Strategy Workshop – Setting Direction When the World Is Changing
When did your leadership team last have time to think truly strategically? Not to plan, not to react, but to make strategic decisions? Strategy workshops with the verrocchio Institute create exactly that space: a protected environment in which gut feeling becomes clarity, options become decisions, and discussions become direction.
What Is a Strategy Workshop?
Strategy doesn’t emerge in the flow of everyday work. It emerges in a deliberately created space where what matters takes priority over what’s urgent. A facilitated strategy workshop creates that space and asks the questions leadership teams rarely ask in day-to-day life: Where do we truly want to go? What are we leaving behind? What will we win with tomorrow, not yesterday?
External facilitation makes the difference. We don’t know your industry better than you do, and that’s our advantage. Our job is to ask the right questions, and often the unfamiliar ones. We keep discussions productive and make sure that in the end it’s not the loudest voice that wins, but the best argument. We bring methods such as The Art of Strategy by Benno van Aerssen, which turn abstract discussions into concrete decisions.
Strategy today also means: strategy under uncertainty. This is precisely where our strength lies. We bring the experience that strategic leadership in uncertain times requires, along with the conviction that uncertainty is not a threat but a space of possibility.
Who is it for?
A strategy workshop is the right format for leadership teams and executive boards facing strategic turning points. Typical occasions: annual planning and strategic outlook, responding to market shifts or new competitors, post-acquisition integration, realignment after a crisis, preparation for a disruptive environment.
The format is particularly well suited to mid-sized companies and large corporations that want to develop strategic questions participatively. We facilitate workshops ranging from small leadership teams of 5–8 people to large strategy conferences with up to 100 participants.
Our Workshop Formats
No company is like any other, so we don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all format. We always adapt length, depth, and methodology to your specific situation.
Half-Day Workshop (4 hours)
The compact kickoff for teams of up to 15 people. Focused on one concrete topic, with immediately usable results. Ideal as an entry point or as a complement to an existing event.
Full-Day Workshop (8 hours)
Our most-booked format. Enough time for a complete run-through: analysis, creative phase, evaluation, prioritization, next steps. For teams of up to 25 people.
Two-Day Strategy Sprint
The complete strategy development process: analyzing the starting situation and competitive environment, developing future scenarios, evaluating and deciding on strategic options, setting priorities, and building an implementation plan with responsibilities and milestones.
Long-Term Strategy Accompaniment
We support you not only in developing strategy, but also in executing it. We stand by your side throughout the process as facilitator and sparring partner.
In-house, hybrid, or online
We run all formats at your premises, at an external location of your choice, or fully remote. The quality of facilitation and results stays the same either way.
Our Methods
We draw on a wide variety of methods to carry our strategy workshops: alongside Art of Strategy, these include future scenarios and Blue Ocean Strategy, among others. The result is strategies that don’t end up in a drawer but make it into quarterly planning, and that also hold up in scenarios you can’t yet foresee. More than 1,000 additional methods on innovation.wiki, from which we combine selectively depending on the strategic starting point.
Our Credentials
- 2,000+ international innovation projects
- 25,000+ people accompanied
- 1,000+ proven methods on innovation.wiki
- 15 books
- Experience in 32 countries
- Co-founders: Christian Buchholz & Benno van Aerssen
Why verrocchio?
The verrocchio Institute for Innovation Competence was founded by Christian Buchholz and Benno van Aerssen, two of the most experienced innovation coaches in the German-speaking world. Together they have accompanied more than 2,000 international innovation projects, inspired more than 25,000 people, and written six books, including the standard reference “Das große Handbuch Innovation.” Today the team is complemented by experienced innovation facilitator Christina Westing and a network of verrocchio experts.
What sets us apart from other providers isn’t the methodology alone, it’s the attitude. We work in the engine room of companies, where things get practical and where the new actually emerges. We don’t deliver presentations that end up on a shelf afterward. We work with you until the ideas are running.
Our name says it all: Andrea del Verrocchio was the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, a master who didn’t put himself at the center but brought out the best in his students. That’s exactly our role in your strategy workshop.
Strategy Workshops throughout Germany
The verrocchio Institute for Innovation Competence was founded by Christian Buchholz and Benno van Aerssen, two of the most experienced innovation coaches in the German-speaking world. Together they have accompanied more than 2,000 international innovation projects, inspired more than 25,000 people, and written six books, including the standard reference “Das große Handbuch Innovation.” Today the team is complemented by experienced innovation facilitator Christina Westing and a network of verrocchio experts.
What sets us apart from other providers isn’t the methodology alone, it’s the attitude. We work in the engine room of companies, where things get practical and where the new actually emerges. We don’t deliver presentations that end up on a shelf afterward. We work with you until the ideas are running.
Our name says it all: Andrea del Verrocchio was the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, a master who didn’t put himself at the center but brought out the best in his students. That’s exactly our role in your strategy workshop.
Related Formats
In addition to the strategy workshop, we offer other specialized formats that may be a better fit depending on the situation:
→ Future Workshop — when the focus is less on decision-making and more on future scenarios and foresight → Innovation Workshop — when the strategy needs to be supplemented with concrete innovation initiatives → Business Model Workshop — when the business model itself becomes a strategic issue → Sustainability Workshop — when sustainability is to be developed as a strategic lever → Team Development — when the leadership team wants to strengthen not only its strategy but also its own collaboration
Get in Touch Now
Talk to us about your project, free of charge and with no obligation. In a 30-minute initial conversation, we’ll clarify where you currently stand, which format fits your situation, what a realistic scope looks like, and how we can move forward together.
Christina Westing will answer your inquiry personally and quickly.
