- [Instructor] Don't forget
that there are discussion prompts
and exercise outputs available for you
to take notes on throughout our course.
Most of the videos have these,
so feel free to use them as you see fit.
Now, back to our course.
We can summarize our strategic thinking process
in these three steps or phases that you see on this chart.
It's important that you address all three of them,
although it really doesn't matter
in what order you go through them.
But please make sure that you consider all three of them.
Typically, though, the thought process begins
with conceptual strategy.
What are your aspirations?
Where do you aspire to be in
that three to five-year timeframe?
That's your vision, what is your purpose?
What is your mission?
What is it you're doing today to try
to get to that vision in the future?
What is your intent or goal?
What concepts or thoughts do you hold dear
and would never sacrifice in order to achieve your goals?
We refer to those as values.
So at this conceptual level of strategic thinking,
we really try to orient your focus, your allocation,
and so on based on where you want to go, your vision,
what you can do to get there, your mission,
and what values or philosophies
that you will never sacrifice in order to be successful.
For example, you won't do anything
that's illegal in the marketplace or overwork your employees
while valuing their work-life balance.
Next is the analytical level of strategy.
This is where you look at those aspirations and mission
and determine whether what you want
to do is really doable or feasible.
Will you have enough customers for your product?
Will they pay a price that will make you profitable?
Sadly, this is the part of strategic thinking
that's often skipped, why?
Because it involves numbers and data and analysis.
Many business leaders develop great ideas,
that's the conceptual level,
but then jump straight down
to the operational level and try to do it.
But that's why you're taking this course,
to make sure any mission
or vision can actually be validated
with good data and good data science.
Finally, after you've proven your idea's viability
or feasibility, it's time to put your idea into practice,
and that means looking at the operational level
of strategic thinking.
What will good look like for your idea?
How will you know you're making
progress towards your vision?
What metrics and targets should you
be aiming for to prove success?
What tasks or action plan do you need
to put in place to achieve those targets?
These questions are all part of the operational level
of strategic planning.
So take a moment now and think about where you
and your team perhaps get involved in this process
of conceptual, analytical, and operational thinking.
Do you help develop new ideas as part
of the conceptual level of strategy,
or are you spending most of your time really doing
analytical work, assessing the feasibility of others' ideas?
Perhaps you're more focused on supporting ongoing operations
and implementing some of those strategies.
The goal in this course is to make sure that you
and your data science acumen are involved
in all phases of strategic thinking.
Pause the course video here
and answer some of these questions
using your downloaded notes.
Think carefully about where you and your work gets involved
in a strategic thinking process
inside your team or your firm.