
The best ideas happen when you look outside
STRATEGIC IDEAS
Outside-in thinking
The big strategic idea is the organising principle that galvanises the business around overcoming the challenge.
We have a proven process which combines rigour and collaborative workshops, in order to create breakthrough business, brand, marketing and communication strategies. Outside-in thinking involves integrating diverse perspectives from outside of the client's world, in order to arrive at better ideas.
TRAINING
Get Strategic
We believe that the businesses and brands that win, have a strategic culture. They diagnose problems well, and then organise the business around overcoming them.
At The Planning Department, we offer our clients training, coaching and mentoring in order to help them become their best selves, and to encourage a strategic approach to problem solving in their work. Our training includes all aspects of brand strategy, communications planning, as well as helping people to facilitate workshops and research.
INTRODUCTORY CHAT
Give us a call
Need some freelance planning or strategy? Need help building a marketing plan, generating ideas for growth, or understanding your customers? Call us anytime and we'll let you know if we can help

ABOUT US
The Planning Department are Steve McCarron, Rebecca Ashley, and Helen Davies -a 3-strong team of Strategic Planners, each with over 20 years experience in building brand, marketing and communication ideas, as well as developing customer insights.
We specialise in strategy and research but can also draw upon agency partners who we have worked with and built relationships with over many years. These include creative, media, PR, digital and category management partners.
DIAGNOSIS
Intelligent Research
Original thinking happens when you surround yourself with diverse perspectives. The magic happens when people from different backgrounds with different viewpoints work together to solve a problem. That's why we design innovative qualitative and quantitative research approaches, so that we can use outsider thinking to help reshape how we view the world.
IDEAS & TACTICS TO WIN
Ideas + Strategic Plan
We use both offline and online collaborative workshop approaches to generate new product/service, marketing and communications ideas designed to deliver against the overarching strategy. We design in order to embrace diverse perspectives which help generate quality and quantity of ideas. These ideas are then used to create the plan for delivering the strategic direction.