Strategic planning offsite agenda: how to run one

A strategic planning offsite works when it ends with a few clear decisions and a named owner for each one. Without that, it is just an expensive dinner with slides. This guide gives you a two day agenda, the pre-work to send, the ground rules to set and the follow-up to run.

Start with the decisions, not the topics

Before you book a venue, write down the three to five decisions the group must make. A decision is a sentence you can say yes or no to. "Do we enter a second market this year?" is a decision. "Growth" is a topic.

Keep the guest list small. Invite the people who own those decisions and no one else. Ten to twelve people can talk in one room. More than that, and the loudest voices take over.

Pick a place away from the office. Leave out phones during sessions, and pick a date that is not near a quarter close. Choose a neutral facilitator, ideally someone who is not the chief executive, so the chief executive can take part as a peer.

Sources: Patrick Lencioni, Death by Meeting (Jossey-Bass, 2004), a leadership fable about running meetings well, listed on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Lencioni.

Send pre-work two weeks before

Good pre-work saves the first half day. Send a short pack and ask everyone to read it. Keep it to five pages or less.

• One page of results from the last twelve months, in plain numbers.
• One page on customers: who left, who joined and why.
• One page on the competitors that moved.
• One page on the main risks, such as cost, talent and regulation.
• The list of decisions the group will make.

Ask each person to bring one idea that they think the company should stop doing. Stopping is hard to say out loud, and an anonymous note card makes it easier.

A two day agenda that fits the work

Day one: look at the facts and the future. Open with an hour on the pre-work and what surprised people. Then spend the morning on the current business: what is working, what is not and what the numbers say. After lunch, look ahead. Courtney, Kirkland and Viguerie argued in the Harvard Business Review in 1997 that the right strategy depends on how uncertain the market is. Use that idea. Sort your open questions into those you can estimate and those you cannot. Plan around the first group. Prepare for the second.

Day two: decide and assign. Start with the hardest decision while people are fresh. Give each decision a time box of 45 to 60 minutes. For each one, record the choice, the owner, the first step and the date. Close with a read back of every decision and a vote on what matters most in the next 90 days.

Leave room to breathe. Two long dinners and a short walk often solve more than one more slide.

Sources: Hugh Courtney, Jane Kirkland and Patrick Viguerie, "Strategy Under Uncertainty," Harvard Business Review, November to December 1997, hbr.org/1997/11/strategy-under-uncertainty.

Set ground rules at the start

Read the rules aloud in the first ten minutes. Keep them few and simple.

• Debate the idea, not the person. Disagreement is welcome.
• One conversation at a time. No side chats and no laptops.
• Once the group decides, everyone backs the decision outside the room.
• Rank does not win an argument. Facts do.
• If a topic is not on the list, park it on a wall chart and move on.

The facilitator enforces the clock and the rules. The chief executive speaks last on each topic, so others do not simply follow the top view.

Aim for a healthy team, not only a clever plan

Lencioni argued in The Advantage (Jossey-Bass, 2012) that organizational health is the single greatest advantage a company can achieve. His firm, The Table Group, ties health to a cohesive leadership team and to clarity that leaders repeat often. You can use that as a test at the offsite. Ask whether each person leaves with the same answer to the same question. If two leaders describe the plan in different words, you have more work to do before you go home.

Spend a short block at the end of day one on how the team works together: what helps, what blocks and what each person will change. Keep it honest and keep it brief.

Sources: Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage (Jossey-Bass, 2012), listed on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Lencioni; The Table Group, organizational health overview, tablegroup.com/topics-and-resources/organizational-health/.

Follow up in the first 30 days

Most offsites fail in the weeks after, not in the room. Send a one page summary within 48 hours. List each decision, its owner and its date. Nothing else.

Then hold a 30 minute check in every two weeks for the next 90 days. Review each action as done, on track or stuck. Ask the owner of a stuck action what help they need. Share a short update with the wider team so they hear the plan from you, not from rumor.

At 90 days, run a half day review. Keep what worked. Change what did not. Put the next offsite in the calendar before you leave, so the habit sticks.

Sources

• Courtney, Kirkland and Viguerie, "Strategy Under Uncertainty," Harvard Business Review (1997): hbr.org/1997/11/strategy-under-uncertainty
• Lencioni, Death by Meeting (2004) and The Advantage (2012): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Lencioni
• The Table Group, organizational health: tablegroup.com/topics-and-resources/organizational-health/