The first of Executive Development Workshop Series in Strategic Foresight and Strategic Planning, aimed at helping organisations face the future, started yesterday by the Centre for Strategic and Policy Studies (CSPS).
The first workshop was facilitated by international and local experts in Strategic Foresight, Horizon Scanning and Strategic Planning with a proven track record of working with governments and businesses in Brunei Darussalam and around the world.
With the establishment of the CSPS Brunei Futures Initiative (BFI), the workshop series is unique not only in Brunei but also globally as it combines the time-honoured process of Strategic Planning with the novelty of Strategic Foresight and Horizon Scanning to give participants a head start in solving “tomorrow’s problems today”.
This fact was not lost on participants who engaged in the first such workshop series last year who found the workshop both unique and valuable.
“It’s very helpful for our next strategic plan, which we have recently started to work on,” one of the participants said. Another claimed that the workshop was particularly useful, as it “introduced various toolkits to formulate strategies in a structured manner, making them future-proof by challenging assumptions, and also the importance of engaging stakeholders in a collaborative manner.” Following on the success of the 2016 workshop series, CSPS has again gathered a team of experts to help participants face the future, which include: Dr Jose Ramos, Action Foresight, Australia; Stephen Lin, Haines Centre for Strategic Management, Singapore; Dr Ivana Milojevic, Metafuture Australia and CSPS; Dr Diana Cheong, Dr Sophiana Chua binti Abdullah and Yuzilawati Abdullah from CSPS.
The series comprises three workshops – Strategic Foresight and Horizon Scanning, Strategic Planning Using Systems Thinking and Action Learning and Evaluation – which will be carried out over the next few months.
The series also involves an applied project lasting two months between the second and third workshop. Upon successful completion, participants will be awarded a certificate of competence by CSPS and Haines Centre for Strategic Management– Asia.
This first workshop of the series will take participants through a rigorous process using an interactive and action-learning approach with specific techniques designed to assist participants in recognising futurechallenges and opportunities; identifying preferred visions and barriers preventing their implementation; and to choose the best strategies for the successful realisation of their action plans.