Certified Hoshin Planning Facilitator

In an increasingly ambiguous and volatile world, effective strategic planning is becoming a core competency for any business or operational leader. Yet, this discipline is under-developed in many organizations. At worst, immature strategic planning processes can reduce rather than increase coherence across an organization.

Successful strategic planning requires expert facilitation and the application of proven state-of-the-art methods to make best use of the combined brainpower and creative diversity in an organization. Strategic plans can then predictably exploit the best opportunities and result in strategy execution that works.

This certification program is designed to build the relevant skills for those working in a strategic planning or strategy execution role. Participants will learn how to validate and update strategy, how to translate this strategy into a coherent strategic plan, how to align it with the entire organization, and how to keep the execution of this plan on track throughout a planning cycle by engaging leadership, management, and employees in a facilitated approach to strategic planning and execution.

Participants will become familiar with concepts in strategy creation and how to connect these to Hoshin Kanri-based strategic planning. Specifically, the course will give students foundational knowledge in the Hoshin Planning process, how to use its tools for strategic planning, and how to manage a facilitated strategy execution process. Certified students will graduate with the skills of Hoshin Planning as well as the ability to manage the Hoshin Planning process to deliver results through monthly and annual strategy reviews.

Demonstrating their newly acquired skills in one annual planning cycle and its execution will make the certified participants invaluable enablers for structured strategy creation, strategic planning, and strategy execution. During the course, participants will also learn how to use the i-nexus strategy planning software to map and manage their strategic plans across all levels of an organization.

Learning Objectives

After completing this course participants will:

• Understand the breadth and depth of the body of knowledge around strategy development, planning, and execution.
• Know how to validate a given strategy and ensure it is robust.
• Know how to translate this strategy into a strategic plan that works using Hoshin Planning.
• Know how to keep the execution of this plan on track.

After successful certification, participants will be able to:

• Apply state-of-the-art approaches for strategy using a dynamic, facilitated approach.
• Use Hoshin Planning as a disciplined approach to strategic planning.
• Support and orientate company leaders in strategic planning activities

Mission-critical for reaching these objectives is the willingness to read and reflect, seek expert-coaching where needed, and to continuously sharpen the required influencing and facilitation skills.

Agenda

Day One

• Overview strategic planning
• Reverse-engineering a strategy
• Key elements of strategic planning
• Assessment of an organization’s strategic planning

Day Two

• The discipline of strategy in strategic planning
• Capturing the current and future state and the journey
• Tangible Outcomes: Breakthrough and Annual Objectives
• Introduction to the Hoshin Kanri strategic planning process

Day Three

• Developing strategic initiatives
• How to deploy and implement strategy throughout an organization
• Catchball: deploying a strategic plan to the entire organization
• Lean methods for managing a portfolio of strategic initiatives
• Digitized business processes for strategic planning and execution

Day Four

• Daily management: the foundation for strategy execution
• Creating a culture of cascaded accountability
• Dealing with resistance and difficult behavior
• Dealing with conflicts

Day Five

• Designing systems of metrics to monitor and steer strategy execution
• Final exam

Who is this training and education appropriate for?

• Anyone leading strategic planning in an organization.
• Business leaders looking to plan strategy in a predictable and reliable manner at either corporate or operational level.

What other materials are included?

• Six months of access to i-nexus strategy execution software.
• Access to online Strategic Planning via Hoshin Kanri course (pre-reading).
• List of references on strategy.

Certification Requirements:

• Complete five days of classroom training.
• Pass the exam at the end of training.
• Facilitate one strategic planning cycle and at least six monthly strategy reviews.