Method courses

More and more organizations have come to understand that situational analysis is something that should characterize every part of their organization – not just their individual internal experts. And many of them are choosing to offer internal training in trend and situational analysis. Others are choosing to add a module about trends and the future into their current management training programs or other internal training programs.

The benefits of a customized internal course include:

• The course content is adapted to your specific wants and needs and your situation.
• We can include a topical question as the case to work on during the course, which gives you the opportunity to have a situational analysis completed under the guidance of our consultants.

In recent years we have worked with clients including: ITRI (Taiwan), Novo Nordisk, Volvo Cars,  SAS, Vasakronan, the Swedish Defence Matériel Administration (FMV), Haninge Municipality, Sydkraft, Trygghetsrådet (TRR), Akademikerförbundet-SSR, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK), Akademi Båstad, Härnösand Diocese (the Swedish Church), Leader+ Sommenbygd, Halmstad Municipality, AstraZeneca, Stockholm City, Mölndal Municipality, the Swedish Military Intelligence Agency (Militära underrättelsetjänsten), Almi Företagspartner, and the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.

Theme-based programs

More and more often, we get asked to set up a training program that isn’t just about methods for trend analysis and strategy development, but also takes up some of the central issues that we seek to shed light on in our Agora networks, for example.

In recent years, we have also conducted a number of such training programs for everyone from Swedish and Scandinavian companies to Taiwanese institutes of technology and government agencies.

Are you interested in a customized training program, or a module within the framework of, for example, your management training program? Then call Petra Skaffloth and we will present you with a proposal.

BASIC COURSE IN SCENARIO ANALYSIS

Scenarios help you to capture opportunities and remain at the leading edge. By making the future come alive, we can understand with both our hearts and minds what society, our industry, etc, might be like in the future. Scenarios for the future can thus help both you and your organization to pick out the best developments before your competitors do.
The scenario technique does not save us from the uncertainties that will determine the future –  on the contrary it is based on the fact that uncertainty will determine what the future is like. For this reason, scenario analysis is an outstanding instrument for being able to manage a future filled with uncertainty. But the scenario technique can also be useful to those who want a powerful tool for communicating changes in their situations.
In this course, you learn the basics of scenario technique. It’s about tools that help you to manage and describe the consequences of the uncertainties that the future brings. The course covers the basics of building scenarios based on Kairos Future’s method for situation-based scenario building. During the course, we will go through different techniques for scenario building and scenario planning.
COURSE OBJECTIVE
The objective of the course is to provide basic knowledge and skills for being able to use scenarios as a tool in your work on a daily basis.
TARGET GROUPS
Business intelligence and strategy developers and managers. Anyone who wants to try out scenario technique to see if it might be a useful tool in your company’s/organization’s work related to the future and strategy development.
BENEFIT
You get a concrete instrument/tool that you can use to help make the future comprehensible for others. You also get tools that help you to manage the uncertainty factors in your situation in a structured way.
PREREQUISITES
It will be advantageous if you have some basic knowledge of business intelligence and trend analysis but this is not necessary.

BASIC COURSE IN SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

Widening your perspective and seeing how the world around you changes and is affected by trends can be the difference between success and failure.
This course gives you the opportunity to learn the basics of how to analyse your organization’s situation in an effective way through combining theory with practice.
COURSE OBJECTIVE
The course aims to provide theory, methods and tools for being able to perform situational analyses on your own.
COURSE CONTENT
During the course, we learn methods and tools for predicting changes in your situation and environment, trend analysis, market player and stakeholder analyses and an overview of how to organize ongoing situational analysis.
TARGET GROUPS
The course targets those whose responsibilities include working with situational analysis and future-oriented questions in companies and organizations. You might be responsible for business intelligence, a manager, a planner, responsible for strategy, a business developer, market analyst or consultant.
BENEFIT
The course provides basic knowledge for successful basic situational analysis. The course content can be used directly in your work.
PREREQUISITES
No formal prerequisites.

CREATIVE INNOVATION

The pace of development today is getting faster and faster and product cycles are getting shorter. Innovation for many is a way of differentiating themselves and for some a necessity for survival. Many companies have established processes for the development of products and services as well as launching and marketing them. What many lack, however, is an innovation process, that is, methods for generating a big, high-quality inflow of ideas into the organization. During this course, we use theory and practical exercises to learn how to create an effective, up-to-date innovation process. The point of departure is a trend and situational analysis that gives us an understanding of where development is heading in different areas. Based on this, we used a variety of tools from Kairos Future’s toolbox to generate ideas and innovations. These are then refined and polished before finally being wind-tunnel tested based on a number of criteria. Finally we work with models for implementation, continuity and systematization in order to generate a steady stream of competitive advantages.
COURSE OBJECTIVE
The objective of the course is to provide a framework for creating an effective innovation process from the perspectives of both theory and practice.
TARGET GROUPS
Product developers, business developers, situational analysts, strategists and others who work with innovation.
BENEFIT
The course provides effective and immediately applicable tools and methods that can be implemented directly in your own organization.
PREREQUISITES
The basic course in situational analysis is an advantage but not a requirement.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION OF SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

Do you suffer from the Cassandra syndrome? According to Greek mythology, Cassandra had the gift of being able to predict the future but also the curse of no-one believing her predictions. The best situational analysis of all time is not worth much if your colleagues and other employees don’t believe its conclusions. It’s important to also be able to convince them. One of the secrets is the art of making the conclusions relevant and alive. Being able to communicate a living picture instead of a long list of facts. At the same time, it must be simple and easy to comprehend. Effective communication is the key. That’s what this course is about.
COURSE OBJECTIVE
The objective of the course is to demonstrate methods and tools that will give you the possibility of communicating the insights gained from situational analysis in a simple way to the rest of your organization.
TARGET GROUPS
Situational analysts, CEOs, strategy and business developers, communications professionals.
BENEFIT
The course provides simple, immediately applicable tools and methods for those who need help in communicating the insights gained from situational analysis to the rest of their organizations.
PREREQUISITES
You should have some basic knowledge of situational analysis.

EFFECTIVE RESEARCH AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

The course provides methods for making your research more effective and giving you relevant information about your situation. Being effective in your research is not about learning how to search on the Internet or in databases. First, you need to learn to understand what you are, in fact, looking for. For this reason, we need to ask ourselves the questions: What sources can help us answer our questions? What sources can provide the most substantial information? Only after we know that it is meaningful should we begin the actual work of searching. The human brain looks for differences. Differences that point to or illustrate important changes in our situations. But in today’s information landscape, it is increasingly difficult to find the most relevant information. And even if it is right in front of our noses, many people can feel uncertain that it really is the correct information.
During this course, you will learn the basics of how to work more effectively and efficiently with information acquisition. Theories concerning information and information sources are interwoven with concrete, practical tips from Kairos Future’s ongoing research.
COURSE OBJECTIVE
The course aims to give participants both a background in and practical tips on how you to set up effective research.
TARGET GROUPS
Anyone who works with information acquisition.
Situational analysts, planners, officers working at government authorities and in local government, market strategists and business developers.
BENEFIT
You get concrete tips and ideas on how to do research more efficiently and effectively. You get assistance in being able to identify for yourself the most important sources of information for your work.
PREREQUISITES
No formal prerequisites.

INTENSIVE COURSE FOR MANAGERS AND STRATEGISTS

A course for those who want to learn the basics of situational analysis and strategy and business development in a compressed time frame. Situational analysis is becoming increasingly interesting for strategy development in bigger Swedish organizations. The possibility of being one step ahead of one’s competitors is increasingly about the capacity to sense changes in the environment and succeeding in translating them into practical business benefit.
The key to this lies in a systematic way of connecting situational analysis with strategy and having a common understanding among the management of how business and strategy development based on situational analysis is done in practice.
In recent years, we have developed a unique model for business and strategy development based on situational analysis. Its foundation is that successful strategies meet the environment’s requirements, lead to the achievement of objectives and results and are based on the special assets that the company possesses. This course gives you the opportunity to learn about methods and tools for generating new strategies based on both changes in the external situation and the internal situation in your organization. The tools also can be used for testing how well your current strategies or business models are able to meet the demands of the future.
The course is given in two stages with homework in between. Each stage consists of two full days. The course assumes that the participants have some practical experience of working with strategy development. It is therefore structured to run at a high tempo with less time for group work than in our other courses.
COURSE OBJECTIVE
The course aims to communicate effective methods and tools for linking situational analysis with strategy, and business and operations development.
TARGET GROUPS
Managers, strategists, business developers, organizational developers and others who work with strategies and development at various levels.
BENEFIT
The course provides a directly applicable system for strategy development based on situational analysis. As a participant, you can transfer what you learn directly to your own business/organization.
PREREQUISITES
There are no formal prerequisites but you should have worked at a strategic level.
LOCATION
The course is held in our Kairos Exploration Center in central Stockholm, or as agreed with our client.
TIME
4 days.
PRICE AND MORE INFORMATION
Contact Kairos Future for a quotation, phone + 46 8 545 225 00 or via e-mail to: academy@kairosfuture.com