Strategic Planning Workshop
Leadership teams, cross-functional groups, quarterly planning sessions
Align a leadership or cross-functional team on strategic priorities, surface competing views, and produce a ranked list of what matters most.
Workshop Goal
The Problem
Align a leadership or cross-functional team on strategic priorities, surface competing views, and produce a ranked list of what matters most.
What You'll Achieve
- Surface current team sentiment on strategic direction
- Reveal where priorities diverge across the group
- Generate strategic ideas and options
- Align on the top priorities before leaving the room
Facilitator Value
Safe For The Office™ handles the technology, timing, and participant experience. You focus on the conversation.
Workshop Timeline
A step-by-step structure for the full 75-minute session.
- Icebreaker Experience 8 minShift the room from operational mode to strategic thinking mode.Keep it short. Use a prompt that gets people thinking about the future, not the present.
- Team Polls 12 minSurface current views on strategic direction and team confidence.Pause on splits. Ask: "What does this tell us about where we are as a team?"
- Would You Rather 10 minReveal strategic tradeoffs and where the team's instincts diverge.Strategic WYR questions expose real tradeoffs. Don't rush past disagreements — they are the data.
- Idea Storm 15 minGenerate strategic options and initiatives before prioritizing.Idea Storm must come before Priority Poker. You need the ideas on the table before you can rank them.
- Priority Poker 20 minAlign on the top strategic priorities. Surface where the team agrees and where it doesn't.After reveal: "Here is where we aligned. Here is where we didn't. Both are useful." The output is a ranked list the team owns.
Facilitator Guide
Key Notes
- This session produces a ranked priority list. Make that explicit at the start.
- Polls surface current state. WYR surfaces tradeoffs. Idea Storm generates options. Priority Poker produces alignment.
- Idea Storm before Priority Poker is non-negotiable — you need ideas before you can rank them.
- After Priority Poker: read the top 3 results aloud. Ask: "Does this feel right?"
- If the group is large, consider running Priority Poker in two rounds.
Discussion Tips
- Where did we agree? Where did we disagree? What does that tell us?
- What strategic option are we not talking about that we should be?
- What would have to be true for our top priority to succeed?
Closing Prompts
- "What is the one strategic commitment you are leaving this room with?"
- "What is the one thing that could derail our top priority?"
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Ready to run this workshop?
Safe For The Office™ guides you through every step. No facilitation experience required.