompass risks that transcend numerous projects or even hazards that affect multiple departments. To develop a contingency plan, identify and prepare for high-level business risks.
Examples of contingency plans
There are several reasons why you should create a contingency plan. Rather than creating a single contingency plan, create one for each type of large-scale danger or disaster that could occur.
Environmental contingency plan
While major earthquakes are uncommon, being unprepared when “the big one” strikes could be disastrous. This is why governments and businesses in earthquake-prone areas develop preparedness initiatives and contingency plans.
A government contingency plan for an earthquake can include:
• the names and contact information of personnel appointed to execute specific responsibilities ahead of time to ensure a swift and concise emergency response
• Methods for educating the public on how to respond in the event of an earthquake; and
• A timeline for emergency personnel.
Technology Contingency Plan
If your company relies heavily on data, for example, guaranteeing the safety and security of your information systems is vital. Whether a power surge destroys your servers or a hacker attempts to breach your network, you’ll need an emergency response plan in place.
• Steps to take and key team members to notify in order to get data appropriately secured once more under a business’s contingency plan for a data breach could include:
• Contact information for stakeholders to address the effect of the data breach and the plan to protect their investment.
• A timeline outlining what is being done to resolve the issue and what will be required to prevent future data breaches.
Case Study:T-Mobile
It’s a perpetual risk if you provide a service that your clients expect to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
When T-Mobile encountered a service outage in June 2020, 113,980 consumers reported the problem in 15 minutes.
The outage continued for several hours. If even a third of those who reported — but did not experience — the problem switched brands, that’s millions of dollars in lost income.
That’s what you’re trying to avoid at all costs.
Most causes of project failure can be avoided with proper planning.
Even couples having a picnic have a back-up plan in case the weather turns bad. You can’t afford to be less prepared as a business than picnic goers!
There Are Nine Steps To Creating A Contingency Plan
A contingency plan can be developed at many levels of your organization. As a team leader, for example, you could develop a contingency plan for your team or department. Alternatively, firm executives should develop business contingency plans for events that could have a large impact on the entire organization.
When developing your contingency plan, consider the likelihood and severity of each risk. After that, get your plan—or plans—approved by your boss or department head. If a negative event occurs, your team will be able to respond swiftly and resolve the risk without having to wait for approvals.
1. Make a list of potential hazards.
You must first identify dangers before you can resolve them. Begin by compiling a list of all potential dangers to your business. Keep in mind that there are various levels of contingency planning—you might be planning at the corporate, department, or program level. Check that your contingency preparations are proportionate to the extent and complexity of the risks you’re responsible for mitigating.
Because developing a contingency plan is a major undertaking, hold a brainstorming session with key stakeholders to identify and discuss potential hazards. Create a stakeholder analysis map to identify who should be engaged in your brainstorming session if you are unsure who should be included.
2. Assess hazards based on their degree and likelihood.
You don’t have to devise a plan for every risk you’ve identified. Once you’ve identified the risks and potential threats, collaborate with your stakeholders to determine the potential impact of each risk.
Assess each risk using two metrics: the severity of the impact if the risk occurs and the likelihood of the risk occurring. During the risk assessment step, assign a severity and likelihood to each risk—we recommend high, medium, and low.
3. Recognize critical hazards
After you’ve given a severity and likelihood to each risk, you and your stakeholders must select which risks are the most important to address. For example, you should absolutely prepare a contingency plan for a risk that has a high possibility and a high severity, but you probably don’t need one for a danger that has a low likelihood and a low severity.
You and your stakeholders should decide where the line should be drawn.
4. Perform a business impact analysis
A business impact analysis (BIA) is a deep dive into your operations to determine which systems keep them running. A BIA will assist you in predicting the impact of a given risk on your organization and, as a result, the response you and your team should take if that risk occurs.
Understanding the severity and likelihood of each risk can help you select how to respond in order to limit the threat’s impact on your firm.
What, for example, are you going to do about low-severity but high-probability risks? What about hazards with a high severity but a low probability?
Determining what makes your company tick will assist you in developing a contingency plan for any risk, regardless of its likelihood or severity.
5. Make contingency plans for the most serious hazards.
Create a plan of action for each significant risk you’ve identified. Describe the risk and brainstorm what your team will do if it occurs as part of the contingency plan. Each plan should include all of the actions necessary to resume normal operations.
Your contingency plan should include:
• the triggers that will set this plan in motion;
• the immediate response;
• who should be involved and informed; and
• key roles, including a RACI chart if necessary.
• The time frame for your response (i.e. immediate things to do vs. longer-term things to do)
Assume you’ve recognized a prospective personnel shortage as a likely and serious danger. This would have a severe impact on routine operations, so you should develop a contingency plan to prepare for it. Each member of your team has a unique skill set, and managing team tasks would be challenging if more than one person left at the same time. Your backup plan may include who will cover specific projects or procedures while you look for a backfill, as well as how to optimize team documentation to avoid siloed skill sets.
6. Obtain clearance for contingency plans.
Ensure that relevant company leaders are aware of the plan and agree with your course of action. This is especially important if you’re establishing plans for a team or a department. You’re empowering your team to respond fast to a danger by drafting a contingency plan, but you want to make sure that course of action is the proper one. Furthermore, pre-approval will allow you to move forward with confidence, knowing you’re on the proper route, and without the need to seek approvals ahead of time.
7. Share your contingency plans.
Share your contingency plans with the appropriate persons once you’ve completed them. Make sure everyone knows what you’re going to do so that if and when the time comes, you can act as fast and smoothly as possible. Maintain your contingency plans in a single source of truth so that everyone may easily access them if needed.
Creating a project in a work management platform is an excellent approach to distribute the plan and ensure that everyone gets a step-by-step guide for putting it into action.
8. Keep an eye on contingencies.
Check your contingency plan on a regular basis to ensure it is still up to date. Consider new risks or opportunities, such as new personnel or a changing company landscape. If a new executive leader joins the team, make the contingency plan available for their consideration as well.
9. Make new contingency plans (if necessary)
It’s wonderful if you’ve developed contingency plans for all of the hazards you’ve identified, but make sure you’re continually on the lookout for new threats. Create a new contingency plan if you find a new danger with a high enough severity or likelihood. Similarly, you may look back on your preparations and see that some of the scenarios you were concerned about are unlikely to occur or, if they do occur, would have a lesser impact on your team.
Common Hazards In Contingency Planning—And How To Avoid Them
A contingency plan is an effective tool for quickly returning to normal corporate operations. To ensure that your contingency planning process runs as smoothly as possible, keep an eye out for potential traps such as:
Inadequate buy-in
A contingency plan requires a lot of work, so make sure you have the support of executive stakeholders before you begin. Check in with your sponsors frequently as you develop your plan to ensure you’ve addressed important risks and that your action plan is robust. By doing so, you may ensure that your contingency plan is supported by your stakeholders.
Prejudice against “Plan B” thinking
Some organizational cultures prefer not to consider Plan B, preferring to throw everything they have at Plan A and hope for the best. However, thinking in this manner can expose your organization to more dangers than proactively developing a Plan B.
Consider it like checking the weather before going sailing to avoid getting caught in a storm. A clear sunny day will not abruptly become stormy nine times out of ten, but it is always preferable to be prepared. Developing a contingency plan will help you ensure that, if a negative event occurs, your firm will be prepared to deal with it and recover as swiftly as possible.
One-and-done backup plans
A contingency plan necessitates considerable effort. When you’ve finished, it can be easy to consider it a job well done and move on. However, establish regular reminders (maybe once or twice a year) to evaluate and update your contingency plan as needed. If new risks emerge or your business operations change, updating your contingency plan helps guarantee that you have the greatest possible response to negative situations.
What Happens Now That You’ve Devised A Backup Plan?
A contingency plan can be time-consuming to develop, but if you ever need to utilize it, you’ll be pleased you did. In addition to developing a solid contingency plan, ensure that it is kept up to date.
Being proactive can help you eliminate risks before they occur, so explain your contingency plan to the team members who will be in charge of carrying it out if a risk occurs. Don’t just store your contingency plan in a file and forget about it; use it if necessary!
Exercise 5.5.4: Balls of Stress
Materials
Instructions
• How did we fare?
• What can we take away from that experience?
• How quickly did the ball travel?
• Can we get the ball moving faster?
• How did we fare?
• What effect did the timing have on the ball’s movement speed?
• Was it more difficult this time to get the ball moving? Did you have to pay extra attention to the activity?
Debriefing
• What happened when the pace and complexity of the system increased? How did the team members’ behavior change?
• What did you take away from the many stages of the activity?
• What if we added a fourth ball that moves in a random pattern?
• How can we use the lessons learned from this activity to managing complicated projects where speed is critical?
5.5: Evaluate
You’ve created your plan, and you’re pleased of yourself for leading your team through the planning process, but is your plan truly ready for prime time? Are you prepared to carry it out? How do you verify that your strategy is complete and that you haven’t overlooked anything? How do you immediately tap into the collective wisdom of the crowd to get the other team members to weigh in? And how do you vet your ideas, plans, and initiatives with the most knowledgeable subject matter experts? In our reality, the red team was the answer.
How “Red Teaming” Began
Red Teaming is a training method created by the German military in the nineteenth century, originally for Prussian commanders. The goal was to have a better understanding of the unforeseen events known as “frictions” in military battles. Weather, topography, a lack of or inaccurate intelligence, logistics issues, troop mobility and effect, all had immeasurable consequences for the original plan’s success.
The “tactical war game” of Baron von Reisswitz is historically significant. The original arrangement, which can be seen at Berlin’s Schloss Charlottenburg, consisted of a board game with realistic-looking terrain pieces and game tokens for simulating battle sequences with comprehensive regulations. Two players were required to carry out their operational strategies in stages. Each maneuver was limited to two minutes, the length of an artillery barrage. Apart from the decision when and where to deploy one’s own forces, the course of the conflict was also controlled by a roll of a dice, taking the place of the incalculable “frictions”. This initial concept is now commonly known as a “War Game,” and it has become an essential part of the planning process.
Red Teaming evolved from the practice of War Gaming, in which a pre-determined scenario had to be examined within a set time frame. Organizations, both civilian and military, use specifically formed Red Teams to test their assumptions and plans. They discover flaws and get a greater grasp of their operational environment, particularly in the cyber domain.
US Army Decision-support Red Teaming Operational Model
Case Study: CIA
The CIA, the United States’ international intelligence organization, is a recent example. The day after the 9/11 attacks, George Tenet, the CIA’s director at the time, issued an unusually short order: he established a CIA unit named Red Cell. Their mission: to disclose information that no one else has and to make decisionmakers nervous. What makes that unusual? Because Tenet was in charge of an agency whose primary mission was already to collect and analyze national security information. Following the catastrophic events, he desired a team that would fundamentally and methodically challenge traditional thinking in order to reduce the likelihood of further unforeseen terrorist strikes.
Leaders Are Capable Of Making Extremely Stupid Decisions. This Exercise Can Help.
Red teams are exercises that establish a climate in which employees feel secure and eager to express their thoughts or worries about a strategic choice, as well as a procedure for documenting those ideas and issues in order to enhance the decision. They should be led by a professional, unbiased facilitator, need little preparation, and take only a few hours to complete. They’re also known as pre-mortem analysis, wicked questions, or weighted anonymous feedback.
There are three kinds of red teams: diagnostic, contrarian, and imaginative. The first examines and explains, the second questions and challenges, and the third sparks new ideas and pushes the boundaries of what is now imaginable. In the end, they all want to establish an environment conducive to open and candid debate. When employees are scared to speak up in front of their peers or managers, exercises might be designed to grant participants anonymity by writing or typing out their thoughts. Allowing for this anonymity frequently results in stunning revelations.
When someone makes a “aha” observation, that is when red teaming becomes most meaningful. The originality and obviousness of such an insight astounds the group, causing the members to collectively, instinctively acknowledge the remark as relevant or right. Once such a breakthrough is achieved, other initiatives can be devised to address contingencies.
To be most effective, red team activities should have two parts: open-ended, divergent thinking to unearth previously unseen ideas, followed by convergent thinking in which those ideas are deliberated, weighted, and prioritized to give a roadmap for revising a prospective choice. It is hard to force any leader to take action and apply a new method, but these exercises make leaders more aware of the relative costs of their organization’s inaction by revealing flaws.
Even when red team activities produce new insights into existing problems or find new areas of potential, they are not always completely ignored. Leaders become ostriches in the face of new data because they are afraid of losing status or having their judgment called into question in the future.
However, executives who refuse to accept or act on the concerns presented by their employees—those closest to the issue—will approach their strategic decision with less information and context in order to obtain the optimal outcome. They will also be significantly less prepared when, once implemented, that decision is met with inevitable obstructions and challenges.
Challenges that may have been anticipated and are evident in retrospect are frequently hidden due to a leader’s false perception that their people have nothing to offer or will freely offer their true ideas. This notion has proven costly time and again, from the Oval Office to the C-suite.
Fast-growing businesses are particularly vulnerable.
As a company’s customer and staff base grows, so does the number of endpoints, tools, and partners that must be supported. This can be especially difficult for fast-growing organizations, because everything happens faster — which is fantastic for innovation but more difficult to defend. As a corporation’s attack surface expands, it becomes more difficult to uncover vulnerabilities that could expose the company to undue danger. Recent statistics are alarming and demonstrate the issues that businesses face today. According to Check Point data, businesses experienced 50% more cyberattacks per week in 2021 than in 2020, and smaller enterprises are becoming an increasingly frequent target.
The first step in forming a red team is determining whether one is required. A red team is a group that attacks a firm responsibly in order to discover which vulnerabilities can be exploited. The type of data being protected determines whether this proactive strategy is acceptable for your firm. A supermarket store may not need to take this approach, but a software company that sells to government organizations does.
Once it has been concluded that a red team is the best way ahead, it is necessary to consider whether constructing a team from scratch is the best option. While outsourcing this expertise is often more cost effective in the short term, forming an internal team concentrates resources on determining the risk of vulnerabilities in important systems faster and delving more deeply into vital services in the long run.
When Beginning From Scratch, Keep These Best Practices In Mind
Create Your Team
The strength of your team determines your ability to succeed. Because the team will most likely be small at first (one to three people), you should seek out team members with extensive experience. While elite talent might be expensive and difficult to locate, this is an important first step.
Select a Standard
For penetration testing standards, the OWASP Top 10, BSIMM, and NIST are excellent starting points. Even with a specialized crew dedicated to detecting flaws, you can’t be everywhere at once, so you must be selective. Choosing a standard can assist a team in prioritizing what poses the greatest danger to the firm.
Make An Attack Strategy
Resources are not limitless. While it makes sense to begin with the most susceptible sections of the organization, it is eventually necessary to delve deeper and attack everything, all the way down to individual employees. Threats might come from the outside or from within (intentionally or unintentionally), and you must be prepared for anything.
Policy Changes
When a flaw is discovered, action must be done. It can be an easy process at times, but it can also be challenging at times.
Interact with Others
When teams operate in a vacuum, they may unknowingly obstruct the work of others. Policies should be developed in collaboration with other departments to reduce disruption while preserving standards. It can be a difficult balance, but one that can be achieved via open communication.
Putting together a red team requires resources and a planned approach. A small red team, on the other hand, can uncover faults in things before they are exploited – a truly invaluable resource.
It can be a slow process, but selecting strategic targets and pursuing them concurrently can yield real benefits from the start. Early victories improve a company’s security posture while also demonstrating to leadership the importance of a strong program and ensuring that a dedicated red team stays a strategic priority.
Best Practices of the Red Team
There is no set formula or blueprint for red teaming. Red teaming operations are best carried out behind the scenes, offering feedback to leaders, decision makers, and other departments anonymously. While no framework exists, UFMCS provides common activities in which most Red Teams participate. These include questioning facts and explicit assumptions, searching for implicit (unspoken) assumptions, identifying cultural assumptions and developing targeted cultural questions for subject matter experts, challenging the problem frame while proposing alternatives, and identifying cognitive biases and groupthink symptoms.
While a Red Team can assist avert organizational failures by performing common tasks, the way the Red Team is organized and used is ultimately up to the organization. The demands of the organization should dictate how the team appears (permanent team, ad hoc, people, etc.), what roles are allocated to it, when activities should take place, and where it sits within the organization (directly reporting to the CEO is best).
If your organization is prone to groupthink or reoccurring themes that frequently run through developed plans of action, give red teaming a shot. It requires cultural awareness, but if done correctly for your organization’s needs, it may result in superior results.
Exercise 5.5.5: Aha
Flipcharts
Course Manual 6: Red Teaming
Putting Together Your Own Red Team
Putting together your own Red Team is a basic, easy process that involves little to no time and little to no money. Begin by following four simple steps to create and implement your first Red Team:
1. Select
2. Empower
3. Refrain
4. Evaluate
These procedures should be taken in the sequence listed here to ensure that your team is appropriately informed and prepared to deliver actionable outcomes.
Choose a Team
You should form a small team of three to five people who are familiar with both your organization and your competition (s). Team members should be knowledgeable in their respective fields and well-liked within the firm. They should be given the time and resources they need to become a formidable competitor capable of providing more than just surface-level information.
Give Your Team More Power
It is critical that you fully communicate your expectations for the team. This could include giving a basic outline of Red Teaming. You are allowing this team to be disruptive, misbehave, and question commonly held organizational beliefs and practices. Your Red Team must realize that, while professional boundaries will be maintained, the input they provide may be contentious, and they are encouraged to do so. If you believe this may be an issue, select one or two team members who can challenge organizational standards in a way that others will appreciate.
Refrain
Make certain that you and your management team can both check your own biases at the door. It is critical to remember that you are asking your Red Team to analyze your organization’s actions through the eyes of your rival. Receiving feedback on your own methods and efforts could also fall under this category. While it may not always be easy, it is critical that you avoid from interjecting your own thoughts into the Red Team and enable them to be as objective and honest as possible. To better control yourself, keep in mind that this is a simulation, a game, in which you are trying to predict what the rival will do before they do it. In the end, you’re all on the same team!
Evaluate
Choose the type of feedback you want to get from your Red Team and how you want the information delivered. This could simply entail having the Red Team present in meetings to provide an informed viewpoint during the planning process. It may be more advantageous to request written comments from the Red Team in the form of a SWOT analysis, as outlined below (University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies, 2015). This input might be provided ahead to the debut of a new product or program, or it could be sought numerous times throughout the course of a project (e.g., monthly, quarterly). It is your responsibility to choose which kind of feedback will be most valuable to you and your organization.
Actions to Avoid
As tough as it may be for a Red Team to think and act in the manner of a rival, extra challenges may arise within your own organization. A group’s collective views and plans for the future can be firmly rooted, and the Red Team’s diverse thinking may not always be embraced. Fortunately, understanding how your own organization or team will react to this process is just as important as knowing about an opponent. Be aware of two significant dangers outlined by the Department of Defense Task Force to improve your Red Teaming procedure. Your Red Team is more likely to fail if it begins to:
• “lose its independence and be ‘caught’ by bureaucracy” (Department of Defense Task Force, 2003)
• “Be too far removed from decision-making and become marginalized” (Department of Defense Task Force, 2003)
Fortunately, these issues may be avoided if you clarify the goal of your Red Team to your business from the start. It is critical that your organization understands that the Red Team is designed to operate as a disruptor and deliver contentious observations. It is critical that you incorporate your Red Team in the planning process of your organization and that they are empowered to perform as originally intended. Your Red Team can provide important insights into your organization’s strategy’s flaws and the areas where competitors are most likely to capitalize. It is critical to give your Red Team a voice throughout the project in order to benefit from the insights they have to provide.
What Should You Do Next?
If you have your own Red Team in place and have taken the necessary safeguards to assure their correct operation, the next step is to select what sort of feedback or report you want your Red Team to offer. SWOT analysis, alternative futures analysis, and analysis of competing hypotheses are all ways for interpreting the findings and recommendations of Red Teams. The SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis will be utilized as an example in this article. SWOT analyses are prevalent in firms today and provide a quick technique to assess a company’s strategy.
This will be a SWOT analysis conducted by your immediate rival concerning your company. What are your competitor’s perceived weaknesses or threats? What possibilities does it want you to miss? By putting themselves in the shoes of your competitors, your Red Team can deliver this analysis for your firm. Furthermore, there is no limit to the number of SWOT evaluations your Red Team can provide. For example, you may find it useful to propose that your Red Team conduct an initial assessment prior to introducing a product in a new market, followed by another three months or a year later.
Today’s corporate world is fast-paced and ever-changing, especially when it comes to worldwide markets. With this in mind, competitors will be ever present and evolving at the same rate. Using Red Teaming methods within your organization can help to tip the scales in your favor, giving you an important advantage in an unpredictable world.
Case Study: Fighter Pilot Red Team
The United States Air Force is so serious about red teaming that it has dedicated an entire squadron, as well as an entire base, to it at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. And they’ve created a massive amount of airspace over the Nevada desert. It’s named red flag because the entire exercise is replicated, including an air simulation, a ground simulation, all communications, and every single aspect that you’d expect to find in a combat scenario.
They may have 80 aircraft that are part of the blue air, the good guy team, the allied nations that they are flying with, and they may be fighting against another 80 aircraft from the red air side. And they will mimic these scenarios in the sky over the Nevada desert, then return to discuss how it went, learn from the experience, and adjust their tactics, the way they fly, and the way they execute as a team.
The red team is used by US fighter pilots to develop their skills as pilots and as a team. The red team is actually a group of people who have been taught in the tactics and capabilities of the other nations they could potentially face. And they train and fly exactly the way they know those countries like to fly. The US pilots would develop a plan with the rest of their team that they were flying with, build this mission plan, and then fly a training simulation against this red team, which they termed ‘red air’. The red air would simulate flying as if they were the adversary, allowing pilots to learn from the experience which elements of their plan went well and which aspects they needed to execute. They would instantly recognize where their idea would fail in an environment with no repercussions. And this was really useful since it accomplished two things:
First and foremost, it highlighted the obvious flaws, and there were always errors to discuss. With their planning approach, there was always something to go back to the drawing board and improve on, but this allowed them to swiftly bring them to the surface so that they could address them. The second thing they did, which is a bit more subtle and isn’t perhaps the first thing that comes to mind, gave them confidence because they knew they had just flown their strategy against a team that was mimicking exactly what they would face. And since they set it up against this red air, they understood that even if the plan wasn’t perfect, it was close enough and good enough, and if they could make the tiny tweaks based on their simulation learnings, they’d be ready. The plan was to be ready for execution in reality.
Preparing For A Red Team Exercise
This section aids red team planning by providing a counterpoint to the very particular red team style defined in Red Teams. To optimize for blue team value and passion, this strategy reflects numerous biases. It explicitly avoids using red team punishment to inspire.
Examine the questions below to see if your red team planning has been carefully thought out for the benefit of your blue team.
Strategy
Determine where you will accumulate your worth from this event. There are compromises everywhere that may or may not satisfy the itch you’re attempting to scratch with an exercise.
• Are prospective defenders aware that a red team will be present at some point? Should they? Is it necessary to set this expectation?
• Will you additionally give a time frame for when a red team should be expected? Will this result in healthy excitement and a sprint to prepare?
• Has the team been informed that shame would be strictly enforced? You want to avoid the impression that this is a penalty for poor security.
• Has the team been notified that this is a reward to a blue team, not a punishment for poor security? IE, this is not a test, but rather sparring?
Expanding on this point. Make it clear that this is a useful feedback loop, not an employee performance cycle.
• Is there a specific method or realistic “kill chain” that has been chosen to structure the exercise?
• Do you want to mimic an occurrence with a significantly mitigated risk or one with far fewer telemetry / preventative measures?
• Under what conditions would you like to “call off” the red team? Consider when it is organically complete, when external interference necessitates a shutdown, or when the experience is no longer meaningful to participants. Attack Strategy
An attack indicates the risks you’re attempting to reduce, the situation you’re attempting to manage, or the people you’d like to include in the reaction. All of these decisions have planning implications that should be identified as soon as possible.
• Does the attack require a lot of expertise and effort, or may simple recreations of an attack be discovered? Is it even essential to involve third parties?
• What credentials, physical access, and documentation are required to launch the attack? Who will supply them? Is there any security considerations that need to be addressed later?
• Should the attacker pretend to be a certain opponent or attack method?
• Where and how will the red team record their actions? These must be documented for any further roundtable meetings and to validate remediation and lesson learnt.
• Will the Red Team’s methods be grounded in reality? Are they employing techniques that a realistic adversary would not have?
Response to an Incident
If you can predict how developed your response process will be, you can influence it to your advantage. The Game Master can heavily guide an immature response team, while a mature response team can be left alone to identify friction areas in coordination and communication.
• Is there a specific incident response coordination strategy or plan that should be followed?
• Will Incident Response have to come together naturally in order to eliminate friction in its process?
• Will Incident Response assemble artificially in order to force the intended response as practice?
• Do you want to artificially elevate the event so you may manage the Incident Response?
•If the Blue Team has genuine inquiries, who will bridge contacts with the Red Team? (For instance, “We believe we discovered a separate breach”)
• Who will record the Red Team’s aches and pains as the Blue Team mitigates?
• Who or how will indicators be leaked to the Blue Team if Incident Response is not going in a timely manner?
• Do you gather short-term mitigations and long-term preventative actions as part of your incident response?
The Uncovering of the Red Team
The Red Team will be bombarded with questions from the Blue Team. If done right, this can be an exciting occasion. It is vital to maintain the health of this relationship. The red team should be seen as a priceless sparring partner. Even better, a rabbit to chase.
• Have the Red Team’s actions throughout the attack phase been thoroughly documented and comprehended?
• Has the incident response procedure overlooked any significant Red Team actions?
• Have any backdoors or other potentially dangerous alterations escaped incident response?
• How comprehensive was the Blue Team’s investigation and containment?
Post Mortem
A high-quality post-mortem will inform months of security planning and calibrate everyone on a mission through shared experience.
• Was a comprehensive interviewing or debriefing procedure conducted with all exercise participants?
• Have all follow-up mitigation items been collected centrally and prioritized based on the participants’ value sentiment?
•Are these feelings synthesized and communicated to the participants?
• Do you have a scheduled meeting to present them?
• Who is making the presentation?
• Is the Red Team available to respond or answer questions about these sentiments?
• Are participants compensated for their participation?
• Do they have enough time to debrief and discuss?
• Is this a useful calibration for practical risks?
Small Exercises
You can keep an exercise small and involve as few people as possible. Be inventive.
Simply have a team member recreate an incident that you believe you could handle successfully.
Just make sure to document your discoveries, lessons, and follow-ups to share with others. Red teams are useless if their lessons are isolated, and they don’t have to be sophisticated.
Exercise 5.6: Red Team Roleplay
2. Both teams will be given a scenario to plan for, each team can confer privately.
3. This exercise will be turn-based, with each side having 30 seconds to give their answer.
4. Red team will go first to state an action they will take to reach their goal.
5. Blue team will have 30 seconds to counter this action with a threat.
6. Red team will have 30 seconds to decide on a counter action, and so on.
7. The goal of this exercise is to go back and forth until a team runs out of time to counter, or ‘wins the point’, at which point red team will state a new action to achieve the goal and the race will begin again.
Course Manual 7: Mindset
We’ve undoubtedly all heard the term “Warrior Mindset” thrown around a lot in recent years, with little clarification as to what it actually means. A true ‘Warrior Mindset,’ on the other hand, is the original manner of creative problem solving and “thinking outside the box.” A simple examination of human history will reveal several examples of this. Successful warriors from all across the world have displayed innovation, originality, severe discipline, and a variety of unique value systems that have persisted into modern society. But what exactly is a ‘Warrior Mindset’?
There are numerous definitions of a ‘Warrior Mindset,’ as the phrase can signify different things to different people depending on their experiences or backgrounds. However, in general, the term is typically connected with the mindset of individuals who deliberately put themselves in danger (i.e. military personnel, police officers, civilian sheepdogs). That being said, you don’t have to be a ninja, cop, Army Ranger, or Navy SEAL to have developed a “warrior mindset,” as it’s been a part of human civilization for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
The ‘Warrior Mindset’ is about more than just being aggressive and determined; it is about conquering difficulty and adversity. It is the possession, comprehension, and use of a set of psychological and physical abilities that enable someone to be effective, adaptive, and persistent. It also enables the utilization of optimal decision-making, psychological approaches, physical and tactical skills developed via training and experience.
Case Study: Lego
Lego was founded in 1932 by a Danish carpenter and began small with wooden toys and subsequently simple plastic building bricks. It swiftly became a brand that, like Disney, captivated generations of children. How could the original idea ever go out of style when it was so good? Despite this, Lego nearly went bankrupt in 2003 as a result of excessive innovation. In a market overloaded with new technologies, the toy producer exhausted far too many alternatives.
Lego needed to stay in sync with the rest of the market in order to recalibrate and keep its business model running. It simplified its business model by altering how it managed innovation. Lego recognized that cooperating with Harry Potter and Star Wars, as well as producing a blockbuster film series, could revitalize and reignite its original products. Lego developed a methodical technique to address its issues by first determining where and why things went wrong.
“Given enough time, any man may master the physical. With enough knowledge, any man may become wise. It is the true warrior who can master both….and surpass the result.” – Tien T’ai
People are frequently taught to retain mental focus and to adopt a “warrior mindset” in numerous instances. However, most people are never taught HOW to complete that work. Whatever the criteria, true fighters have always been urged to train and build both mental and physical strength. It is commonly expected in the modern military and law enforcement communities that mental toughness will magically create or automatically come from rigorous physical and tactical training. This is not always true; in fact, it is rarely true at all; yet, mental toughness qualities can be directly trained. It is critical that you work on developing a mental training regimen in order to achieve the actual warrior mindset. You must be willing to learn and remove mental impediments (which can be challenging). You must, in some ways, break yourself down (much like military boot camps do for new recruits) and then rebuild yourself.
The purpose of a ‘Warrior Mindset’ is to integrate psychological training with physical and tactical training to add a dimension that is frequently disregarded yet vital to attain peak performance of a skill. If you merely talk about mental toughness but don’t actively practice it, you haven’t matured into a true warrior…regardless of physical skills. If you train yourself mentally, you will discover that you have the ability to conquer any hurdle and modify your outcomes. This is when you will genuinely embody the ‘Warrior Mindset’ within yourself.
Case Study
With a net worth of $150 billion, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos suddenly become the world’s richest person. What is the key to his success? Every day, he asks himself, “Are we a Day 1 or Day 2 company?”
A Day 1 Company decides that every day will be a new day filled with exploring, developing, and innovating. Companies are preoccupied with their customers and not becoming a prisoner to procedure from the start. To stay ahead of the curve, they welcome new trends and weak signals early on and practice high-speed decision making, where 80 percent confidence is adequate to act. Waiting for 100 percent certainty in a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) is simply too slow.
A Day 1 Company eliminates proxies that suffocate innovation, such as bureaucracy, waste, and antiquated mindsets and procedures. Whatever its history or size, it has the enthusiasm and agility of a startup. For a reason, General Electric refers to itself as a 125-year-old startup.
At Amazon, intelligent failure is encouraged. They aren’t worrying about the failure rate in uncertain circumstances since you can afford a lot of failures if they’re cheap. “Fail fast, fail cheap, and move on,” as the phrase goes.
A Day 1 company embraces a “learn-it-all” mentality rather than a “know-it-all” culture and employs 4C leadership (creating, collaborating, changing, and challenging). And it must constantly be in a perpetual beta state, optimizing the present while developing new growth engines and business models for the future.
Bezos leads his day 1 Company by challenging the status quo and predicting change before a crisis compels it to change. Day 1 companies include Tesla, Airbnb, UpTake Technologies, and WeWork.
10 Strategies for Developing a Warrior Mindset
Having a warrior mindset is more vital than ever in today’s environment. We are continuously confronted with challenges and hurdles, and it might be difficult to remain positive and keep pushing forward. However, if you want to achieve in life, you must cultivate a warrior mindset.
What Exactly Does a Warrior Mindset Entail?
A warrior attitude is defined as the ability to face obstacles with courage and tenacity. It is about perseverance in the face of hardship and never giving up. Fighters are those who have a warrior mindset. They are continuously progressing and striving to be better. They not only have the guts to face whatever challenges come their way, but they also have the strength to see it through.
It is possible to cultivate a warrior mindset over time. It is not something that you are born with, but it can be learned and practiced. Here are several examples:
10 Strategies for Developing a Warrior Mindset
1. Determine your WHY.
To be effective, you must have a compelling motive for doing what you are doing. Whether you want to start a successful business, lose weight, or spend more time with your family, knowing your why will help you stay motivated when things become rough.
2. Condition your mind for success
You must prepare your mind for success in the same way that you would train your body for a marathon. This includes learning to control your thoughts and emotions, staying focused on your goals, and remaining optimistic even when things are difficult.
3. Picture yourself as a warrior.
Visualizing oneself as a warrior is an excellent technique to prepare your mind for success. Consider yourself to be powerful, capable, and brave. Visualize yourself attaining your objectives and overcoming any obstacles that may arise.
4. Accept fear and uncertainty
Accepting fear and uncertainty is an important aspect of developing a warrior mindset. Warriors understand that they will meet difficulties along the route, but they also understand that these difficulties are merely a part of the adventure. They do not let fear prevent them from acting, and they face the unknown with courage and strength.
5. Be prepared for anything at all.
A warrior is constantly ready to fight. They are aware that anything can happen at any time and are prepared for it. You should always be ready for whatever life may throw at you. Prepare to confront difficulties. face-to-face, and don’t let anything get in your way.
6. Maintain your cool under pressure
A warrior understands how to remain calm under duress. They don’t let their emotions control them. They maintain their composure and focus in the face of adversity. If you want to build a warrior attitude, you must learn how to remain cool in stressful situations.
7. Recognize that difficulties are an inevitable part of life.
Nobody ever said that life would be easy. In truth, the trials we confront help us grow and become stronger. Accept the obstacles that come your way as opportunities to learn and improve.
8. Don’t let your emotions rule your life.
It is critical to remember that your emotions are simply feelings, and they do not have to control you. It’s easy to give up or withdraw from the world when you’re feeling bad. However, if you want to cultivate a warrior attitude, you must push through these difficult feelings while remaining focused on your goals.
9. Concentrate on what you can manage.
Many things in life are beyond our control, but we can always control our attitude and actions. When you find yourself worried about things over which you have no control, take a step back and concentrate on what you can do right now to get closer to your goals.
10. Never give up and be persistent.
A warrior never gives up, no matter how difficult things become. They are tenacious and never surrender to defeat. If you want to build a warrior attitude, you must be willing to persevere even when things get difficult. You must believe in yourself and your ability to overcome any obstacle.
Why Do You Need a Warrior Mentality?
• Having a warrior mindset can help you conquer obstacles more readily.
• Having a warrior mindset will help you achieve your objectives.
• Having a warrior attitude will allow you to make better decisions.
• A warrior attitude will help you be more resilient in the face of adversity, as well as more successful in all aspects of life.
Last Thoughts
If you want to be successful in any aspect of your life, you must cultivate a warrior mindset. You can overcome obstacles, stay focused on your goals, and make smarter decisions. So, if you want to make some positive changes in your life, begin by cultivating a warrior mindset.
Exercise 5.7: Circle. Square. Triangle.
1. Circle: What is still going around in your head? What do you still don’t get?
2. Square: What has been squared away? What do you truly comprehend?
3. Triangle: What are three items that you could use in your daily life, work, or studies?
Project Studies
Project Study (Part 1) – Customer Service
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 2) – E-Business
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 3) – Finance
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 4) – Globalization
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 5) – Human Resources
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 6) – Information Technology
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 7) – Legal
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 8) – Management
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 9) – Marketing
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 10) – Production
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 11) – Logistics
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 12) – Education
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Eagle Part 1 process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 7 parts:
01. Tactical Planning
02. Planning Limitations
03. Self-Assesment
04. Execution & Debrief
05. Eagle Methodology
-5.1. Setting Expectations
-5.2. Apply Lessons
-5.3. Generate Backwards
-5.4. Lay Out Contingencies
-5.5. Evaluate
06. Red Teaming
07. Mindset
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Program Benefits
Production
- Work measurement
- Labor efficiency
- Constraints management
- Workload balance
- Methods standardization
- Manufacturing reporting
- Changeover completion
- Personnel assignment
- Cost reduction
- Capacity utilization
Operations
- Interactive research
- Project execution
- Quality management
- Continuous improvement
- Performance analysis
- Cost effective
- Time effective
- Process improvement
- Performance improvement
- Process decentralization
Human Resources
- Improve engagement
- Improve retention
- Mitigate burnout
- Foster wellbeing
- Human flourishing
- Inclusive environment
- Recover morale
- Inspire workforce
- Reduce absenteeism
- Employee satisfaction
Client Telephone Conference (CTC)
If you have any questions or if you would like to arrange a Client Telephone Conference (CTC) to discuss this particular Unique Consulting Service Proposition (UCSP) in more detail, please CLICK HERE.