Top 10 Strategy Lessons

Since the early 1990s, Design Thinking and Agile workshops have reshaped how we design products and solutions, but these workshops are no longer just for product development. Consulting giants such as McKinsey, Ideo, or Deloitte have adopted design thinking principles to help with change projects, help build better customer experiences, reduce costs of operations, and more. The latest workshop trend is to develop a “Purpose led strategy” to help companies of all sizes grow and scale quickly while saving significant time, money, and risk.

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At LOUDX, strategy sprints are one of the many workshops we run for companies. Our collective experience has seen more workshops than we can count and we have learned a lot from these Sprints over the years. While no two workshops were the same, the most successful sprints shared several commonalities. Here are the 10 most critical takeaways from Strategy Sprints and practices that worked.

1. Strategy is not a one-time event. It is a process of discovery.

1.  where companies start with an initial strategy, learn from its successes and failures, and a new strategy emerges from those insights.

1. Strategies must be structured to guide action: 

1. help save time, money, and risk

1. Without a solid org structure, strategy means nothing
2. Metrics required.
3. Purpose as decision-making filter- A solid Strategy allows employees to resolve conflict without direction
4. Bring in leadership at the start and include diverse teams from a knowledge, equality, hierarchy. Don’t forget front-line employees.
5. Varying ideas are the key to innovation 
6. Getting Started is better than being right
7. The best strategies don’t just focus on what to do, but what not to do. (filter noise)
8. Don’t take strategy planning lightly. Create a structured process 

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