Strategic Planning for Chief Strategy Officers Training Course
| Course code | SD-SP-028 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 5 days |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Category | Strategic Planning |
| Delivery | Classroom or live online |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Course overview
Chief Strategy Officers are expected to turn ambiguous growth ambitions, market signals and board priorities into a strategy that can be funded, executed and measured. The difficulty is rarely generating ideas; it is making explicit choices across markets, customer segments, capabilities, investments and risk while aligning business-unit leaders who may hold competing assumptions. This course addresses the practical work of leading a strategic planning cycle, from diagnosing the current position to securing commitment to an executable portfolio of strategic initiatives.
Participants learn to frame strategic questions, build an evidence base, test external scenarios, assess competitive position and translate strategic intent into choices. The course applies tools including PESTLE analysis, Porter’s Five Forces, capability mapping, value-driver trees, scenario planning, strategic option evaluation and the Balanced Scorecard. Participants practise linking enterprise strategy to capital allocation, operating plans, governance routines, key performance indicators and a clear strategic narrative for executive and board audiences.
Teaching combines instructor-led decision frameworks with CSO-level cases, facilitated executive-team simulations and applied workshops. Participants use Microsoft Excel for value-driver and initiative-prioritisation models, Power BI for strategy dashboards, and Miro for portfolio and stakeholder mapping. By the end of the week, each participant has produced a board-ready strategic planning pack: a strategic diagnosis, scenario set, strategic choices, initiative portfolio, KPI architecture, governance cadence and 90-day mobilisation plan.
The course is designed for experienced strategy leaders who already contribute to enterprise planning and now need a repeatable method for directing it across functions, business units and senior stakeholders.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Frame an enterprise strategic planning mandate using a decision-focused strategy charter
- Conduct a strategic diagnosis using PESTLE, Five Forces, customer economics and capability mapping
- Construct plausible external scenarios and identify no-regret, contingent and hedged strategic actions
- Evaluate strategic options with weighted criteria, value-driver trees and investment assumptions
- Design a prioritised strategic initiative portfolio linked to resources, dependencies and accountable owners
- Build a Balanced Scorecard and KPI tree that connect strategic outcomes to operating measures
- Establish a strategy governance cadence for executive reviews, board reporting and course correction
- Present a board-ready strategic planning pack that explains choices, trade-offs, risks and mobilisation actions
Benefits of attending
For you
- Gain a repeatable method for leading enterprise planning discussions beyond annual budget preparation
- Build credibility with CEOs and boards by presenting explicit strategic choices and trade-offs
- Improve the ability to challenge business-unit proposals using evidence, scenarios and value drivers
- Create a portfolio-level view of initiatives, investments, dependencies and execution risks
- Leave with a reusable strategic planning pack suitable for adapting to a live organisational mandate
For your organisation
- Creates a more disciplined planning cycle that distinguishes strategic choices from operational wish lists
- Improves capital and management attention allocation through transparent initiative prioritisation criteria
- Reduces execution risk by linking strategy to owners, milestones, dependencies, KPIs and review routines
- Strengthens board and executive decision quality through scenario-tested assumptions and explicit trade-offs
- Provides a common strategy language across corporate, business-unit, finance and transformation teams
Target competencies
Who should attend
- Chief Strategy Officers — who lead enterprise strategy formulation and must convert choices into execution
- Strategy Directors — who coordinate cross-business planning cycles and advise executive committees
- Heads of Corporate Strategy — who assess growth options, portfolio priorities and strategic investments
- Business Unit Strategy Leaders — who must align unit plans with enterprise direction and capital allocation
- Transformation Directors — who translate strategic priorities into governed change portfolios
- Chief of Staff to the CEO — who synthesise strategic decisions, executive actions and board materials
Requirements and prerequisites
Participants should have experience contributing to annual planning, corporate strategy, transformation, business development or business-unit leadership. They should be comfortable reading financial and operational performance data, discussing market and competitor dynamics, and working with basic spreadsheet models. Familiarity with terms such as KPI, operating model, portfolio, business case and stakeholder analysis is assumed. Bring a laptop with Microsoft Excel and access to PowerPoint or equivalent presentation software. Prior use of Power BI, Miro, formal scenario planning or the Balanced Scorecard is helpful but not required; the course introduces the required applications and templates.
Training methodology
The instructor leads short, decision-centred briefings followed by applied work on a running enterprise strategy case. Participants analyse market evidence, map capabilities and stakeholders in Miro, build value-driver and prioritisation models in Microsoft Excel, and review KPI visualisations in Power BI. Small groups conduct an executive strategy review, challenge competing investment proposals and prepare a board-level recommendation. Daily debriefs connect each tool to CSO accountabilities. On the final day, participants adapt the course templates to a current organisational priority and complete a 90-day application plan.
Course outline
Day 1: Setting the strategic planning mandate
- Chief Strategy Officer accountabilities in enterprise planning
- Strategy versus budgeting, forecasting and operational planning
- Decision-focused strategy charters and planning questions
- Corporate ambition, strategic intent and choice cascades
- Stakeholder mapping for CEOs, boards and business-unit leaders
- Strategic planning cycle design and decision gates
- Baseline performance diagnosis using value-driver trees
Workshop: Participants draft a strategy charter and value-driver baseline for a case company, specifying the decisions, stakeholders and evidence required.
Day 2: Diagnosing markets, competition and capabilities
- PESTLE analysis for regulatory, technology and macroeconomic shifts
- Porter’s Five Forces and profit-pool analysis
- Customer segment attractiveness and customer economics
- Competitor benchmarking and strategic group mapping
- Core capability mapping and capability maturity assessment
- Business model analysis using revenue and cost logic
- Strategic issue synthesis and assumption logging
Workshop: Teams build a strategic diagnosis map that identifies the case company’s critical external threats, internal constraints and advantaged capabilities.
Day 3: Creating and selecting strategic choices
- Scenario planning with critical uncertainties and driving forces
- Scenario narratives, signposts and early-warning indicators
- Strategic option generation across build, buy, partner and exit choices
- Weighted decision matrices for option evaluation
- Value-driver modelling in Microsoft Excel
- Strategic risk assessment using ISO 31000 principles
- No-regret moves, contingent bets and strategic hedges
Workshop: Participants develop three scenarios, score strategic options against agreed criteria and recommend a scenario-resilient strategic direction.
Day 4: Translating strategy into an executable portfolio
- Strategic initiative design and initiative charters
- Portfolio prioritisation by value, feasibility, risk and dependency
- Resource and capital allocation principles
- Operating model implications of strategic choices
- Balanced Scorecard perspectives and strategic objectives
- KPI trees, leading indicators and target-setting logic
- Power BI strategy dashboard design
Workshop: Teams create a prioritised initiative portfolio, KPI tree and Power BI dashboard specification for the selected strategy.
Day 5: Governing, communicating and mobilising strategy
- Strategy governance roles, forums and escalation paths
- Executive review cadences and strategic performance conversations
- Board reporting structures and decision papers
- Strategic narrative design for different stakeholder groups
- Managing challenge, resistance and cross-business alignment
- Miro-based roadmap and dependency visualisation
- Ninety-day strategy mobilisation planning
Workshop: Each participant completes and presents a board-ready strategic planning pack and 90-day mobilisation plan for peer and instructor review.
Tools & standards covered
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, Miro, ISO 31000
A typical training day
| 08:30 – 10:30 | First session |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Refreshment break |
| 10:45 – 12:30 | Second session |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch and networking |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Third session |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | Refreshment break |
| 15:15 – 16:30 | Workshop and daily review |
Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, 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
- Certificate of completion
- Refreshments and lunch (classroom deliveries)
- Post-course application plan
- Facilitator follow-up on request
- Group rates from five participants
How you can take this course
Classroom
Scheduled sessions in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Dubai and Cape Town.
Live online
The same facilitator and materials, delivered live for distributed teams and individuals.
In-house
Delivered privately for your team, at your offices or a venue of your choice, tailored to your context. Request a proposal.
Certification
Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.
Frequently asked questions
Upcoming sessions
New dates are being scheduled. Ask us about the next session or an in-house delivery for your team.
Ask about datesGroup of 5+?
Request in-house delivery or group rates →Related courses in Strategic Planning
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