Strategic Planning - $99.95 

Develop action plans to achieve your organizational mission & vision. Examples of tools included are: SWOT, Vision & Mission Statement, Voice of the Customer, Historical Pattern Recognition, Product & Process Analysis, etc. 

Strategic Planning

Planning is the process of determining your business/organization’s long-term vision or goals and how to fulfill them. Its purpose is to provide a framework for decision making on what short/long-term actions are important for achieving organizational success.

The agenda follows an eight task process that uses planning tools, techniques and questions commonly asked by skilled planners.  Since every situation is different, it is not recommended that you answer every question or complete every template. Use only the ones that best fit your planning needs.

Task 1: Describe your business/organization’s current purpose and mission.
Task 2: Assess the current business environment, market trends, and  strengths & weaknesses.
Task 3: Decide what is critical to work on - NOW.
Task 4: Decide where you want your business to be in 2-5 years and write  a Strategic Goal Statement.
Task 5: Identify a Preferred Future
Task 6: Develop alternative strategies to reach your Strategic Goal
Task 7: Pick the strategic alternative you want to implement.
Task 8: Map out action plans for: alignment with current organizational work efforts, and, movement towards strategic goals.

Task 1: Describe your organization’s current purpose and mission.

Purpose: The critical starting point for any planning initiative is to have an accurate understanding of the current situation because it provides the foundation from which all change will be based. NOTE: This is a high level or big-picture understanding.

Task 2: Assess the current environment, trends, strengths & weaknesses.

Purpose:  The value of looking at trends only becomes known after the fact. Maybe nothing new will be discovered but a future problem or opportunity could be recognized. It is better to anticipate potential problems/opportunities and plan for them rather than simply wait and react to them. Inevitably the companies (and individuals) that thrive the most are the ones that best analyze trends and prepare for change with strategic plans.

Task 3: Decide what is critical to work on - NOW.

Purpose: Select the future problem/opportunity that is worthy of attention and planning. People often do not look beyond the current situation and don’t realize their time may be better spent working on other problems or opportunities. The objective here is to put scarce resources (time, human resources and money) to work on the future problem or opportunity that immediately yields the highest return and benefit.

Task 4: Decide where you want your organization to be in 2-5 years.

Purpose:  Planning is a much more difficult process than problem solving. How well organizations and individuals fare in the future is largely determined by what they plan now.  This step identifies a future concern and establishes a strategic goal for improvement.

Task 5: Identify a Preferred Future

Purpose: Write a preferred/desired future statement or where the current state “should be” going. Writing a preferred futures statement represents a shift away from traditional planning. The thinking shifts to focusing on ideal future situation and then starting to take actions to get there. The objective is to look beyond the “likely” future and identify the “preferable” future.

Task 6: Develop alternative strategies on how to reach your Strategic Goal

Purpose:  The objective here is to generate alternative scenarios (ideas) on how to reach the future. Change, is simply defined as a gap between the current state and a future/Strategic Goal state. If change is a gap between these two states, then planning is the process of determining the steps needed to transform the current state into the future one.

Task 7: Pick the strategic alternative(s) you want to implement

Purpose:  Deciding which alternative solution to implement goes beyond just selecting the solution that best resolves the problem. Developing evaluation criteria in other areas must be considered. More than one decision-making process should be considered in selecting the scenario for structuring the plan. Note: Poor decision-making processes usually negate any and all innovative gain up to this point.

Task 8: Map out actions that align work efforts with strategic goals.

Purpose:  Our objective now is to outline a action plan for the future oriented actions needed now. Planning creates specific current action steps that lead to meeting desired future outcomes. It must include future contingency plans to cover actions needed when potential problems or opportunities arise. 

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