This streamlined, executive-level version of the capstone course of the Stanford APM curriculum highlights all the key concepts covered by the program.

Organizations stand or fall on their ability to execute strategy effectively. Has your organization already tried implementing initiatives like Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, ERP, JIT, TQM, CMM, BPM, CRM, OPM3, or other spoonfuls of management alphabet soup—without seeing the hoped-for results? Perhaps your long-term strategies aren’t getting the sustained leadership that they need to succeed because of the urgencies of day-to-day business.

As a streamlined version of the capstone course in the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum, Leadership for Strategic Execution—An Executive Perspective addresses the crucial role that leadership plays in achieving better organizational performance in today’s dynamic global environment. Developed by IPS and the Stanford Center for Professional Development at Stanford University, this fast-paced, two-day course helps develop skills in critical areas of providing leadership to teams of people who translate strategy into effective results.

You’ll explore your leadership role in your organization and how best to use it strategically. You’ll learn how you can become a more effective leader, whether you’re making strategic decisions, translating strategy, assessing risk, establishing sponsorship, or managing change within your organization. And you’ll leave the course with an in-depth appreciation for the critical context leaders must provide to create the optimum level of performance through portfolio, program, and project management.

Benefits to the Organization

As a result of Leadership for Strategic Execution—An Executive Perspective, your organization will benefit from:

• Increased organizational alignment that leads to fast, high-quality strategic decisions
• Visual tools that enable a shared dialogue on the options, constraints, risks, and interfaces essential for more effective portfolio, program, and project execution
• Better enterprise risk-management thinking
  

Learning Objectives

After attending Leadership for Strategic Execution—An Executive Perspective, you will understand how to:

• Apply a framework of strategic leadership at the organizational, team, and personal levels
• Apply a decision-making process that offsets the effect of biases
• Identify various types of innovation and describe how these must be aligned to your strategy in order to achieve successful execution
• Map strategies to the execution layer and create strategic metrics
• Use a process for prioritizing action to manage the risks associated with organizational systems that affect execution
• Assess your sources of power and identify areas for improving your ability to execute
• Assess the strength of your execution sponsorship and diagnose specific problems or opportunities that require action
• Change the way you interact with others to become more influential
  

Target Audience

This course is designed to benefit executives seeking to gain a basic understanding of the concepts and techniques covered in more detail by the full version of this course and the Stanford APM curriculum as a whole.

Prerequisites. This course has no prerequisites, but Converting Strategy Into Action—An Executive Perspective is highly recommended. 

Note: not applicable toward SCPM credential. Leadership for Strategic Execution—An Executive Perspective is a condensed version of a course in the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum. As such, it cannot be applied toward the Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM) credential.

Course Topics

The DNA of Strategic Execution

• A framework for examining leadership
• Strategy, execution, and leadership
• Alignment across domains and organizational levels

Making Effective Decisions

• Support for an evidence-based approach
• What is evidence-based management?
• Elements of a quality decision
• Individual decision-making biases
• Group decision-making bias

Strategy Innovation

• Factors that influence innovation decisions
• Which strategic outcome do we want?
• How mature is the market in which we will innovate?
• Types of innovation
• Dealing with organizational inertia

Strategy Execution Mapping

• The execution dilemma
• Strategy planning considerations
• Strategy mapping process

System Risk Assessment

• Obstacles to execution
• Managing system risk
• System risk assessment process

Leading with Power

• Ambivalence about power
• Sources of power
• Attributes for acquiring and holding power
• Influence strategies

Sponsorship

• Perspectives on sponsorship in organizations
• Sponsorship is a two-way street—analyzing the manager/sponsor relationship
• Portfolio, program, and project sponsorship
• Rules for managing sponsor relationships

Insights to Leadership

• Leadership for managing change
• Insights profile feedback analysis and discussion