Professional Documents
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PROCESS:
A TOOLKIT FOR EFFECTIVE
IMPLEMENTATION
PREPARED BY
Our aim in this Strategic Planning Work Book is to give you the tools to which
will assist you in developing your own Organisation's strategic plan.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Strategic planning is a powerful tool for laying out the template or roadmap for
future success and should be in every manager's toolkit.
Myth 1. You need a documented plan. The value of planning is not the plan
itself, but rather in developing a common language, articulating assumptions,
and learning to make decisions together.
Myth 2. A plan can describe all the things that must be done to succeed.
Strategy sets the direction and context for subsequent actions and decisions by
all in order to close the gap between where the organization is now and where
it would like to be.
Myth 4. Plans are built solely on facts and hard data. A strategy is a set of
assumptions about how the world behaves. Facts and hard data are used to
test its validity.
Myth 5. The planning cycle runs on your financial calendar. While planning
may be part of an organization's annual cycle, whenever major events and
changes occur, the plan should be immediately reexamined to test for the
continued validity of its underlying assumptions.
Myth 6. The work is over when the plan is done. Strategy must be
communicated, put into action, and integrated with daily decision making.
Myth 7. There is one right strategy. Strategy is about identifying and creating
choices through conversations between stakeholders.
Myth 8. There is one best process for building strategies. The key to
successful planning is fitting the tools and techniques of planning with the
organization's culture, capabilities, business environment, and desired outcome
and then sticking with those tools and techniques for an extended period.
The strategic planning model we have found useful for most organizations has
three phases:
The plan focuses on the future. It provides a common direction for everyone,
is an effective recruiting tool, can be shared with clients and prospects for
marketing and with suppliers for effectiveness, and gives you the ability to
track progress.
The ideal size of a strategic planning team is 6-12 members plus an outside
facilitator. Each team member should be chosen to represent different
segments of the Organization, not just direct reports to the Director General.
All members should have the respect of their peers. Senior, middle, and front
line management should be represented. Members do not wear their
"departmental hats;" they wear the "Organization hat" during the planning
deliberations.
One member, probably a younger one on the "fast track," should be charged
with handling the internal logistical details for the planning process.
The Chief Director has a prominent role in the planning team, sets the context,
endorses the result, but remains enough in the background that the ideas of
others may emerge. This is not an easy task for most Chief Director/Head's and
is another compelling reason for using a skilled outside facilitator.
The strategic planning process should be an open one within the Department.
While it is usually not practical to have everyone who wishes to attend the
planning meetings, the ongoing results should be available to all employees, for
example, via the Organization's intranet, through broadcast e-mail, or simply a
loose-leaf binder at the receptionist's desk. Critiques and suggestions should
be welcomed from all.
3.3.2 Iterative
While there is an underlying logic and flow to the strategic planning process,
the plain fact is that planning is a highly iterative process. Almost at every
step, the team must revisit earlier steps to ensure consistency and revise
accordingly.
Strategic thinking - the first of three phases in the strategic planning model -
provides the basis for subsequent planning and guides you in dealing with
strategic issues as they arise later. It embraces the planning bedrock of vision,
values, and mission and the grand strategy.
Future oriented
Easy to understand and remember
Reflect your Organization's uniqueness
Ambitious
Creative
Inspiring
Brief - try for ten words or less.
Strategic thinking - the first of three phases in the strategic planning model -
provides the basis for subsequent planning and guides you in dealing with
strategic issues as they arise later. It embraces the planning bedrock of vision,
values, and mission and the grand strategy.
Values are the second element in the planning bedrock. They reflect your
character and your corporate culture - the how you do what you do. Values
are long-lasting. They affect all that you do.
Organizations are like people. The good ones stand for something positive and
know why they stand for it. They live out their values consistently day to day,
impacting others by their example. Ideally, values should be:
Few in number
Shared by all
Inspiring
Clearly understood
Strategic thinking - the first of three phases in the strategic planning model -
provides the basis for subsequent planning and guides you in dealing with
strategic issues as they arise later. It embraces the planning bedrock of vision,
values, and mission and the grand strategy.
Mission is the third element in the planning bedrock. It translates your vision
and values into something tangible - the what of your existence. Mission guides
your everyday efforts and is the touchstone for decision making.
Mission is the products or services you provide, for whom, where, and how.
Focused
Clear
Specific
Distinctive
Short
Perhaps the easiest way to put your arms around what your mission should be is
by answering a series of questions.
Your driving force is the dominant factor that most influences the making of
major decisions. In our own strategic planning engagements, the following 8
driving forces seem to cover most organizations, with examples of
organizations allied with each driving force.
It is a rare Organization that can look at the above list and say, "Of course, it's
obvious that our driving force is ___." The discussion might start that way, but
you can bet that someone else will jump in to throw cold water on that driving
force and suggest another. Indeed, our experience is that some of the richest,
most vigorous, and deeply contentious debates in the entire planning process
take place when the planning team tries to identify their driving force.
Formulation of your strategy is the last of the four "big" statements that
constitute the strategic thinking portion of strategic planning. They set the
stage for the more analytical portion of planning and ultimately for the setting
of strategic objectives.
Strategy is the particular means by which you seek to fulfill your mission
and to move toward your vision, within the context of your values.
Your strategy flows from your driving force. Your driving force is the dominant
factor in making your major decisions. The secondary or tertiary driving forces
can legitimately be considered as decision influencers and can find their way
into your strategy statement if they are strong enough.
The driving force analysis is not the only way to determine strategy, but it
certainly is the most thorough and analytical, even if only to confirm the
obvious. Experience, however, suggests that the "obvious" isn't always so. The
extra time expended to be more analytical is usually worthwhile.
Even with a sure confidence in the validity of your driving force, it is still a
matter of great creativity to select a strategy that is consistent with your
vision, values, and mission.
In future Chapters, we'll take a detailed look at your internal and external
influences, so that you can determine which factors are most important in
setting your strategic objectives.
There are several approaches we could use for the situational assessment. In
this Chapter, however, we will follow the SLOT assessment, the most popular
situational assessment method and the most highly structured. It looks at all
the positive and negative factors inside and outside your organization that
affect your success. By definition, strengths and limitations are considered to
be internal factors, over which you have some measure of control. Also by
definition, opportunities and threats are considered to be external factors,
over which you have essentially no control..
Strengths are the qualities that enable you to fulfill your organization’s
mission. They can be either tangible or intangible. They are what you do well,
the qualities your employees possess (individually and as a team), and the
unique characteristics that give your organization its coherence. They fall into
four broad categories:
Human competencies
Products & services
Process capabilities
Financial resources
Limitations/Weaknesses are the qualities that keep you from fulfilling your
mission and reaching your full potential. They are those activities, services, or
other factors that do not meet the standards you feel should be met. They are
controllable. You want to eliminate or minimize them. They fall into the same
four broad categories as above.
Markets/customers
Competition
Industry/government
Technology
You must now winnow these many dozens of issues to a half dozen critical
issues in order to tighten the focus of your strategic plan. If you select too
many, this focus is severely diluted and subsequent actions will bear less fruit.
Step 1. Discuss
At this stage there are probably 10 or 15 sheets of butcher paper stuck on the
walls full of issues for all to see. Discuss the similarities and contrasts of the
issues listed to ensure everyone understands what is behind each. This will
usually lead to some consolidation or restatement of issues.
The facilitator restates the 5-7 critical issues and stresses that all subsequent
planning will be done solely around these issues. No other issues will be the
subject of the Organization's strategic focus, nor will they be discussed during
the remainder of the strategic planning process.
You have come a long way in your planning process and are nearing the finish
line. In the last Chapter you identified 5-7 critical issues facing your
Organization. In this Chapter you will develop specific, measurable strategic
objectives to pursue in the coming years which address these critical issues.
Most authors refer to these as "long-term objectives,".
Strategic objectives (SO's) begin with such words as "to have," "to be," "to
become," or "to achieve" and end with a specific year by which the SO will be
met.
You develop your strategic with reference solely to the critical issues you
identified in the last Chapter. Begin with the highest priority critical issue and
discuss ways to address it. When your ideas begin to gel, write an SO in the
above format. Make them positive in concept and wording. Focus on the
achievement to come, not on the shortcoming or problem in the present.
Since you might draft two or three SO's for each critical issue, you can easily
end up with 15-25 potential SO's. Once again, you must prioritize them and
choose 6-8 SO's to drive the future development of your Organization. This
discussion and prioritization process is markedly similar to the one you used in
settling on your critical issues, so we advise following that technique.
When you have completed this prioritization, you may well find that one or
more of the critical issues has no associated strategic objective. Don't worry!
If you have followed the process well, then the 6-8 SO's you chose are the best
ones. Resist with a passion the temptation to add more SO's so that all critical
issues are addressed, which can easily balloon the SO's to a dozen or more.
There is no quicker way to kill the vitality of a strategic plan than this! The
only way for SO's to be special and to serve as focal points for your
1. Is it measurable or verifiable?
2. Is it achievable or feasible?
3. Is it flexible or adaptable?
4. Is it consistent with the rest of your strategic plan.
5. Does it stretch your people without breaking them?
6. Is it clear, easy to understand, and inviting to achieve?
The strategic action milestones link your objectives to your people and your
resources.
Strategic planning sets the context for the organization to do certain things.
These are ultimately encapsulated in strategic action milestone summaries
(SAM’s) which identify the 4-8 milestones – major events, phases, or
accomplishments – that must take place in an orderly fashion for the SO’s to be
met, who will be responsible for each, when they are to be accomplished, and
what they will cost in both time and money. SAM’s provide the final link from
mission, strategy, and objectives to two vitally important factors:
12.3 Schedule
Report progress to the person or, in some cases, the board or other policy
group that the responsible person will periodically report progress to and
receive support and resources from.
13.1 Implement
This point seems to be obvious, but is terribly important. The hardest part of
strategic planning is to do what you planned and to be alert to the inevitable
opportunities for action that are clearly better than your plan (and to adjust
your plan accordingly).
13.2 Communicate
The strategic plan should be shared with everyone in your Organization, as well
as with other stakeholders – suppliers and subcontractors, customers and
clients, alliance partners, community and government Organizations. The
more people who know what you are trying to achieve, the more ideas will
bubble up, sometimes from unexpected places.
13.3 Monitor.
A formal progress review should be held quarterly. This should include not only
the obvious checking of progress against the plan, but also testing of the
underlying assumptions of the plan, the continued validity of the objectives,
and unanticipated events which might need to be reflected in the plan.
A more thorough review and update should take place annually, preferably in a
retreat setting, so that it can provide the backdrop to the annual budget
process most organizations engage in. In effect, the strategic plan becomes a
“rolling three to five year plan.” In practice, however, most organizations do
not need to do a thorough update and republish the strategic plan annually.
If well executed, a strategic plan starts becoming “stale” about the third year
and should be redone entirely from scratch. If this is not done, a planning
mindset – one of the most important products of the whole exercise – will be
lost for a decade.
When you redo your strategic plan, you will generally find little change in the
big issues – your values, vision, mission, and grand strategy – and even then,
changes will tend to be in clarifying wording, rather than wholesale changing of
concepts. Most changes will be in the critical issues and objectives, for, after
all, both the external world marches on and you have achieved many of the
objectives laid out in the plan.