Turning aspirations into practical plans for success:

The Extraordinary Execution Workshop

You’re at the expansion stage. “Your day-to-day activities

But are you truly ready to grow? are the true drive-gear of
It’s the classic entrepreneurial dilemma: you have your firm. When your daily
a proven product and a promising market, but how
actions are aligned with
do you turn a good idea into a great enterprise?
With the right tools, you can make a transformative your larger aspirations,
leap from managing a product to growing a thriving you’ll fulfill your mission
business, a company that understands why it exists,
where it’s going and how to get there.
at an astonishing speed.”
Scott Maxwell, Managing Partner
and Senior Managing Director,
A proven process for creating OpenView Venture Partners
a practical, actionable strategy.
The Extraordinary Execution Workshop is an inten-
sive, two-day forum in which senior executives work
individually and collaboratively to address their two
most important leadership concerns:

1. clarifying aspirations that set the company’s

mission, vision and values

2. crafting a strategic plan that aligns operations

—by year, quarter, month and week—with the
company’s deepest and most urgent priorities.
A hands-on approach with
prioritized next steps.
Exinda Networks Crystallizes
Under the direct guidance of OpenView Venture
Partners, a firm with a unique understanding of
Vision, Clarifies Direction.
expansion stage companies, leadership teams will
define a clear and meaningful purpose for their
In October 2009, CEO Michael Sharma and five
company that will:
other members of Exinda Networks’ leadership
team participated in the Extraordinary Execution
Articulate a vision of where the company is going Workshop. Michael confesses that he was initially

Unite the leadership team in one common mission
Determine the company’s guiding values
Uncover the strategic themes necessary for achieving
business aspirations
Set priorities that direct company energies and resources
Create strategy maps for turning aspirations into
practical actions
Establish measurements and assignments for
efficient execution
Align employee efforts to aspirations by year, quarter,
month and week
Eliminate unnecessary efforts that waste time,
talent and money
skeptical. “At first,” he says, “I thought I needed this
like a hole in the head. But it proved indispensable;
in just two days, we got a working plan in sync with
our vision.”
When asked to evaluate the impact less than two
months out from the experience, Michael says the
resulting plan his team created “is living, breathing
and gaining momentum.” Specifically, he notes that
the workshop “called out our core values and got our
senior leadership team speaking the same language.”
After the workshop, Michael and his team used the
document they created to share the company’s vision
with its 35 employees; the values they prioritized
have become a template against which the company
has evaluated new hires.

Document a strategic plan that can be shared across

the entire organization Most importantly, the experience has created a
road map for action. “We’ve been on a sprint
Form processes for monitoring, reviewing and since the workshop. It’s been an invaluable tool
adjusting strategy
for clarifying our direction and gaining alignment.
Today, everyone’s on the same page as we execute
“We’ve been on a sprint since by quarter, month and week. That’s the power of
the Extraordinary Execution Workshop.”
the workshop. It’s been an
invaluable tool for clarifying
our direction and gaining
alignment...”
Michael Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, Exinda Networks
Step by Step,
from Global
Mission to
Daily Actions.
Identification of Aspirations
Together, your leadership team
defines the mission, vision
and values that will turn your
company from a product-driven
business to a mission-driven
enterprise.
Development of Strategy Maps
Once the team has achieved a
united sense of business purpose,
they collaborate on strategy maps
that fulfill aspirations through a
cascade of operating plans by year,
quarter, month and week.
Designed as an intensive series of hands-on exercises, the
Extraordinary Execution Workshop brings your mission into focus,
establishes unity of purpose, and translates strategic directives into
concrete, operational plans. OpenView’s experienced workshop
facilitators lead participants through each step, helping them apply
innovative management tools to urgent business challenges.
The E x t r a or di na ry E x ecut i on Wor ks hop A ge n d a
Pre-workshop readings establish working concepts and common ground
among participants
Analysis of a model plan explores the working components of a successful
mission and strategy
Formulation of a mission statement that meets ten key criteria for meaning
and purpose
Development of a vision for carrying your organization into the future
Articulation of values important to the success, people and personality of
your business
Clarification of priorities to concentrate energies on the issues of greatest
importance
Development of Strategic Themes Development of People Themes
Finances Productivity
Economic model Internal roles
Customer and market perspective Vendor and partner roles
Define target customer segments
Development of Organizational Themes
Define target prospects
Structure
Define target marketing channels
System rhythm
Define indirect sales channels
Management productivity
Company output
Leadership
Product output to customers
Work environment/OD
Communications output to prospects
Value output to marketing channels Prioritize Objectives
Performance output to indirect sales channels Eliminate unnecessary, less valuable activities
Responsibilities to community and regulators Define priorities
Review of deliverables Create strategy statements
Development of Methodology Create a Management System
and Information Capital Using balanced scorecards
Information capital Setting SMART objectives
Design and development Determining activities by quarter, week, and day
Creating and delivering product output Assigning responsibilities and ownership
Customer acquisition Review cycles and schedule goals
New customer onboarding
Customer management
Managing partners and channels
 “At the expansion stage, your
Making the Founders’ Vision
a Company-wide Reality.
Founding partners Isaac Garcia and Arnulf Hsu are
no strangers to entrepreneurial ventures. They sold
their first two companies to CNET and are now on
their third, Central Desktop. “While Arnulf and I know
what we are; we need to instill our vision with every-
one else in the company,” Isaac says. “Before we
aspirations should not be about
a technology per se, but about
building a company that delivers
the right solution to the right
customers with the right
economic model.”
Firas Raouf, Venture Partner, OpenView Venture Partners

participated in the Extraordinary Execution Workshop,

our wives knew more about our vision than our
employees.”
By participating in the workshop, the founders
were able to define their mission and record it in a
document they could share with their employees.
“It helped us solidify what we want to do,” says Isaac.
“Once we had our vision locked in place, we could
take stock of the actions we needed to fulfill it.”
“The Extraordinary Execution
Workshop gave us a framework
for creating a strategy sustain-
able at multiple layers in our
organization.”
Scott Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, AtTask

Isaac and Arnulf refined their strategy to seven or

eight key themes for the year, then drilled down
further to assign two or three initiatives for each
quarter. “By the time the workshop was over,”
Prepare your venture for its next leap in growth.
Isaac says, “we had eighty-five percent of the
operating plan we wanted. This year, thanks to
To learn more about the Extraordinary Execution
what we learned, we’re already 90% of the way
Workshop—and how OpenView Venture Partners can
there for our 2010 plan.”
accelerate your success—contact OpenView directly at
(617) 478-7500 or email info@openviewpartners.com.