
In this lecture you read the three kinds of people your strategy depends on and pick the move each one needs, then.
This course is built from five disciplines: the chief executive's view, strategic planning, organisational design, business finance and KPI design.
The map of the course
A dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as corporate strategy
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Strategy Table Map and fill in one line after each lecture.
The role inside an organisation, in detail rather than in theory
The competencies the job actually demands
The management tools used at this level
A checklist for assessing whether the work is effective
Running a strategy session at executive level
The tools and techniques used to develop strategy
Building a full strategic plan for an organisation
Applying SWOT and PESTEL where they help rather than decorate
Developing corporate culture deliberately
Tools for building and strengthening a leadership team
Embedding culture into daily work
Creating a code of conduct people can actually apply
Managing a product portfolio and an innovation pipeline
Developing and launching new products and services
Evaluating and selecting innovation projects
The systems used to manage the process
Building and implementing a marketing strategy
Techniques for raising sales effectiveness
Analysing and optimising channels
Building the management system that holds both
Financial planning and budget management
Financial analysis and risk management
Tools for improving financial performance
Capital management and financial development strategy
Approaches to making a strategic decision
Crisis management, and resolving one under time pressure
Risk assessment and building an action plan
Scenario planning and managing uncertainty
Strategies and tools for change management
Running and supporting transformation projects
Building the change plan and monitoring it
Managing resistance and getting people involved
Integrating AI and digital technology into business processes
Evaluating trends and choosing which to act on
Running IT projects and digital initiatives
Building a technology and digital transformation strategy
How responsibility divides between strategic and operational leadership
Strategies and tactics for managing jointly
Coordinating strategic and operational work
Managing internal communication between the two
What a strategic plan actually contains
How it differs from operational planning
The five-step plan
The strategic planning model
Preparing the project plan for the strategy work
Choosing who owns the strategic plan
Forming and training the planning team
Running the first planning meeting
Assessing mission, vision and guiding principles honestly
Stakeholder analysis and a structure review
Scanning the external environment
Gap analysis, and making recommendations
Shaping the desired future state
Choosing participants and a facilitator
Day one: working from the starting point
Day two: working towards the target point
Defining the plan and the desired outcomes
Finalising the document
Communicating the strategy to the organisation
Building the implementation plan
Developing performance metrics for the plan
Assigning owners and allocating resources
Executing against milestones
Training people, and sustaining the strategy afterwards
Who is responsible for the shape of an organisation
The design process itself
The five steps of organisational design
What problem you are actually solving, stated plainly
Strategic priorities and the star model
The typical symptoms that say the structure is wrong
Setting the goal, and the six drivers of design
Using the six drivers to choose
Organisational archetypes
Whether a matrix is the answer
The three types of matrix structure
Designing for operational management
Operating models and levels of management
Matrix management, networks and boundaries
Diagnostic indicators, and how power distributes in a matrix
Designing the leadership layer
Defining top-level accountability, and the options for it
The leadership cascade and organisational levels
Span of control, and making good staffing decisions
Developing the implementation plan
All at once or in phases, and how to decide
Whether a pilot is worth it
Managing the transition and launching the new workflows
What separates a successful redesign from a reorganisation announcement
The skills the work requires
How the project team operates
Wargaming and Vega
Parallel
Corum and ArcelorMittal
What transfers between them and what does not
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
A strategy that has not been converted into a structure, a budget and a set of metrics is not a strategy. It is a document with a nice cover.
Where strategies die
Almost always in the same three places. The org chart still reflects the previous strategy, so the new one has no owner anywhere. The budget was built by extrapolating last year, so the money is already committed to the old plan. And the metrics measure activity rather than the few factors that decide whether the strategy works at all. I have watched a good strategy fail on all three, and none of the failures happened in the strategy session. They happened in the four months afterwards, quietly, while everyone assumed it was progressing.
What this course actually covers
Five layers. First, the executive view: what a chief executive actually decides — direction, team, product, growth, money, crises, technology, and how that work divides with the operating side. Second, the machinery of producing a strategy: preparing the session, choosing who is in the room, running two days of it, and leaving with an implementation plan. Third, organisational design: the six design drivers, choosing between archetypes and matrices, redesigning the leadership layer, and running the transition. Fourth, the financial model — turning strategy into goals and resources, budgeting as a decision tool, the strategy pyramid, Lean applied to finance, and what scaling actually requires. Fifth, measurement: critical success factors, designing indicators that measure the strategy, reporting them properly, and the six myths that break most systems, starting with tying metrics to pay.
A note on scope
This is the whole chain, not the inspiring part of it. Roughly half the course is structure, budgets and metrics, because that is where strategy either becomes real or does not. If you want a course on visionary thinking, this is not it. If you have a direction and need it to survive contact with the organisation, it is.
Who is teaching this
I am Mike Pritula. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.
What is included
Lifetime access to all 44 lessons
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Working frameworks: the five-step design process, the six design drivers, the two-day session agenda, the strategy pyramid, impact mapping, the 10-80-10 rule
Real organisational cases, including Wargaming and ArcelorMittal
Where to start
Open your current org chart next to your current strategy. If you cannot point at the person accountable for each strategic priority, you have found the problem before lesson one. Enrol now and start today.