Summary:

For years Robert Bradford, strategic planning expert, focused on four variables in the Simplified Strategic Planning Process– value, probability, management effort and financial risk when assessing strategic opportunities.  However, recently he decided to include a secondary analysis of opportunities, undertaken when reviewing opportunity screening worksheets.

The purpose of this screen is to enable your team to quickly sort out the opportunities with the greatest strategic potential for your organization. Start by asking the team to rate each opportunity on two dimensions – resource requirements and strategic impact on the organization. This process helps management prioritize initiatives and justify saying “no” to those that impede the strategic progress.

In evaluating initiatives, the no-brainers are those with high impact and low resource requirements.  The tricky discussions – and often the most strategically dangerous issues – occur in the middle level zone – opportunities with moderate impact and/or moderate resource requirements. These opportunities can mire your strategic level resources in initiatives that produce only incremental improvements in your organization’s performance, while more fundamental, truly strategic opportunities are starved for resources because they are “too difficult”.

Article Quote:

“This screening is particularly useful when you are evaluating far more opportunities than your team can realistically handle (in my experience, from three to ten strategic opportunities, depending on the team and its resources). ”

Link: http://www.cssp.com/strategicplanning/blog/?p=557

Evaluating strategic initiatives with this process creates better focus on those initiatives that provide the greatest strategic potential for the organization. The company will be in a better position if it can accomplish a few key initiatives well than to work on several with no real results.

For more on strategic planning, seehttp://www.performancesolutionstech.com/category/strategicplanning/