My favourite tools for strategy days include these ones which I have made into give-aways on my site:
- Offsite Planning Checklist
- Pre Mortem template see here for an explanation.
- Team User Manual for teams to get to know each other better – see here for an explanation.
- DIY Offsite Games
- Silo Eliminator: get the team’s act together
- Team discussion guide: Self-promotion
- Team discussion guide on documenting what you do
I also like to play with
- pictionary visioning
- future trance
- improv games for better communication and listening – categories, reverse categories, the pattern game, pass the clap, simultaneous clap, knife and fork, rhyme and associate, headlines.
- open space
- Negotiating with Billionaire: how you do anything is how you do everything
- Textra: providing and sharing useful “private” information
- What people don’t understand about my job
Here are some strategic models which you may like. They seem to act as a kind of basket to hold thoughts.
- STEEPLE (or PESTLE)
- McKinsey’s 7 S’s
- SWOT
- Robert Dilts’ logical levels
- And because it’s so relevant to offsites, here’s HBR’s best of articles
