The most important factor in accomplishing complete attendance to planning meetings is evidence of strong support from executives. Therefore, ensure that executives a issue clear direction that they strongly support and value the strategic planning process, and b are visibly involved in the planning process.
One example of a brief planning process is the following which includes four planning meetings and develops a top-level strategic plan which is later translated into a yearly operating plan by the staff: In the retreat, the organization may then begin the next step in planning, whether this be visiting their mission, vision, values, etc. Goals are often reworded issues. Planners are asked to think about strategies before the next meeting.
The next meeting focuses on finalizing strategies to deal with each issue. Before the next meeting, a subcommittee is charged to draft the planning document, which includes updated mission, vision, and values, and also finalized strategic issues, goals, strategies. This document is distributed before the next meeting. In the next meeting, planners exchange feedback about the content and format of the planning document. Feedback is incorporated in the document and it is distributed before the next meeting.
The next meeting does not require entire attention to the plan, e. Note that in the above example, various subcommittees might be charged to gather additional information and distribute it before the next planning meeting. No matter how serious organizations are about strategic planning, they usually have strong concerns about being able to find time to attend frequent meetings. This concern can be addressed by ensuring meetings are well managed, having short meetings as needed rather than having fewer but longer meetings, and having realistic expectations from the planning project.
Too often, planners jump into the planning process by reviewing the organization's mission or then establishing a vision and goals to achieve in the future. Instead, planners should always start by doing a "plan for a plan.
See a video about how to do a strategic analysis. A frequent complaint about strategic plans is that they are merely "to-do" lists of what to accomplish over the next few years. Or, others complain that strategic planning never seems to come in handy when the organization is faced with having to make a difficult, major decision. Or, other complain that strategic planning really doesn't help the organization face the future. These complaints arise because organizations fail to conduct a thorough strategic analysis as part of their strategic planning process.
Instead, planners decide to plan only from what they know now. This makes the planning process much less strategic and a lot more guesswork. Strategic analysis is the heart of the strategic planning process and should not be ignored. An external analysis usually includes looking at various trends, including political, economic, societal, technological and ecological. What is an Environmental Scan? Environmental Scanning for Associations. Stakeholder Analysis Stakeholder Consultations.
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The following assessments might be useful in helping you to take a look around the inside of your organization -- to assess the quality of all of its operations. Basics of Strategizing during strategic planning Strategy Is The following topics in the Library can be useful when thinking of creative approaches to address priorities found in planning:. Creative Thinking useful when strategizing new ideas Innovation also use when strategizing new ideas. One of the most important reasons that organizations do strategic planning is to ensure that they remain sustainable -- that they not only survive, but that they thrive well into the future.
So it's important to understand what makes an organization sustainable -- it's not just getting enough money. Now that you've identified opportunities O and threats T and also strengths S and weaknesses W , you could to do a SWOT analysis in order to identify important priorities to address and how to address them, i. Note that the next section below, "Other Guidelines In addition to a SWOT analysis, or you choose not to do one, consider the guidelines in the following articles.
Also see Business Development. If you prefer first to do those analyses, then see the Strategic Analysis section above. Use your browser to do a search for "mission statements". This likely will result in numerous links to a wide variety of organization's mission statements that you can review as samples of mission statements.
Getting Started on a Vision Suggestion: Use your browser to do a search for "vision statements". This likely will result in numerous links to a wide variety of organization's vision statements that you can review as samples of vision statements. Use your browser to do a search for "values statements". This likely will result in numerous links to a wide variety of organization's values statements that you can review as samples of values statements. See a video about how to do action planning. Strategic planning can be exhilarating when coming up with new visions and missions and values, talking about long-standing issues in the workplace and coming up with new and exciting opportunities.
But without careful action planning -- and diligently ensuring actions are carried out -- the plan ends up collecting dust on a shelf. Many organizations develop action plans for the first year of a multi-year strategic plan and refer to that action plan as an "operational plan. Setting Employee Goals Management-by-Objectives specifics about aligning goals throughout org.
Project Management guidelines for thorough planning and tracking to reach goals. I've you've followed the guidelines, so far, throughout this Library topic, then writing your plan will be fairly straightforward. A frequent mistake at this point is not communicating the plan to enough people, including external stakeholders. The following link will be useful to you now. Basics of Writing and Communicating Your Plan. A frequent complaint about the strategic planning process is that it produces a document that ends up collecting dust on a shelf -- the organization ignores the precious information depicted in the document.
The following guidelines will help ensure that the plan is implemented. When conducting the planning process, involve the people who will be responsible for implementing the plan. Ensure the plan is realistic. Can you really do this? Organize the overall strategic plan into smaller action plans, often including an action plan or work plan for each committee on the board. In the overall planning document, specify who is doing what and by when action plans are often referenced in the implementation section of the overall strategic plan.
Some organizations may elect to include the action plans in a separate document from the strategic plan, which would include only the mission, vision, values, key issues and goals, and strategies. This approach carries some risk that the board will lose focus on the action plans. Be sure to detail particularly the first 90 days of the implementation of the plan.
Build in regular reviews of status of the implementation of the plan. Communicate the role of follow-ups to the plan. Be sure to document and distribute the plan, including inviting review input from all. Be sure that one internal person has ultimate responsibility that the plan is enacted in a timely fashion. Consider all or some of the following to ensure the plan is implemented. Have pairs of people be responsible for tasks. As stated several times throughout this library topics and in materials linked from it , too many strategic plans end up collecting dust on a shelf.
Monitoring and evaluating the planning activities and status of implementation of the plan is -- for many organizations -- as important as identifying strategic issues and goals. One advantage of monitoring and evaluation is to ensure that the organization is following the direction established during strategic planning. What trends do you see? Are there areas of obvious weakness or strengths? Have you been following a plan or have you just been going along with the market? Identify Strategic Issues Strategic issues are critical unknowns that are driving you to embark on a strategic planning process now.
How will we grow, stabilize, or retrench in order to sustain our organization into the future?
How to Write a Strategic Plan
How will we diversify our revenue to reduce our dependence on a major customer? What must we do to improve our cost structure and stay competitive? How and where must we innovate our products and services? Conduct an Environmental Scan Conducting an environmental scan will help you understand your operating environment. Conduct a Competitive Analysis The reason to do a competitive analysis is to assess the opportunities and threats that may occur from those organizations competing for the same business you are. Here are a few other key ways a competitive analysis fits into strategic planning: To help you assess whether your competitive advantage is really an advantage.
To provide information that will help you evaluate your strategic decisions against what your competitors may or may not be doing. Download the Complete Guide to Strategic Planning today. Identify Opportunities and Threats Opportunities are situations that exist but must be acted on if the business is to benefit from them.
What do you want to capitalize on? What new needs of customers could you meet? What are the economic trends that benefit you? What are the emerging political and social opportunities? What niches have your competitors missed? What do you need to mitigate? What are the negative economic trends? What are the negative political and social trends?
Where are competitors about to bite you? Where are you vulnerable? Identify Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths refer to what your company does well. What do you want to build on? What do you do well in sales, marketing, operations, management? What are your core competencies? What differentiates you from your competitors? Why do your customers buy from you? What do you need to shore up?
Where do you lack resources? What can you do better? Where are you losing money? In what areas do your competitors have an edge?
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- Welcome Strategic Planner!.
- What is strategic planning?.
- Conspiracy Theories - Connecting The Dots;
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Developing Strategy Want More? What is our purpose? Why do we exist? What do we do? What does your organization intend to accomplish? Why do you work here? Why is it special to work here? What would happen if we were not here? A short, concise, concrete statement that clearly defines the scope of the organization. To do this, match external opportunities and threats with your internal strengths and weaknesses, as illustrated in the matrix below: Define Long-Term Strategic Objectives.
Implementation Schedule Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals. How will we use the plan as a management tool? How and when will you roll-out your plan to your staff? How frequently will you send out updates?
Who is your strategy director? What are the dates for your strategy reviews we recommend at least quarterly? What are you expecting each staff member to come prepared with to those strategy review sessions? Use the following steps as your base implementation plan: Establish your performance management and reward system. Your strategic plan outlines where your company is going, so that everybody in your business is working with the same information.
Ultimately, strategic planning helps to gauge what your organization is, exactly what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on optimizing your future potential. If you're a small firm, for example, a brief strategic plan might be appropriate. But a more detailed plan on various aspects of your organization may be more effective if you're a bigger company. Don't confuse a strategic plan with a business plan , which is a much broader document and includes a strategic plan, a marketing plan , a financial plan and an operational plan. In other words, a business plan is much more of an aspirational document, covering what your business is about and why it has value in the market.
The strategic plan, in contrast, contains an action plan with specific objectives and due dates as well as setting out who is responsible for what. Your strategic planning should be carried out in a team environment that involves key players in your business.
Overview of the complete process:
Generally, it's headed by the president of the company, who gets input from employees or a specific team. The team identifies key factors for the strategic analysis and participates in that diagnosis through, for example, interviews. The team is also involved in the formulation of the strategic direction and action plans. Scheduling the strategic planning process depends largely on the nature and needs of your organization. For example, if your business environment changes rapidly, strategic planning is essential to keep afloat and should be carried out at least once a year.