How to prepare your organisation for a strategy sprint
A four-week strategy sprint is a short, intensive piece of work. The output. A clear decision framework and a set of tested assumptions. Depends on the quality of the input. There are four things an organisation can do before the engagement starts that consistently make the work go better.
Agree on who owns the engagement internally
Every engagement needs one person on the client side who is the primary point of contact, has the authority to make decisions about the process, and can get other people in a room when needed. This is not the same as the most senior person in the organisation. It is the person who is most invested in the outcome and most available to the work.
Without a clear internal owner, engagements slow down at every decision point. Documents take longer to arrive. Meetings take longer to schedule. The four weeks stretches to six, and the momentum that makes a sprint useful is lost.
Gather the documents that describe the current situation
Strategy documents, board papers, financial summaries, previous reviews. Whatever exists that describes where the organisation is and where it has been trying to go. These do not need to be polished. Rough working documents are often more useful than the official versions, because they show the thinking behind the conclusions.
The goal is not to brief the consultant on the official position. It is to give them enough context to ask useful questions from the first conversation.
Identify the people who should be involved
A strategy sprint typically involves two structured workshops and a number of shorter conversations. Before the engagement starts, it is worth identifying who needs to be in the workshops, who should be consulted but not necessarily in the room, and who needs to be informed of the outcome without being part of the process.
Getting this wrong. Including too many people, or excluding someone who should have been involved. Is one of the most common reasons a strategy process produces a document rather than a decision.
If you are thinking about a strategy sprint and want to talk through whether your organisation is ready for one, the initial conversation is always free.