BrainZooming

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Yesterday’s post on using a new type of SWOT analysis to stimulate bolder strategic conversations in strategy meetings garnered quite a bit of attention. It received enough attention that we decided to share an additional strategic thinking exercise that puts a twist on the typical SWOT analysis. To add depth and breadth to the strategic thinking exercise, however, we add four probes to each area of the SWOT analysis. Need to get your strategy developed quickly?

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BrainZooming

OCTOBER 10, 2016

Going into a strategy meeting today that is sure to be a snoozer ? Even if you are going into the meeting with the same old people , the same old topics, and the same old expectations to just get a strategy done and put into a notebook on a shelf so you can go back to doing what you’ve always been doing, there is hope! Use a New SWOT Strategic Thinking Exercise Nobody Expects. Yes, try a SWOT strategic thinking exercise looking for ideas that are: Scary.

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Strategic Thinking Exercises Meeting Groups 74

BrainZooming

APRIL 5, 2016

Since all the companies competed with one another, each one needed to determine its own business strategies. Strategic Thinking Exercises – 3 Responses to New Ideas. In planning how we would help these companies, we realized there were three possibilities whenever we asked people to answer a question inside our strategic thinking exercises: The answer could show their strategic thinking was in the right direction.

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Strategic Thinking Exercises Brainstorming Creative Thinking 57

BrainZooming

JANUARY 22, 2016

The search term “strategic visioning exercises” has been consistently near the top recently for what has bringing people to the Brainzooming website. 14 Articles on Strategic Visioning Exercises. Strategic Planning – All the Strategy Roles You Need. Strategic Visioning Exercises – Group Collaboration the Right Way. Strategic Visioning Exercises to Create a Vision Statement. Creating Change and Change Management – 4 Strategy Options.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

During in-person and online strategic planning workshops , we regularly use a strategic thinking exercise that helps leadership groups quickly identify a shared future vision statement. The descriptions are purposely neither good nor bad; they simply represent ways an organization could pursue the strategy. This strategic thinking exercise allows a large group (perhaps hundreds of online participants) to provide targeted input on an organization’s future direction.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 11, 2016

Here’s an idea for a new strategic thinking exercise that can be a big help. 4 Ways to Examine Brand Performance as a Strategic Thinking Exercise. It struck me how a comparable concept (an Examination of Brand Performance) would be helpful as a strategic thinking exercise for monitoring your organization or brand progress throughout the year. This is definitely a strategic thinking exercise idea from the Brainzooming R&D lab.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

We have been working with a client that had done a lot of strategic planning exercises about a new initiative. Taking a look at the list, we started trying different approaches to arrange the big list of ideas from their strategic planning exercises into sensible groups to help stimulate progress. 6 Ways to Organize Ideas from Strategic Planning Exercises. They need strategic thinkers who can develop strategy and turn it into results.

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Exercises Groups Brainstorming Engagement 76

BrainZooming

MARCH 16, 2016

Whenever possible, we try to help clients select a mix of people to participate in group strategy exercises. We are also proponents for reaching beyond familiar people that are always involved strategic planning meetings and drive the outcomes of group strategy exercises. 9 Ideas on How to Involve a Team in Group Strategy Exercises. Turn strategy into a game and let the team assign roles to specific team members.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

There are a couple of different ways to apply structure to strategic planning exercises : You can enforce using templates and forms participants have to complete so their answers are uniformed and structured. You can provide people with strategic thinking exercises, creative thinking tools, strategy questions, and ways to collaborate with one another, using structure to help imagine better strategies. Productive Structure for Strategic Planning Exercises.

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Rmukesh Gupta

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

Once that stage is done, we can then move to the next phase, which is to put together an exercise regimen. . Here are the strategies that I intend to use to stay away from distractions as and when I need: . I used the following strategies to move from small fractions of distraction free timing to increasingly large segment of time by doing the following: No Notifications : As the first step, I removed every single notifications on my Mac and phone.

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BrainZooming

JULY 17, 2018

That happens when strategic planning becomes too complex, gets detached from real business issues, or the whole process focuses on trying to complete cumbersome strategy templates. You can use this eBook to enliven strategy meetings through a focus on important business issues, productive strategy exercises, and enough fun to keep EVERYONE engaged in creating a plan that creates success and all those other things that more $$$$$$$$$$s create.

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BrainZooming

OCTOBER 1, 2015

In nearly every Brainzooming community collaboration workshop, we conclude with a Plus-Minus-Interesting-Recommendation-Question exercise (a PMIRQ for short). Effective Exercises and Process. Loved the Boom / Bust exercise.”. Exercises presented to gain focus on a certain area.”. Have participated in many of these exercises and this was different in a positive way.”. “A Increase focus for your community with productive strategy questions everyone can use.

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Collaboration Exercises Brainstorming Groups 84

BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

To make it a little easier to track down ideas for how you can approach developing strategy this year, here are nineteen Brainzooming articles filled with 113 techniques and ideas for improving your organization’s strategic planning process. 4 Ways to Make a Strategic Planning Process Productive. 10 Signs of a Strategy Planning Meeting Nightmare. 11 Boring Details for Making Strategy Planning Fun. 6 Last Minute Ideas for Fun Strategic Thinking Exercises.

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BrainZooming

JULY 6, 2016

This time of year, preparing for upcoming strategic planning exercises may seem like something far in the future. As we look ahead to clients’ strategic planning processes, we’re developing new strategic thinking questions to freshen our Brainzooming strategic planning exercises. Along the way, we try to share some of these strategic thinking questions with you to incorporate into your organization’s strategic planning exercises. Innovation Strategy.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Too often, employees see strategic planning exercises as separate from and unrelated to what they need to do to run a business. What a waste for the employees and the companies using strategic planning exercises in ways that cultivate this experience! 4 Ways to Make a Strategic Planning Process Productive. What can you do to make strategic planning more productive before, during, and after? Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Part of making strategic planning fun involves fun exercises , which we continue to create and share here. Creating Strategic Impact” Leaders need high-impact ways to develop employees that can provide input into strategy and then turn it into results. Increase focus for your team with productive strategy questions everyone can use. Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success.

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Exercises Groups Engagement Creative Thinking 46

BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 10, 2017

We routinely ask those of you downloading Brainzooming strategy and innovation eBooks to share – if you are willing – the opportunities and challenges you are facing at the time. Here are their comments on opportunities and challenges, along with links to Brainzooming posts addressing the strategy and innovation situations they face: People and Organizational Issues. “Internal politics” 3 Strategies for Navigating a Political Environment.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 13, 2015

Great branding strategy examples abound. If your organization specializes in one particular area, your branding strategy discussions should include the question: “If our customers can think it, can we make it?” ” If that were your organization’s brand promise, what would you have to do differently with your branding strategy when it comes to: Responsiveness? I think we just stumbled over our newest brand experience exercise! – Mike Brown.

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BrainZooming

JULY 12, 2016

Reviewing the innovation strategy challenges business executives identified when downloading Brainzooming eBooks , they frequently mention gaining “buy-in” for significant change initiatives. There are so many ways to botch involving employees (and community members, if that’s your audience) in developing and successfully implementing an innovation strategy. Here are five keys we’ve found for successfully engaging employees in innovation strategy.

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BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

On Wednesday, I delivered the closing keynote at the Real Time Marketing Lab with a mini-workshop on using strategic thinking super models to help C-suite executives understand social networking and content marketing strategy. Friday’s priority involved finalizing a new product innovation workshop we’re developing in collaboration with a market research company for one of its clients. Increase focus for your team with productive strategy questions everyone can use.

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Collaboration Groups Engagement Exercises 79

BrainZooming

MAY 26, 2017

I snapped this picture at Target the other evening because of the intriguing product branding ideas it suggests. 3 Product Branding Ideas to Beg, Borrow, and Steal. Suppose you are in a similar product branding situation. You need to reduce what your brand delivers, but still put sizzle into your product so consumers think it is an attractive option. Diet Coke Strategy: Translating small to sip-sized. From the Brainzooming Product Branding Lab.

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Strategy Strategy Exercises Product Strategy 63

BrainZooming

JANUARY 29, 2016

We are working with a client to develop a content marketing strategy for multiple business units in the organization. With that information, we will be in a strong position to identify a content marketing strategy specific to each business unit’s needs. This new situation suggested a three-question exercise to identify likely strategic initiatives and objectives.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 15, 2016

In short they need strategic thinkers who can develop strategy and turn it into results. Increase focus for your team with productive strategy questions everyone can use. Actively engage more employees in strategy AND implementation success. Sometimes creative thinking challenges come from inside your own head.

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BrainZooming

MAY 9, 2017

In the new Brainzooming strategy eBook 321 GO! , we share common situations standing in the way of successfully implementing your most important strategies. Related posts Strategic Thinking Exercises – Group Collaboration the Right Way 7 Collaborative Strategic Planning Process Impacts (Even if the Plan Sits on the Shelf) Branding Strategy – 3 Ways to Invite Productive Strategy Input Creative Thinking – Who are the best collaborators?

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BrainZooming

MARCH 21, 2016

I’ll be presenting a Brainzooming workshop on internal branding strategy at the Brand Strategy Conference in New York, April 6-8. The workshop, while drawing on material from my Fortune 500 work, springs from multiple conversations at the 2015 Brand Strategy Conference. The discussions focused on when employees should be brought into branding strategy decisions. Download Your Free Internal Branding Strategy eBook!

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BrainZooming

APRIL 5, 2017

Talking to executives, you hear the expectation that an organization should implement a solid strategic plan strategy-by-strategy. When you develop a plan from a collaborative, conversationally-driven strategy planning process , you see other tangible impacts. Creating Strategic Impact” Leaders need high-impact ways to develop employees that can provide input into strategy and then turn it into results.

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BrainZooming

JUNE 28, 2016

Most executives can’t write a strategy plan, so don’t make them. Since strategy planning is an infrequent activity, it is difficult for executives to master it. We learned that if we asked executives a series of questions leading to the information needed to complete a strategy plan, they became productive strategy planners. Strategy Implication: Remove the tedious aspects of strategy planning, replacing them with efficient alternative approaches.

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BrainZooming

DECEMBER 1, 2015

Success factors in strategic planning and creating collaborative strategy were the central topics we tackled on an edition of Smart Companies Radio, hosted by Kelly Scanlon, the owner of Thinking Bigger Business Media, Inc., a company that publishes and produces a variety of publications, products and events that connect growth-minded business owners with practical strategies, resources and information that will take them to the next level of success.

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BrainZooming

DECEMBER 14, 2015

Based on all The Brainzooming Group experience in helping clients generate new ideas and innovative strategies, diversity is vital to successful creative thinking activities. To demonstrate the wasted potential and importance of diversity to creative thinking activities, midway through the creative thinking workshop, we used a Brainzooming exercise to identify individuals with the most and least experience with the company.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

When discussing a strategic planning or innovation strategy engagement with a client, we use the graphic below to design our recommended approach. Sometimes they proceed an in-person strategy planning meeting, but not always. They developed a sales strategy and associated messaging for the upcoming year. Afterward, we used a Zoomference to introduce strategies to its top-performing sales people. Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success.

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BrainZooming

AUGUST 1, 2016

Collaborative planning implies a process that goes beyond the board room to include individuals throughout the organization in meaningful ways to provide insights and input to shape organizational strategy. Instead of just inviting people and seeing what happens, we carefully identify and vet potential participants in collaborative strategy planning. A large group really makes collaborative strategy planning work.

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BrainZooming

JUNE 29, 2017

Someone downloaded a free Brainzooming strategy eBook, noting his biggest strategy challenge is “how to do a strategic planning process when you are new.” While leading strategy development in a new company poses challenges (including needing to learn a tremendous amount as you go), it has a comparable number of advantages (Including not laboring under preconceived ideas about how the organization does things). Four Must-Know Ways to Read a Strategy Document.

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BrainZooming

AUGUST 11, 2016

What leadership skills are necessary to successfully champion a collaborative strategy ? A client fully immersed in developing and implementing a collaborative strategy asked that question. Since we’re involved at the heart of driving the process to develop a collaborative strategy, we navigate our way through the development process based on an organization’s specific culture enablers and quirks. 4 Vital Characteristics of Collaborative Strategy Leaders.

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BrainZooming

MARCH 9, 2016

The challenge in a client meeting was developing the strategy for a later meeting intended to build support for a biennial community event. The team leader asked, “How is it possible to listen to us talk and turn it into a strategy so quickly?”. 9 Creative Thinking Skills to Turn Talk into Strategy. Listen for smart things people say , even if they are snippets, and incorporate those right away into the strategy.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

We apply that approach no matter whether we’re clarifying strategy, determining objectives, developing the strategy plan, or beginning implementation. If you need new ideas about how to approach strategic opportunities and challenges, a collaborative workshop to imagine a variety of possibilities can be very productive. If the gaps pertain to unknown facts and information, brainstorming won’t be productive.

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BrainZooming

APRIL 22, 2016

Increase focus for your team with productive strategy questions everyone can use. Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success. Brainzooming - All Posts Collaboration Communication Insights Performance Strategic Thinking Strategy Tools creating strategic impact strategic conversationsI debuted a presentation on “Results – Creating Strategic Impact,” our mini-book on employee engagement ideas to boost an organization’s strategic thinking.

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Engagement Exercises Creative Thinking Report 42

BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

An exercise to estimate employee lifetime value is beneficial for any brand. That does not mean everyone determines and forms strategy. Instead of simply knowing something is working or not, strategic frontline employees can provide valuable feedback on early warning signs when strategy that appears fantastic in the boardroom is not working in the field. They need strategic thinkers who can develop strategy and turn it into results.

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Training Leadership Exercises Engagement 73

Moves the Needle

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

When it comes to the development and commercialization of new products , no one holds more accountability for the product’s ultimate success than the Product Manager. Product Manager” isn’t exactly a title that fits neatly into a box. In most cases, a product manager is someone who works cross-functionally with development, marketing, and customer support in order to map out use cases for new products.

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Taivara

JULY 23, 2018

Ideation: Anatomy of a New Product Idea. Getting New Product Ideas Flowing. If you have teams close to customers, working in the field, using your product everyday – they’ll often be a great source for early indicators of where existing products are missing the mark. As product managers or entrepreneurs, curiosity will ensure we always have a plan B. Storming New Product Ideas. It easily explains the starting point for any good product.

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Ideation Brainstorming Competition Exercises 41

Boxes and Arrows

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

According to a freshly released trends report by the UX Design Collective , “Some designers are adventuring in new fields and technologies, like virtual reality, conversational design, voice interfaces; Some are focusing on more specific areas of the design craft, like motion design, prototyping, and UX writing; Some are updating their titles to product designers, broadening their scope beyond interaction design to focus more on product strategy and business.”.

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Qmarkets

JULY 8, 2017

Other companies are going even further afield and turning to their customers or the general public to help them solve problems and create new products. . For example, one company saw they were making most of their sales from their traditional products, so they focused on that. A short while later they were pushed out of the market by companies that had innovated and created new products. They get to market faster by acquiring ready-made and tested products.

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Survey Guidelines Crowdsourcing Exercises 40

Qmarkets

APRIL 24, 2017

Other companies are going even further afield and turning to their customers or the general public to help them solve problems and create new products. . For example, one company saw they were making most of their sales from their traditional products, so they focused on that. A short while later they were pushed out of the market by companies that had innovated and created new products. They get to market faster by acquiring ready-made and tested products.

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Survey Guidelines Crowdsourcing Exercises 40

Boxes and Arrows

APRIL 13, 2017

Today, digital products like apps and sites require marketing. Many products fail because they don’t solve a need their customers have or because the customer doesn’t know they themselves have a need for the product. Too often the team gets all the way through building the product to find out they can’t explain the product. Every product has at least one scary question to answer: Is it viable? Product detail shots.

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