Diploma Course in Strategic Development

Course Overview

A Chinese proverb states that if you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow Men /Women. This course focuses on how organizations undertake strategic planning and its importance in a fast changing world. Learners will understand why it is important to develop a strategic vision and mission, establish objectives and decide on a strategy. Strategy and strategic plans map out where the organization is headed, its short- and long-range performance targets, and the internal management action required to achieve targeted results.

It is important for employees in every organization to be well acquainted with skills on strategic planning because it provides a sense of direction and outlines measurable goals to be achieved at the end of a certain period. If often starts with defining an organizations mission to synthesize and distill the overarching idea linking its practical strategies; enabling management and employees to align the specifics of their actions and decisions with a clearly defined vision and direction. Then proceeds to setting up measurable goals with concrete objectives expressed in terms of quantities and timelines. Then the last process is evaluating goals and progress after an elapsed period of time in light of the organizations success in achieving the set goals and developments that have risen in the interim.

Learners will discover how important it is for an organization to understand what is happening in their external environment and how the environment is changing. This will then enable learners to review organizations existing plans. Having explored the  where they are ,they will understand how to develop strategic options using modeling tools and then develop a strategic plan, giving due consideration to the core values, vision and mission of the organization. Learners will then look at planning and budgeting, the implementation of a strategic plan and the creation of monitoring and evaluation systems to measure progress during the implementation. The Course will provide most practical strategic planning training for managers who require a quick, simple and logical approach to create a strategic plan for their organization.

Course Objective

This course provides the learner with an understanding of how to review current organizational management strategies and the skills to develop and implement a strategy plan in a development organizations context.

Learning Outcomes

To achieve this course a learner will:

• Understand what Strategic Planning stands for
• Understand the external environment affecting an organization
• Be able to review existing plans and strategies of an organization
• Be able to develop options for strategic planning for an organization
• Be able to construct a strategy plan for any organization
• Be able to examine factors affecting the implementation of an  organizational strategy plan
• Be able to plan and evaluate for the implementation of a strategy plan.

Course Participants will learn to:

• What strategic planning means and how it differs from the kind of “maintenance” planning that is typical of most organizations.
• How to implement an effective process to discover what it is that you don’t realize you need to know before you can create an effective strategic plan.
• Ways to use proven strategies for incorporating the team in the strategic planning process.
• The meaning of S.M.A.R.T. goals and how to incorporate them into your strategic planning process.
• Best practice procedures to communicate strategic planning goals to the members of your team to increase buy in and maximize team performance in pursuit of these goals.
• How to develop a meaningful evaluation process to measure the progress the team is making in implementing the plan so that needed adjustments can be made that will assure the plan succeeds

Course Outline:

• Concept of participatory development
• Understanding strategic planning
• Formulating Your Strategic Planning
• SWOT analysis
• Identifying the core values
• Strategic directions focus
• Developing strategic objectives
• Key strategies or actions
• Components of the planning process
• Understanding Your Organization’s Mission
• Your organization’s core values
• Creating a mission statement for your own organization
• Creating a realistic future through collective visioning
• Determining organizational mandates (Mission statements)
• Strategy development processes
• Strategic Planning Principle
• Competitive Strategic Planning
• Ensuring Strategic Alignment
• Strategic Planning Execution
• Learning the three core processes
• Understanding resource allocation and strategy formation
• Mapping of interventions on timelines
• Determinants of the implementation of change
• Using strategic planning as an instrument for Organizational Capacity Assessment as well as Monitoring and Evaluation

Who should enroll?

This is an introductory course suitable for anyone who has recently started working in or is thinking about entering the humanitarian sector, including staff of humanitarian aid organizations, governments, UN agencies, and individuals actively seeking work in the sector. There are no prerequisites for this course. All participants are expected to have theoretical knowledge of humanitarianism, although humanitarian aid experience is not presumed.

Training Format:

• All materials are made available through our Online Learning Platform
• Students should commit approximately 5-6 hours of their time per week

Materials Provided:

Online delivery of curriculum materials, exercises and templates.

Assignments:

In order to demonstrate their understanding of the course content, students will be required to submit assignments at the end of each month.

COURSE DURATION: 6 months

REGIONS TARGETED: Global

Learning Plan

• Access to course materials on E-Learning Platform
• Online interaction with Course Moderators
• Monthly assignments
• 15-20 Page Project Paper
• End of Course Examination
• Certification

Cost: Amount €1000 per Person