Meeting Formats for Internal Strategy Sessions

Format Types

Internal strategy sessions in Canadian corporations take a variety of formats, with the choice of format typically reflecting the intended purpose and the audience composition. The most common formats include the formal board or committee strategy review, the executive team working session, the bilateral briefing, and the offsite retreat. Each format has its own conventions for how presentations are used, how discussion is structured, and what outcomes are expected.

Formal board or committee strategy reviews are the most structured of these formats — they follow the procedural conventions of the board meeting context, with presentations delivered to the full board or committee and discussion following each presentation. These sessions are typically scheduled in the annual board calendar and are differentiated from regular meetings by the scope and depth of strategic discussion anticipated.

Working Sessions

Working sessions are smaller-format meetings — often involving the CEO and direct reports, or a cross-functional management team — organized around developing or reviewing a specific strategic question. Working sessions differ from formal reviews in their deliberation style: they are typically more interactive, with more back-and-forth between the presenter and the audience and a greater tolerance for incomplete analysis that will be refined after the session.

Presentations in working sessions often function as "straw men" — deliberately provisional frameworks designed to generate productive disagreement and refinement rather than to report complete, defensible conclusions. The norms of these sessions are different from the norms of formal executive reviews: more debate is expected and welcomed, and the presenter is less in the role of advocate and more in the role of facilitator of a collective analysis process.

Offsite Retreats

Offsite strategy retreats represent a distinct meeting format in which the usual organizational context — office environment, hierarchical protocols, time constraints — is deliberately modified to create different conditions for strategic deliberation. The literature on executive meetings notes that offsite retreats are often valued for generating different quality discussions than regular in-office meetings, though the realized quality of the discussions depends heavily on the retreat's design and facilitation.

The use of presentations in offsite retreats is often different from their use in formal meetings. Shorter, more visual presentations intended to stimulate discussion are common; the deep analytical decks typical of formal board sessions are less prevalent. The offsite format is also more likely to include facilitated exercises, scenario sessions, or structured dialogues that are not typical of formal meeting settings.