Agile Business Strategy Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Strategy Managers, PMO Leaders and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-AP-028

Before you join: Participants should have experience working on projects, programmes, portfolios, business planning or operational improvement.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Organisations often adopt agile delivery methods while retaining annual planning, project-based funding and slow approval structures. The result is a gap between strategy and execution: teams deliver activity quickly, but leaders cannot reliably test strategic assumptions, redirect investment or show how work creates customer, public-service or financial value. This course addresses that gap by treating strategy as a disciplined cycle of sensing, choosing, funding, learning and adapting.

Participants learn to frame strategic choices under uncertainty, identify value opportunities, test business-model assumptions and translate direction into measurable outcomes. They apply PESTLE, Porter's Five Forces, Jobs to Be Done, Business Model Canvas, OKRs, portfolio Kanban and Lean Startup experimentation. The course also addresses operating-model design, adaptive governance, investment decisions, benefits realisation, risk oversight and stakeholder alignment.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic cases from banking, government services, regulated industries and commercial organisations. Participants work through strategic scenarios, prioritisation decisions, evidence reviews, funding trade-offs and change conversations. Each participant develops a strategy-on-a-page and a 90-day action plan for a live or representative business challenge, supported by templates they can reuse with their teams.

This course suits managers and specialists who contribute to strategy, transformation, portfolio decisions, PMO governance or business improvement. It is particularly useful where leaders need a more adaptive approach without abandoning financial discipline, regulatory controls or clear accountability.

What you will be able to do

  • Apply PESTLE and Porter's Five Forces to assess strategic conditions
  • Formulate value hypotheses using Jobs to Be Done and Business Model Canvas
  • Prioritise strategic initiatives using Cost of Delay and WSJF
  • Create OKRs, metric trees and outcome measures for strategic intent
  • Design minimum viable experiments with evidence thresholds and decision rules
  • Establish portfolio governance cadences, funding guardrails and benefits reviews
  • Map stakeholder influence and plan ADKAR-based change actions
  • Produce a strategy-on-a-page and 90-day adaptive action plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Frame uncertain strategic issues as testable choices rather than fixed plans
  • Present investment options using value, evidence, risk and decision criteria
  • Connect agile team activity to customer, operational and financial outcomes
  • Lead structured conversations on priorities, trade-offs and funding decisions
  • Return with a usable 90-day plan for an active strategic challenge

For your organisation

  • Earlier identification of weak assumptions before major investment commitments
  • Clearer links between strategic priorities, portfolio funding and measurable benefits
  • Faster reprioritisation when market, customer, policy or operational evidence changes
  • More consistent governance decisions across business units, PMOs and delivery teams
  • Reduced spend on low-value initiatives through explicit stopping rules

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain strategic agility and frame value assumptions for adaptive decision-making.

  • Strategic agility principles: sensing, deciding, funding, learning, and adapting
  • Cynefin domains used to match strategy responses with uncertainty
  • Distinguishing agile delivery practices from enterprise strategic agility
  • Value hypotheses expressed as customer, operational, and financial assumptions
  • Strategic intent translated into testable outcomes and decision boundaries
  • Governance cadence aligned to evidence, risk exposure, and investment horizons

Participants can assess external conditions and identify the assumptions requiring investigation.

  • PESTLE analysis separates structural forces from short-term market signals
  • Porter's Five Forces tests industry attractiveness and profit-pool pressure
  • Jobs to Be Done identifies underserved customer progress and constraints
  • Scenario planning frames plausible futures, signposts, and contingent actions
  • Market-system maps expose dependencies, bottlenecks, and ecosystem power
  • Assumption backlogs rank strategic unknowns by impact and uncertainty

Participants can define and test how an organisation creates, delivers and captures value.

  • Value proposition design links customer jobs, pains, gains, and offerings
  • Business Model Canvas tests customers, channels, revenues, costs, and partners
  • Profit pools identify where value accrues across an industry system
  • Unit economics connects acquisition cost, retention, margin, and payback
  • Designing value hypotheses with measurable benefits, costs, and constraints
  • Opportunity Solution Trees connect outcomes, opportunities, solutions, and experiments

Participants can make explicit strategic choices and sequence investments against value and urgency.

  • Playing to Win choices define aspiration, arenas, advantage, capabilities, systems
  • Strategic themes convert direction into bounded investment areas
  • Portfolio Kanban visualises funnel, review, analysis, approval, and implementation
  • Cost of delay compares urgency, value, risk reduction, and duration
  • WSJF sequences initiatives using cost of delay and job size
  • Stopping rules prevent further funding of failing strategic bets

Participants can translate strategic intent into outcome measures and reviewable objectives.

  • OKRs connect strategic outcomes, team objectives, and measurable key results
  • Outcome mapping distinguishes outputs, outcomes, impacts, and leading indicators
  • North Star Metrics focus teams on durable customer value creation
  • Strategy maps link objectives through financial, customer, process, learning perspectives
  • Leading and lagging measures expose progress before financial results appear
  • Metric trees trace executive goals to operational controllable measures

Participants can design strategic experiments and use evidence to continue, change or stop investments.

  • Lean Startup build-measure-learn cycles test critical value assumptions
  • Assumption mapping classifies beliefs by evidence, impact, and uncertainty
  • Minimum viable experiments specify audience, intervention, measure, threshold, timeframe
  • Real-options thinking stages commitments under uncertain information
  • Evidence thresholds distinguish persevere, pivot, pause, and stop decisions
  • Pre-mortems identify failure modes before material investment commitments

Participants can align team structures, decision rights and review forums with strategic priorities.

  • Agile operating model defines accountabilities, teams, forums, and decision rights
  • Team Topologies distinguishes stream-aligned, platform, enabling, and complicated-subsystem teams
  • Value-stream mapping exposes handoffs, queues, delays, and rework
  • Delegation Poker clarifies authority boundaries for recurring decisions
  • Quarterly business reviews connect evidence, priorities, funding, and commitments
  • Communities of practice spread reusable methods across business units

Participants can establish investment guardrails while maintaining risk and benefits accountability.

  • Lean budgets allocate guardrails rather than fixed project scope
  • Participatory budgeting aligns investment choices with strategic themes
  • Capacity allocation balances innovation, technical health, regulatory work, and operations
  • Risk-adjusted portfolio views combine exposure, likelihood, impact, and mitigations
  • Three Lines Model clarifies management, risk oversight, and assurance responsibilities
  • Benefits realisation plans assign owners, measures, review dates, and interventions

Participants can build support for strategic choices and address resistance systematically.

  • Stakeholder mapping identifies influence, interest, resistance, and engagement approaches
  • ADKAR diagnoses awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement gaps
  • Strategic narratives explain choices, trade-offs, evidence, and near-term commitments
  • Feedback loops gather frontline intelligence, customer evidence, and delivery signals
  • Conflict protocols resolve priority disputes using explicit decision criteria
  • Change impact assessments connect strategic shifts to roles and controls

Participants can consolidate course methods into a practical plan for their strategic challenge.

  • Strategy-on-a-page consolidates choices, outcomes, measures, initiatives, and governance
  • 90-day action plans sequence decisions, experiments, owners, and review points
  • First review agenda tests assumptions, measures, risks, and resource commitments
  • Personal influence maps identify sponsors, challengers, allies, and conversations
  • Implementation backlogs convert strategic gaps into time-boxed next actions
  • Learning reviews capture evidence, decisions, adaptations, and unresolved questions

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Strategic sensing and assumption backlog template
  2. Business Model Canvas and value hypothesis worksheet
  3. Portfolio Kanban and WSJF prioritisation model
  4. OKR and metric-tree design template
  5. Adaptive funding and benefits realisation checklist
  6. Strategy-on-a-page and 90-day action plan

Who should attend

  • Strategy Managers — need to convert strategic choices into measurable investment decisions
  • PMO Leaders — need portfolio governance that responds to evidence and changing priorities
  • Transformation Managers — need to coordinate strategic change, operating models and benefits
  • Business Unit Managers — need to connect team priorities with customer and financial outcomes
  • Product Leaders — need to test value assumptions before scaling investment
  • Senior Project Managers — need to contribute evidence and options to strategic reviews

Skills and tools covered

Strategic sensingValue hypothesis designPortfolio prioritisationOutcome measurementAdaptive governanceChange leadership

Tools and standards

PESTLE analysis, Porter's Five Forces, Business Model Canvas, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short briefings to introduce each method, followed by case work, facilitated group exercises and decision simulations. Participants analyse strategic signals, build value hypotheses, rank initiative portfolios and review evidence from realistic business scenarios. Instructor feedback focuses on the quality of assumptions, measures, choices and governance logic. Application planning connects the methods to each participant's own context. Classroom and live-online cohorts use the same core cases, templates and facilitated peer review.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience working on projects, programmes, portfolios, business planning or operational improvement. They should understand their organisation's basic planning cycle, performance measures and decision-making structure. Familiarity with agile delivery terms such as backlog, iteration and cross-functional team is helpful, but formal agile certification is not required. No prior strategy qualification, finance specialism, consultancy experience or advanced data-analysis capability is assumed. Participants should bring a current strategic, service, product or portfolio issue they can use as a reference during the course.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have practical exposure to projects, planning, transformation, operations or portfolio work. You do not need a strategy qualification, agile certification or advanced financial modelling skills.

Bring a current strategic, service, product, portfolio or operational issue that matters to your role. You may also bring non-confidential planning documents, performance measures or portfolio information to inform your application plan.

It is designed for strategy, PMO, transformation, product, business-unit and senior project professionals. It is most useful for people who influence priorities, investment decisions, governance or benefits realisation.

Agile project management focuses on planning and delivering defined work through methods such as Scrum or Kanban. This course focuses on choosing the right work, testing strategic assumptions, allocating investment and adapting direction using evidence.

You can use the templates in strategy reviews, portfolio prioritisation meetings, quarterly business reviews and transformation planning. The final 90-day action plan identifies the first decisions, stakeholders, measures and experiments for your own context.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and includes about 6.5 contact hours. Across five days, participants complete ten modules through briefings, cases, group work, simulations, discussion and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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