Supporting Strategy Workshops with Strategy Tools: A Case Study from a UK-based Business School
Supporting strategy workshops with strategy tools:
A case study from a UK-based Business School
Maureen Meadows, Open University Business School, UK ()
L. Alberto Franco, Warwick Business School, UK
()
Introduction
This paper considers the role of strategy tools in supporting strategic conversations in strategy workshops. A case study is presented of an exercise to develop an international strategy for a leading UK-based Business School. The authors, as facilitators of the exercise, designed a process for the workshops which included technology support (using the software Group Explorer) and a range of strategy tools including SWOT analysis and TOWS matrices. Following the exercise, in-depth interviews were conducted with participants to gain feedback on the process adopted, and this qualitative data is analysed using an approach based on Grounded Theory. Emerging themes are drawn out concerning the use of tools in strategy workshops to transfer, translate and transform strategic conversations.
Methods and tools for strategy support
Eden and Ackermann (2001) argue that the single, most important, consideration in managing strategic change and ‘making things happen’ in organizations is political feasibility. Addressing political feasibility is not only concerned with managing
the process of strategic change but also with carrying out change that creates coordinated and cooperative action. Thus, using tools that support and acknowledge a negotiation process are fundamental – social and psychological negotiation is the bedrock of political feasibility.
A number of methods been developed to support the processes of social and psychological negotiation required to manage strategic change in organisations. It is claimed that these methods offer a transparent way to facilitate a new negotiated order (Strauss et al, 1963) within the organisation. They do so by acting as transitional objects (de Geus, 1988) that facilitate knowledge elicitation, sharing and transformation, and which key organisational actors can use to gradually construct an alternative social reality (Eden, 1992a, 1992b). Methods to support strategy making and strategic change include causal mapping (Eden and Ackermann, 1998), scenario planning (Wack, 1985; van der Heijden, 2005), visioning (Wilson, 1992; Lipton, 1996), SWOT analysis and TOWS matrices (Weihrich, 1993), system dynamics (Morecroft, 2007; Warren, 2002), and decision analysis (Phillips, 2007; Montibeller and Franco, 2007).
This paper describes an intervention in an organisation to build a strategy with the required political feasibility – and hence the process of strategy workshops was supported by a range of tools. Here the authors report on the responses of the participants to the workshops undertaken, and reflect on what can be learnt about the role of such methods and tools in strategy support.
Design of the strategy workshops
The aim of the workshops was to develop an international strategy for the Business School. The workshops were set up at the request of the Associate Dean with responsibility for the School’s international strategy, and they were jointly facilitated by the two authors, who designed the workshop process in conversation with the Associate Dean. Participants were all current employees of the Business School, in academic posts (professors, associate professors and so on) and non-academic posts (such as administrators of the School’s teaching programmes, for example).
Due to diary constraints, it was not possible to run the whole strategy process, as designed by the authors, in a single workshop, as this would take more than a day of the participants’ time. Instead, the process was divided into a number of workshops, each lasting two to three hours. In between workshops, the authors summarised the outputs from the preceding workshop and circulated them to attendees. Elapsed time was in some instances around four weeks. Each workshop was attended by around eight participants. However, due to the diary constraints mentioned above, not all participants were able to attend all of the workshops.
At the first workshop, the Associate Dean set out the objectives of the exercise, and (with the help of the authors) introduced the participants to the workshop process, which was to be supported by the software Group Explorer. The workshop room was set out so that each of the participants had a laptop computer. In the first workshop, the participants were asked to undertake a SWOT analysis for the Business School, starting with an external perspective. In other words, the group brainstormed what they saw to be the opportunities and threats in the external environment in which the Business School is operating, followed by what they saw to be the Business School’s own strengths and weaknesess. Led by the authors as facilitators, Group Explorer software was used to organise the ideas generated into ‘maps’ (projected onto a large screen at the front of the room) showing the group’s views on the Business School’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Following some discussion of the ideas generated, the software was again used to allow the participants to ‘vote’ (anonymously) on what they saw as the most important ideas in each category; this produced a ranked or prioritised list of what the group saw as the most important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
The second workshop focused on generating possible strategies for the Business School. A TOWS matrix (see for example Weihrich, 1993) was used to structure the discussion, i.e. strategic ideas were brainstormed under the four headings Strengths/Opportunities, Strengths/Threats, Weaknesses/Opportunities and Weaknesses/Threats. Again, the material was discussed and organised into maps (eliminating duplication, highlighting linkages between ideas, and so on) before a process of voting on what the participants felt were the most important ideas, to produced ranked lists. Subsequent workshops have continued this process of “strategic conversation” for the Business School, using tools such as scenario planning.
Following the series of workshops, the authors conducted in-depth, follow-up interviews with key participants in the workshop process. This paper focuses on an analysis of those research interviews, as described below.
Methodology
This paper concentrates on the qualitative research interview as the primary means of collecting data. Following the workshops, the authors designed an in-depth, semi-structured interview schedule which was intended to allow interviewees to reveal their perceptions on a range of issues relating to the strategy exercise in which they were participating. Questions focused on their impressions of the workshops in which they had participated; any comparisons with other meetings which they attended in a work context; and the strategy process at the Business School more broadly. Interviews were conducted with six individuals who had attended one of more of the series of sessions on the Business School’s international strategy described above. Each individual was in a key role within the Business School at the time of the strategy exercise, and had a unique perspective on the issue of the School’s international strategy. Each interview lasted for around one hour.
The data analysis followed a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The authors began the process of developing theory in this research before the data collection itself (via interviews) was started, primarily via a literature review. However, emerging ideas were constantly compared and contrasted with the notes from the interviews, and any other relevant information that emerged during the course of the research (Stiles, 2001).
Interviews were recorded, and transcripts were produced. In addition to the transcripts, the authors produced a contact summary sheet, usually no more than a page in length, for each interview (Miles and Huberman, 1994) which highlighted the main themes, issues and concepts from each interview. This helped the authors to maintain a focus on key themes, in the presence of a large volume of detailed data. A set of provisional codes were then devised, and applied to the relevant comments on the contact summary sheets. In addition, interview transcripts were analysed, sentence by sentence, and coded against the provisional set. The codes were revised as the authors progressed through the coding process, to ensure that there was a good fit with the data, and good descriptive power. Some overlapping themes were merged, and some “second order” codes were introduced to capture emerging themes (Van Maanen, 1979).
Data analysis
The data analysis presented here focuses on two dimensions of the strategy workshops undertaken. First, we consider a micro evaluation of the workshop approach: how was the intervention seen by participants as a way of conducting a meeting? Second, our analysis turns to a macro evaluation of the approach adopted: how did the intervention fit within the wider strategy processes of the Business School?
Starting with a micro evaluation of the workshop approach, in other words how participants felt about the workshops as an approach to running a strategy meeting, a number of important themes emerged from the interviews. First, many participants felt that the approach had promoted a high quality of discussion. The process followed felt systematic and logical, and was clear to the participants. It appeared to separate emotion from decision-making. Turning specifically to the use of technology, the participants noted that the use of computers had enabled the group to list and summarise its ideas, and to quickly “present back” the ideas generated in a codified form. This enabled the group to quickly see the range of ideas and opinions held by participants. Participants who had experienced similar strategy meetings using paper-based methods (e.g. brainstorming using “Post-It” notes) commented on the advantages of using computers instead. It was noted that the ‘anonymous’ voting was a useful stage in the process, which equalised or democratised contributions.
On the other hand, some participants felt that while the group had generated a broad range of ideas, the process adopted had not “forced” them to make difficult decisions, for instance to choose between a host of possible strategic options when the School’s resources were inevitably limited. Some queried the balance between the quantity of ideas and their quality, while others noted that if the process tends to pick up on strong emerging themes (such as occasions when similar issues are raised by more than one participant), then it is possible that a “lone voice” could be ignored, and hence a good idea could be missed. They noted that while the approach seemed very appropriate for meetings where the intention was to generate and debate a range of ideas and options, the same approach might not be appropriate for all types of meeting - for instance, when the intentions was to have a short meeting that was very focused on making decisions and taking action. Some participants felt that the presence of the computers could be a little “off-putting” when they first entered the room (as they might not be expecting to see a series of laptops when coming along to a strategy workshop); they noted that participants needed to become familiar with the software in the early stages of the exercise (and could become frustrated if they accidentally lost some data, for example), and that the presence of the computers could be a little “self-conscious” during the stages of the meeting when they were not in use (for instance while the group was debating an issue it felt to be important). It was also noted that participants still need “deep knowledge” of the topics being discussed and voted on.
We next consider a macro evaluation of the approach adopted, by which we mean how the intervention fitted within the wider strategy process at the Business School. Again, a number of key themes emerged strongly from the interviews. Participants noted that many of the issues raised at the workshops may already have been under discussion somewhere in the organisation (or may have been raised in the past, if not currently). However, the process adopted at the workshops could promote a discussion that is more coherent and generally of a higher quality than any discussions that are already taking place, leading to a codified version of debates that may have already been rehearsed in less effective meetings. They noted that the approach could provide a new way of thinking about difficult issues, and that it encourages “strategic thinking”, “big picture thinking” or “joined up thinking” across the Business School to deliver new initiatives that might need collective effort. It was noted that the workshop was truly about long term strategy rather than short term issues, and hence was more “useful” than many meetings taking place in the School.
Participants also noted that, in order to be truly effective, the workshops need to be part of a bigger strategy process within the School, which some participants felt was currently lacking. They felt that the exercise needed to take place against a background of existing statements of the Business School’s identity, values and culture, which again were perhaps not as clear as they might be. Some commented that, for a strategy workshop to work well, participants ought to be well briefed on the process to be adopted at the workshop, and to agree to the process in advance. Some debate ensued about the role of the Dean of the School in such a process. Some felt that the process should be guided by a sense of what the Dean’s own strategic ideas are (otherwise strategy making takes place “in a vacuum”). If the Dean is seen to be leading the process, participants may be more willing to believe that their contributions will be taken seriously, and hence they may be more willing to engage seriously with the exercise.
Conclusions
The interviews undertaken raise important issues about the roles that strategy frameworks, models and tools may play in supporting strategic conversation. At both a micro and macro level, a number of possibilities seem to emerge as descriptions of how the workshops with their supporting tools were impacting upon the thinking of the workshop participants, and the wider strategy process of the Business School:
- ‘Transferring' strategic conversation, i.e. sharing ongoing strategic conversation amongst the participants
- 'Translating' strategic conversation, i.e. creating shared understanding about ongoing strategic conversation; re-stating issues in a more coherent form so that their wider dissemination through the organisation may be more effective
- 'Transforming' strategic conversation, i.e. changing and/or creating a new strategic conversation; generating new strategic ideas, and finding new and creative angles on old problems.