Future Focused Strategic Planning For Success

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In undertaking a strategic planning effort, do you involve your team? If you do, have you ever found your team arguing over definitions or disinterested because they don't see how strategic planning will have an impact on their day - today?

At KLR Consulting, we believe the best way to ensure that the future you desire becomes reality is through strategic planning. Strategic planning is more than senior management analyzing numbers and utilizing them to project the future. It is more than posting a Mission Statement (created by Senior Management) on the wall and hoping everyone reads it every once in awhile.

We have all heard the term, "strategic planning," but what is it?

Strategic planning is a pro-active process to building your business that allows you to create your future and the systems to achieve that future with your entire team. The process allows you to define the future you want to create for yourself and your business. You will discover your purpose and mission, establish your core values, set specific and measurable goals and create action steps that will help your vision become reality. This process will allow you to create buy-in and commitment from every level of your organization.

Strategic planning is a management tool used for one purpose only:

  • To help an organization do a better job
  • To focus its energy
  • To ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals
  • To assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment

The plan is ultimately a set of decisions about how to incorporate the "what, why, and how." Because it is impossible to do everything that needs to be done in this world, strategic planning implies that some organizational decisions and actions are more important than others - and that much of the strategy lies in making the tough decisions about what is most important to achieving organizational success.

At KLR Consulting, we use a process to assist executives build the foundation needed for successful strategic planning.

1. Strategic Analysis

The first step in the strategic planning process planners identify or update what might be called the strategic "philosophy." This includes identifying or updating the organization's mission, vision and/or values statements.

Core Values are your few extremely powerful guiding principles that have a profound impact on how the organization thinks and acts; your "soul & passion."

Mission statements are brief written descriptions of the purpose of the organization; why you exist, why will customers buy your product or service. Mission statements vary in nature from very brief to quite comprehensive.

Vision statements are usually a passionate and compelling description of how the organization will or should operate at some point in the future, as well as how customers or clients are benefiting from the organization's products and services. They break you out of boundary thinking. They should be expansive and idealistic. They should stimulate thinking, communicate passion and paint a very graphic picture of the business you want. Great vision statements are fun to read.

This step also includes conducting some sort of scan or evaluation of the organization's environment. Planners also look at the various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (an acronym for this activity is SWOT) regarding the organization. You will be looking at both internal and external influences. This will help you to capitalize on your strengths to minimize or mitigate your weaknesses.

2. Setting Strategic Direction

Planners carefully come to conclusions about what the organization must do as a result of the major issues and opportunities facing the organization. These conclusions include what overall accomplishments (or strategic goals) the organization should achieve, and the overall methods (or strategies) to achieve the accomplishments. Goals should be designed and worded as much as possible to be specific, measurable, acceptable to those working to achieve the goals, realistic, timely, extending the capabilities of those working to achieve the goals, and rewarding to them, as well. (An acronym for these criteria is "SMARTER.")

3. Action Planning

Action planning is carefully laying out how the strategic goals will be accomplished. Action planning often includes specifying objectives, or specific results, with each strategic goal.

Action planning also includes specifying responsibilities and timelines with each objective. It should also include methods to monitor and evaluate the plan, which includes knowing how the organization will know who has done what and by when. This will allow you to engage and deputize all involved.

4. Monitor and Update the Plan

Planners regularly reflect on the extent to which the goals are being met and whether action plans are being implemented. The team celebrates achievements and learns from mistakes; realizing that planning and learning never stops.

"Most people don't aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit."
~ Bob Moawad

Benefits of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning serves a variety of purposes in organization, including to:

  • Clearly define the purpose of the organization and to establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that mission in a defined time frame within the organization's capacity for implementation
  • Communicate those goals and objectives to the organization's team
  • Develop a sense of ownership of the plan
  • Ensure the most effective use is made of the organization's resources by focusing the resources on the key priorities
  • Provide a base from which progress can be measured and establish a mechanism for informed change when needed
  • Provide a clearer focus of organization, producing more efficiency and effectiveness
  • Build strong teams
  • Increase productivity

Strategic planning can be an exciting process. Those involved gain a new working knowledge of one another because they conduct most of their planning activity outside regular business meetings. Frequently they gain new insights into the organization as well. Thinking about the organization without the pressures of more immediate issues often leads to renewal and increased dedication.

After all, as the old business proverb goes, any organization that doesn't plan for its future isn't likely to have one.