Leadership for Strategic Execution
An Executive Perspective

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

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.

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 part of our corporate learning solutions, 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 the executive project management course, Converting Strategy Into Action, is highly recommended.

Note: not applicable toward SCPM credential. The executive project management course, Leadership for Strategic Execution, 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

These courses may be combined with workshops included in our strategic consulting solutions to create an unparalleled custom learning solution for you and your organization. Contact us today to learn more.