The document discusses strategies for making strategy actionable through a board game called mySTRATEX. Studies show that less than 10% of strategies are effectively executed. mySTRATEX allows companies to simulate executing their strategy over 3-5 years, making decisions and responding to events. It helps employees learn the company's strategy and the relationships between strategic objectives. The customizable board game can be used in strategic planning retreats.

1. Make Strategy Actionable

2. Introduction
• An AMA study indicated only 3% of CEOs said their companies
were successful at implementing strategy and 62% said their
ability to execute was moderate or worse (Mankins and Steele,
2007, Contractor’s business management report);
• According to a Fortune magazine article, less than 10 percent of
strategies effectively formulated are effectively executed (R.
Charan & G. Colvin. "Why CEOs Fail." Fortune Magazine, 21
June 1999);
• A Harvard study indicated that large companies only achieve
about 63% of their strategic goals every year and a third of
companies achieve less than 50% of plan (Mankins and Steele,
Harvard Business Review, Jul–Aug 2005);
• In another survey, companies estimated that 60% of planned
productivity gains were lost due to failure to execute (Neiman and
Thomson, Can Manage 17, Fall 2004).

3. I haven’t seen the plan…
Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-05-21/

4. Results
With mySTRATEX your company’s employees will learn the strategy
of your company. By playing the game, they will know in which
strategic objectives to achieve, what are the initiatives in which your
company will be investing and which events may influence your
company’s performance.
With mySTRATEX you and your management team will also be able
to better understand the cause-and-effect relationships between
different strategic objectives.
mySTRATEX will allow you to simulate 3 to 5 years of the life of your
company, executing the established strategy, making decisions
regarding strategic initiatives and responding to unexpected positive
or negative events.

5. mySTRATEX
mySTRATEX is the result of more than 20 years of experience in
helping companies in defining, communicating, executing and
monitoring Strategic Plans. It is a great tool to motivate managers to
learn and implement the strategy of your company.
mySTRATEX Simulation Pack is based on the Balanced Scorecard
model, developed originally by Professors Robert S. Kaplan and
David P. Norton.

6. mySTRATEX Board Game
Many companies experience difficulties in defining, communicating
and implementing their strategy.
mySTRATEX will help you demonstrate to your management team
the importance of having a clear strategy and what the strategy of
your company is.

7. mySTRATEX Board Game Pack

8. Playing mySTRATEX Board Game
During the workshop two to four
teams per board game will
compete with each other,
making decisions about different
strategic investments. The
interaction between strategic
objectives, decisions about
investing in strategic initiatives
and the occurrence of external
and internal events, will
determine the scorecard of each
competing team and, ultimately,
the winner of the simulation.

9. mySTRATEX Board Game
We use a board game to
simulate one year in the life
of a company. The board is
divided in four quarters and
each quarter is divided in
twelve cells. The movement
of each player is dictated by
the result of rolling two dice.
There are three types of
cells.

10. mySTRATEX Strategy Map
In the center of the
board game is the
Strategy Map scorecard,
representing the
strategic objectives and
the cause-effect
relationships between
objectives. Each
Strategic Objective can
have a score,
represented by the
position and the color a
plastic chip.

11. mySTRATEX Event Cards
mySTRATEX uses Event Cards
to simulate the things that can
happen during the life of a
company that will have a direct
impact in its performance. There
are External events that impact
all participants and Internal
events that only impact the team
that got the card. Each event
can impact one or two strategic
objectives, resulting in
adjustments of the respective
score(s). Events can have a
positive or negative impact.

12. mySTRATEX Strategic Initiative Cards
During the simulation participants can invest in Strategic Initiatives.
These investments will have a direct impact in the related strategic
objectives. Investing in Strategic Initiatives is also a way of
protecting your company from negative events or benefiting from
positive events.

13. Winning the mySTRATEX Board Game
The team that has the most
points in the scorecard when
the game finishes is the
winner. Only strategic
objectives that have a score
green or yellow count for the
final total score.

14. mySTRATEX Customization
One of the main benefits of mySTRATEX is the ability to customized
the game. You will be able to define your own Strategy Map, create
External and Internal Event Cards and prepare Strategic Initiative
Cards that reflect the intrinsic characteristics of your business.
The mySTRATEX Board Game can be an important component of a
Strategic Planning Retreat. The External Event Cards are adapted
following the PESTEL analysis and the Internal Event Cards are an
output of the SWOT Analysis. Once the Strategic Objectives are
defined and the cause-and-effect relationships established we can
print the Strategy Map, Event Cards and Initiative Cards that will be
used for the mySTRATEX Simulation Exercise. After doing the
simulation it is often appropriate to reflect on the current Strategy
Map and make some final adjustments.

15. Next Steps
Send us an email with information about your needs and we will
contact you to explain how we can help you.

16. Contacts
António Lucena de Faria
Av. Marginal - Ed. Parque Oceano 3º G,
2780 -373 Oeiras, Portugal
+351 214 228 870
alucenafaria@methodus.com