The Design Gym Sprints

The Strategy Sprint

Quickly align leaders on where to go and how to get there

Who It’s For

The Strategy Sprint is great for leadership teams and cross-functional teams who need to:

  • Align on priorities and areas of focus
  • Clarify how each team member supports the strategy and the outcomes they are accountable to
  • Co-create a roadmap for executing the strategy, with an emphasis on learning and experimentation

How It Works

Week 1: Onboarding and Strategy Brief

Our teams become one team with an immersion into goals, desired outcomes, and business results. We co-create a Strategy Brief that will align your leaders and guide the project.

  • Immersion into existing documentation (asynchronous)
  • 1x 90m Visioning Session with the team leader (virtual)
  • 1x 3-hour Kickoff (in person/virtual)
  • Interviews with up to 8x members of your team (in person/virtual)
Weeks 2-3: Stakeholder Ecosystem and Scenario Planning

We guide your team in mapping the needs of your stakeholders (ie: customers, leaders, external partners), exploring future scenarios, and developing strategic frameworks.

  • 1x 3-hour Ecosystem Mapping Workshop + Needs Analysis (virtual)
  • 1x 3-hour Future Casting Workshop (virtual)
  • Additional 1:1 feedback sessions as needed to refine the frameworks (asynchronous)
Weeks 4-6: Objectives, Key Results, and Initiatives

We facilitate the hard process of prioritizing where to focus your time, team, and budgets. Our team will bring in various recommendations for the team to respond to and then refine together. Once aligned, we begin the fun part of ideating initiatives for how we might get there.

  • 1.5x day Strategy Session (in person/virtual)
  • 1x team inspiration dinner designed to deepen connection (in person, fees not included)
  • 1x 3-hour Team Leader 1:1 to finalize priorities (in person)
  • Synthesis and 1:1 feedback sessions as needed (asynchronous)
Weeks 7-8: Strategic Roadmap and Pilot Plans

We distill the outcomes into a set of deliverables that makes it unarguably clear where the team is going, what it means for each leader and employee, and how each person plugs in.

  • Development of final deliverables
  • 1x 90m share-out of the Strategy Playbook (virtual)
  • 1x 60m team retrospective to debrief the process and collaboration (virtual)
  • Optional: 1x 90m workshop to co-create a narrative to cascade through the team (virtual)

Sprint Deliverables

  • Strategy Brief
  • Stakeholder Ecosystem Map (current state + future state)
  • Roles and Accountability Frameworks (current state + future state)
  • Scenario Forecasting Framework
  • OKRs and Initiatives Roadmap

The Details

  • Time Starting at 8 weeks
  • Participants A hand selected team of 6-12 cross-functional people
  • Instructors Expert facilitation and coaching from 3 TDG strategists
  • Location Virtual or in person, wherever you are

The Business Case

  • Outcomes Accelerate quality outcomes
  • Engagement Increase employee engagement
  • Time & Money Spend less money and time
  • Customer Get closer to your customer
Interested? Let's connect.

EXAMPLES OF PAST STRATEGY SPRINTS

Fortune 50 Social Media Company

Led a cross-functional executive team through a sprint to inspire and co-create a 5-year ‘big bets’ product strategy

Sponsor: Head of Research

Fortune 100 Tech Company

Engaged the people leadership team to co-create their 5-year vision and priorities

Sponsor: Chief People Officer

Top 25 University

Engaged leaders from across the institution to reimagine education and develop an experimentation roadmap to test them

Sponsor: Dean of Students

Learn More

If you’re interested in bringing a TDG Sprint to your organization, or customizing a sprint to fit your needs, drop us a note below!

    About TDG Sprints

    TDG Sprints are strategy and innovation projects designed to help leaders move quickly, creatively, and collaboratively in environments that are volatile, lean, and fast moving (kind of like right now).

    What types of activities can you expect?

    • Core Team working sessions
    • Full Team facilitated workshops
    • Customer listening and feedback sessions
    • TDG synthesis, strategy, and design time

    What does a Sprint Team look like?

    • Our side: 3x strategists + 1 partner
    • Your side: 3-6 people on the core team + additional stakeholders at key moments

    My team is busy – what’s the time commitment?

    They can be fully embedded with our team or hands off – we know calendars are tight, we so we’ll mold to what is feasible.

    Our priorities are already set. How do these fit in?

    Sprints are designed to accelerate the highest priority initiatives you’re on the hook to deliver. We will work with you in advance to make sure they’re scoped against the right strategic priorities so it doesn’t feel like a ‘side of desk’ project.

    Check out the other TDG Sprint Offerings.

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