Strategic thinking and strategic planning often takes place in separate silos in most public sector and corporate organisations. Strategic planning conducted in such isolation inadvertently creates rigidities that impede or hinder strategic thinking and responsiveness and ultimately impacts upon an organisation’s capacity for resilience and adaptability.

Working in small groups, participants will learn to adopt strategic thinking by first rising above traditional conventions and paradigms, and thinking holistically about the overall landscape and all the external and internal influences or dynamics that impinge upon it. They will then identify and map the critical paths for decision-making under varying circumstances and develop a systems perspective of their operating environment. By also modelling perturbances that test the robustness of the system, this strategic thinking approach will generate novel and imaginative strategies freed of the constraints of conventional dogma. These approaches can then be incorporated into integrated strategic planning processes with the inherent flexibility and adaptability to deal with likely future contingencies.


The Convenor:

Dr Gary Saliba specialises in the integration and implementation of processes such as systems thinking (considering issues as a whole rather than just the parts), futures studies (understanding what the future could look like), strategy development, computer simulation modelling and change management. He consults extensively across a range of government and commercial enterprises worldwide in developing organisational strategies based on plausible futures and aimed at improved responsiveness, flexibility and informed decision-making.

This course is implemented through the Australian National Institute of Public Policy (ANIPP). Attendance to this course attract a course fee of $1100 (GST exc).