BrainZooming
JANUARY 11, 2017
I jotted down the questions since I saw them as a strong strategic thinking exercise. A Strategic Thinking Exercise for Determining Trustworthiness. Applying this Strategic Thinking Exercise Broadly. This is a great example of a simple strategic thinking exercise to speed and sharpen decision making. What’s even better about these four strategic thinking questions?
BrainZooming
JANUARY 22, 2018
Originating in a long-term future visioning exercise we designed and facilitated for a client, we developed these questions to prompt a group’s thinking about dramatic future change. Strategic Thinking Questions to Imagine a Radically Different Future. Once you provide hypotheses on what you suspect the future will be like in your market, these strategic thinking questions are productive to reinforce dramatic changes ahead.
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BrainZooming
JULY 24, 2017
That’s when having the strategic thinking skills to extract the great ideas from everything else is so vital to them seeing the light of day and getting the consideration they deserve. 9 Strategic Thinking Skills to Create Clarity for Great Ideas. Thinking about some of the strategic thinking skills involved in that task, here is a handy checklist you can use with yourself and others to see how adept you (or they) are at surfacing great ideas.
BrainZooming
FEBRUARY 9, 2017
That’s why instead of typing out nine strategic thinking questions from various business conversations (and contemplations) so far this week, I decided to Sharpie marker and share them with you in this image. These are strategic thinking questions our clients are asking. Download our FREE eBook: The 600 Most Powerful Strategic Planning Questions. I needed a new way to express myself last night.
BrainZooming
JUNE 8, 2016
Last week, we presented a creative and strategic thinking workshop for a Brainzooming reader who leads the national sales division of a global industrial manufacturer. We integrated the Brainzooming strategic thinking workshop into their annual sales meeting. While we did that, an early exercise during the strategic thinking workshop shaped the rest of the day. 13 Unexpected Benefits of a Strategic Thinking Workshop.
BrainZooming
APRIL 15, 2016
Interestingly, the most challenging situation for Brainzooming strategic thinking workshop success is when it includes TOO MANY individuals viewing themselves as creative. Having TOO MANY strong creative perspectives can tank the actionable results coming from a strategic thinking workshop more than having too few creative individuals. Talking with someone about the most difficult Brainzooming strategic thinking workshop EVER inspired the blurb below.
BrainZooming
SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
At an Idea Magnets workshop, we shared a strategic thinking exercise we call Rock-Paper-Scissors. In the post-workshop evaluation, one attendee asked about extending this strategic thinking exercise to identify things you aren’t currently doing that you should be doing. The individual asking the question suggested it as a fourth element of the Rock-Paper-Scissors strategic thinking exercise (perhaps as Rock Number 2).
Focused Momentum
JANUARY 29, 2020
This was the question I posed to stimulate a brainstorming exercise during a recent Strategic Thinking Workshop. Strategic Thinking“What are the greatest challenges you face?”.
BrainZooming
JANUARY 10, 2018
Since The Brainzooming Group launched, we have developed many strategic thinking exercises and models applying our methodology to diverse clients and business situations. We are further along and can even more easily customize these strategic thinking exercises to your needs if you face comparable situations. That is a major benefit if you want an outside, strategic perspective and need to start right now! 16 Strategic Thinking Exercises Ready to Go Right Now!
BrainZooming
AUGUST 28, 2017
How can you develop strategic thinking exercises to envision the future when it’s so easy to let previous experience cloud your imagination? Romano shared an important insight into the challenge of developing strategic thinking exercises to envision future strategy: “Until you drive an EV, you are colored by 135 years of going to the gas station. 4 Strategic Thinking Exercises to Envision Future Strategy.
BrainZooming
SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
Nook and cranny strategic thinking exercises. The nook and cranny strategic thinking exercises term popped into my head during a Brainzooming client workshop. Each strategic thinking exercise poster had four or five brand dimensions on the Y-axis. You do the math with this strategic thinking exercise. You’ll quickly see why we love the productivity of nook and cranny strategic thinking exercises so much! – Mike Brown.
BrainZooming
MAY 8, 2017
In Brainzooming presentations and workshops , attendees want case studies and the answers somebody else has used. Or you receive confirmation from a speaker that what you have been thinking is right (or pretty close to right), and you can take that back to the office and tell the boss. A Strategic Thinking Framework Is Better than an Answer, Really! Instead, I include lots of strategic thinking frameworks for decision making.
BrainZooming
OCTOBER 6, 2015
We, however, routinely share how we do things via our methodology, tools, and learnings from Brainzooming strategic thinking workshops. Why Do We Give Away So Many Strategic Thinking Exercises? And by the way, here are the most frequently referenced compilations: Strategic Thinking Exercises – More than 200 Strategic Planning Questions. Strategic Thinking – Exercises and Tools for Creative Thinking and Strategy.
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. Participants assess where they think the organization currently is and where they want it to be in the future on multiple “strategic dimensions.” We place each strategic dimension on a scale having multiple written descriptions of ways to approach it.
BrainZooming
AUGUST 15, 2017
We mentioned how frequently we’re being asked to incorporate uncertainty into Brainzooming creativity and strategic thinking presentations. We have considerable content on moving forward amid uncertainty (including the 4 Strategies for Implementing in Uncertain Times eBook), and we’re developing additional strategic thinking pieces on uncertainty and flexibility.
BrainZooming
MAY 18, 2016
During a strategic thinking skills workshop for a client, we shared ideas for taking information from varied sources and identifying strategic themes. One slide during the workshop focused on analysis styles and featured two contrasting images. The picture represents two approaches to strategic thinking skills that analysts I’ve met throughout my career display.
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.
BrainZooming
JANUARY 7, 2016
Yes, I’m serious about that strategic thinking question. If you struggle with those questions, take a time out right away and do the strategic thinking needed to get back in touch with the love in what you do. What brought this up was a planning and strategic thinking workshop we were conducting for a business-to-business client. What do you LOVE about your business? Can you say what you LOVE about your business, and what it does?
BrainZooming
DECEMBER 9, 2015
We facilitated a two-day innovation strategy workshop for an industrial company. In each of the five mini-innovation strategy workshops, we had a group of core team members, plus people familiar with each perspective. The overall group sizes for each innovation strategy workshop varied from fourteen to more than twenty-five people, depending on the topic. And how much time do I have to get ready before the next workshop?
BrainZooming
MARCH 17, 2016
We put this infographic together for a client today to distill The Brainzooming Group approach into a few images depicting what we do to pave the way for a great strategic thinking workshop. 6 Guidelines for a Great Strategic Thinking Workshop. If you would like to go deeper on any of these topics, here are links to articles for each of the six areas: The Value of Strategic Thinking Questions.
BrainZooming
MARCH 2, 2017
What types of strategic planning activities are in a strategic thinking workshop ? As we collaborate with a client to design strategic planning activities for a strategic thinking workshop , we explore various possibilities. The goal is making sure the strategic planning activities we select best match the organization, the objective, and the participants. 6 Potential Strategic Planning Activities for a Workshop.
BrainZooming
SEPTEMBER 28, 2015
The week included: Large scale community collaboration workshops – Nearly eighty students from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale gathered Monday night and a comparable number of Carbondale, IL residents assembled on Tuesday for community collaboration workshops to imagine the community’s future with Gigabit Internet capabilities. That is a huge change, and opens the door to some radically different future workshops.
BrainZooming
JANUARY 31, 2017
Suppose you are on the hook to put together a team meeting or workshop to develop a strategy. Maybe you have done something similar before, or maybe you have never led a strategic planning process. Is there something or some place you can go to get ideas on how to develop a strategy workshop? Since this was a recent search topic here, we are sharing our recommendations for ideas on coordinating a strategic planning process workshop.
BrainZooming
FEBRUARY 23, 2018
We were facilitating report outs at a strategy planning workshop after multiple teams tackled developing high-level plans to improve various employee challenges in a relatively high-performing company. Chuck Dymer, who was co-facilitating the client workshop with me, remarked at the depth and importance of several of the report outs and the conversations they sparked. Brainzooming - All Posts Collaboration Diversity Performance Strategic Thinking Strategy
BrainZooming
AUGUST 9, 2016
What are your expectations from a creative thinking workshop? That is the first question I ask the audience at a Brainzooming creative thinking workshop. 7 Expectations from Creative Thinking Workshop Training. Preparing for a creative thinking workshop this week, I looked back at a recent workshop to review the expectations participants shared. At that workshop, we concentrated on the “What’s It Like?”
BrainZooming
MAY 13, 2016
The latest confirmation took place this week as we created and presented a new Brainzooming innovation workshop on how to develop insights to fuel innovation. We developed this new Brainzooming innovation workshop for the management team within the department leading the innovation push. We routinely present strategic thinking workshops on the exercises and tools The Brainzooming Group uses to develop and implement innovative ideas.
BrainZooming
JANUARY 8, 2018
Who should you invite to participate in an innovation strategy workshop ? We’ve written about three important strategic perspectives (general management, functional expertise, and people with creative energy) and three types of voices (traditional, challenger, and emerging) to include in any type of strategy workshop. Unafraid People – Individuals that don’t care about what other people think, say, or do relative to their ideas.
BrainZooming
FEBRUARY 20, 2017
During the creative thinking workshop we facilitated inside an internal management meeting, participants worked through multiple exercises to identify ideas for internal and customer initiatives. Why Specificity Makes or Breaks a Creative Thinking Workshop by Chuck Dymer. If you were to run a creative thinking workshop to generate ideas for improving your organization’s morale, odds are that one of the ideas from the group would be “better communication.”
BrainZooming
JUNE 20, 2016
We introduced the first Brainzooming strategic planning workshop resembling what we do today as The Brainzooming Group ten years ago, June 19-20, 2006. The First Brainzooming Strategic Planning Workshop. Chuck facilitated multiple engaging, high-energy strategic innovation sessions for us at Yellow Corporation. We’d do these sessions as part of strategic planning. We’d then turn to preparing a strategic plan.
BrainZooming
SEPTEMBER 3, 2015
Not wasting time is a major part of why a Brainzooming strategy workshop is so focused on effective time management. The moves the Buffalo Bills are making and the associated reasons and benefits match closely to how The Brainzooming Group designs a strategy workshop. All those moves make sense and easily translate into a strategy workshop design. 6 Ways a Strategy Workshop Is Most Productive.
BrainZooming
DECEMBER 10, 2015
We’re with a client today, delivering a strategic and creative thinking skills for sales workshop. We’re scheduled to have more than 120 of the client’s sales team members participate in an interactive, half-day Brainzooming workshop in the Chicago area. As an outgrowth of the workshop, here is a strategic and creative thinking skills compilation comprised of articles that support the Brainzooming workshop we’re delivering.
BrainZooming
AUGUST 25, 2016
Right after that article, The Brainzooming Group facilitated a small innovation strategy workshop with a client. We discussed the approach for the client’s upcoming thirty-person new process innovation strategy workshop. The question emerged of how much prior thinking to share with the newly involved participants. The concern was that it would limit potentially contrary thinking about ways to improve the internal process they’re seeking to improve.
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). The open-ended questions in a PMIRQ allow participants to share invaluable reactions and ideas; we use them directly to shape what we do in future innovation workshops. I was thinking I may not be as included since I’m not from or otherwise generally associated with (the community).”. Discovering Shared Thinking.
BrainZooming
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
That is evidenced by our web traffic as searches for effective strategic planning exercises and effective strategy meetings jump. Invariably, executives are seeking information on strategic thinking exercises suited to making strategic planning participants more effective and successful. Strategic Thinking Exercises – Some Work, Some Don’t. Why, you may ask, does this video remind me of strategic planning exercises?
BrainZooming
JUNE 22, 2017
How can you get the most mileage from the free strategic planning eBooks we regularly offer as downloads? We do not pretend to be able to imagine EVERY single situation where you might apply our strategic thinking exercises. Yet when we create new eBooks, our main goal is ensuring the content is heavy on ideas and tools you can apply to improve strategic thinking and implementation in your organization. Using Our Own Strategic Planning Exercises.
BrainZooming
MARCH 3, 2017
Yesterday, we identified the six types of strategic planning process activities we use to design a client’s strategic thinking workshop. To facilitate you going deeper into thinking about how these activities function within a strategic planning process workshop, here are articles in each of the six areas. 6 Types of Strategic Planning Process Activities. Fun Strategic Planning Activities – Do you like answering ice breaker questions?
BrainZooming
FEBRUARY 8, 2017
We’re getting a lot of questions currently about identifying the right strategic planning exercises. 10 Questions You Must Consider about Strategic Planning Exercises. If you’re among the executives planning for strategic planning, no matter what time of year, you need to ask these ten questions as you consider the right strategic planning exercises and approaches to pursue: Do we know what the expected outcome needs to be? Stimulate fresh thinking.
BrainZooming
DECEMBER 12, 2016
Wherever you are in the strategic planning cycle, you may discover the need for a new or updated direction for your organization. How can you effectively employ visioning exercises in strategic planning that invite your entire organization to contribute their perspectives? Using our proven methodology, you will be able to develop a vision, mission, or core purpose statement for your organization in a smart, strategic way.
BrainZooming
APRIL 17, 2017
I was talking with a friend about how we approach developing a strategic planning process for a client. I told her I don’t tend to think about moments of pride, since I try to avoid the seven deadly sins as best I can! In response, though, I shared a client’s comment after we completed an all-day social content strategy workshop: “We got six months of work done in one day.” We create strategic thinking exercises to fit the participants.
BrainZooming
NOVEMBER 17, 2017
Emma Alvarez Gibson and I were talking about identifying strategic themes within tens or hundreds of ideas from a strategic planning workshop or from thousands of comments within a survey. Other than a big dose of help from outside forces , what are dependable ways to identify meaningful strategic themes? As we chatted, I perused the Brainzooming website looking for articles on how we surface strategic themes. 10 Cues to Identify Strategic Themes among Ideas.
BrainZooming
SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
It is time for strategic planning across organizations. 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. If you are responsible for leading the strategic planning process at your organization, dive in and tweak your process to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
BrainZooming
NOVEMBER 13, 2017
We were working with an organization on its future vision while facilitating its strategic planning process. As we worked on strategic thinking exercises to explore the company’s future vision and user experience, the change management strategy vocabulary the group used was conventional, unemotional, and lacking innovative thinking. In the exercise, the group cut words and images from magazines to express their depictions of various strategic concepts.
BrainZooming
NOVEMBER 19, 2015
Sometimes you think you know best, only to find later that you have absolutely NO clue. As an example, I wrote some time back about the “Shrimp” creative thinking exercise we included during a creative thinking workshop for a regulated financial services company. After you push the thinking to as outlandish and dangerous a point as possible, you roll the ideas back to where they are once again doable.
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