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/

Summary:

Buying an established and profitable business without a strategic plan and seeing it go south is not bad luck, it’s the result of not being prepared. This is exactly what happened to a gentleman after he bought an established business. Right after the purchase, two key employees left and several long-time customers went elsewhere as their loyalty was to the previous owner, not the new owner. Profits plunged and now the owner is working hard just to keep the doors open.

The new owner never stopped and asked “What would happen to the business if a key employee left  or if long-time customers left for lack of loyalty to new owners?” In fact, he didn’t have any plan and thought he could walk in and everything would run smoothly.

If you want luck, then make it part of your action plan. Commit your goals to writing. Work your action plan, plan your work. Then see all of the luck come your way – or if you want, believe that you have been lucky.

Article Quote:

“Simply speaking, the failure to plan is planned failure. Without an action plan to begin to guide a business or even an individual, the end result is usually walking down the wrong path along with a lot of spraying and praying going on.”

Link: http://strategicplanning.doodig.com/2010/02/15/strategic-planning-tip-bad-luck-is-the-result-of-not-planning/

An old quote states: “Good luck happens when preparedness meets opportunity.” Strategic planning consists of knowing your market, your organizational structure,  purpose and vision, company strengths and weaknesses, and knowing where you want to the company to be in the future. Action is taking that distant future goal, breaking it down into actionable tasks that can be measured, and incorporating those tasks into daily operations.

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

Summary:

Strategy planning is important but needs to be met with action in the real world if the strategy is to move from fantasy to reality. Dealing with reality requires the ability to cope with the facts instead of ignoring them from a twenty-thousand foot point of view. An example of this is what happened inside the Toyota company. Toyota executives had knowledge of fatal crashes involving their automobiles back in 2007, yet customers had to wait until February 2010 for Toyota to finally announced a full recall of over 8.5 million vehicles.

The problems of fatal crashes in other countries were not immediately important to the executives of Toyota. The planning process involved consensus in Japan rather than consensus worldwide. They were busy too looking at the big picture at a distance to see the detail that mattered.

Article Quote:

“Strategy isn’t always wrong. It can be extremely valuable. Planning doesn’t always fail. And it is certainly necessary. Yet overconfidence in the power of strategic planning has led to financial crisis, to botched and illegal wars, to missed opportunities in business, politics, sports, and life.”

Link: http://www.management-issues.com/2010/2/15/opinion/strategy-is-fantasy–action-is-real.asp

Strategic planning can be considered a fantasy because it looks to an unknown future and makes predictions about how it will unfold. Keeping the focus of the strategic plan on the core business values; in Toyota’s case that would be to design and manufacture dependable cars, will keep your company from trying to be everything to everyone.

Toyota became the largest car manufacturer in the world in 2009, in part because they wanted to make cars and trucks for each class of consumer. By changing the focus from dependability to ‘be everything to everyone’, Toyota’s quality controls were compromised.

Faulty parts were installed in their vehicles and when the fatal crashes were brought to Toyota’s attention, nothing was done to correct the problem. Nothing, until a widely publicized crash in California brought the problem right to Toyota’s front steps.

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

Summary:

Developing a strategic plan is often a time consuming and unanticipated chore. Yet, without a strategic plan, businesses have no direction in which to point their company and they are left to react to changes instead of having a plan to manage changes as they occur.

After careful analysis of all trends from industry to economic, the organizational structure and the target market, then the mission statement is constructed. For some who do not have the resources of time, money and energy, the mission statement can simply be how much money do you want in your bank account by December 31 of the planning year?

Article Quote:

“Many business people have really bad attitudes about strategic planning even though they believe that strategy is probably a good thing. This is consistent in that most people do not plan their lives less alone their businesses. Plan is really a hidden dirty 4 letter word.”

Link:http://strategicplanning.doodig.com/2010/02/14/strategic-planning-coaching-tip-plan-is-not-a-dirty-four-letter-word/

While this article does a good job of giving a quick overview of strategic planning, I disagree with the validity of the mission statement above. A mission statement states what the purpose of the organization is while a vision statement outlines what/where the organization ultimately wants to be.

Simply stating how much money you would like to see in your account by a certain date is actually more of a goal than a mission statement. More appropriate would be something like this, “Here at XYZ company, we design, manufacture, and install high quality liturgical furniture for all church denominations that reflects the individuality of the communities in which they serve.”

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

Summary:

What do you do when you think the strategic plan you are asked to follow is flawed? This article addresses this question with the answer that as a good citizen within your company, it is your responsibility to speak up.

However, you should proceed cautiously as negativity is sure to be met with resistance by the executives that spent much time and energy creating the plan.  To begin with, you should diagnose and understand the whole picture by trying to understand what problem executives were trying to solve and the methodology behind it.

Next, contextualize your concerns by asking yourself, “Is it that you would have expected a different direction or do you believe that the analysis, facts, or process that the company used [were] flawed?”

If afterwards  you still feel that the strategy is flawed, quietly and carefully bring it up to your immediate supervisor first. Having data to back up your assumptions and approaching the subject as a concerned employee will go a lot farther with your boss than a hot headed approach.

Article Quote:

“After taking the above steps, if your concerns have been shrugged off or disputed, you may need to choose your battles. “Skepticism is hugely helpful in organizations but bloody-minded obstinacy is not,” Sull says. People have very little respect for someone who ruthlessly fights over imperfections.”

Link: http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2010/02/when-you-think-the-strategy-is.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+harvardbusiness/hmu+(Management+Essentials+on+HBR.org)

Doing your homeword and asking honest questions about your true motivation for disagreeing with the strategic plan may be enough to realize that perfection isn’t possible and the plan – while you may not understand the reasoning behind it – may not be as flawed as originally thought.

However, even if you are correct in your opinion, be prepared for resistance by articulating your concerns with a well reasoned argument with correct data to back it up.

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

Summary:

Strategic planning and strategic thinking are not the same. Strategic planning is a process of identifying goals and creating a path to reach those goals. By contrast, people who have the ability to think strategically can step outside their normal frame of reference and understand that it’s only one of many possible frames.

Executives often become too focused on the task of exceeding last quarter’s numbers, that they fail to see the broader landscape. For instance, in a four-week executive-education course, students were presented with this challenge using the example of Apple’s iPod — how did a small computer company with only a 5 percent share of the market  come out with this revolutionary new product, while Sony Corp., which had all the components inside its organization to create the iPod, failed to do so? The answer: simply because Sony executives failed to see outside the box and instead stayed within their comfort zone.

Article Quote:

“Planning is, by definition, a sense that there’s a Point A and a Point Z, and simply a number of steps from point to point — it’s a linear process. Strategic thinking, by contrast, is a way of conceiving of a problem or challenge more holistically.”

Link: http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=330860356

When strategic thinking is fostered in an organization, people can more easily identify problems areas and circumvent them before they become giant headaches. Employees become more aware of the company goals, thus becoming more engaged in the execution of the strategic plan.

For more on strategic planning and execution, see http://www.performancesolutionstech.com/category/strategicplanning/

Summary:

Gerald Nanninga uses the analogy of running a race and compares it to running a business. In the race, one runner is superbly equipped for several conditions (and must carry all of the equipment) versus a runner that packed light with only essentials. Of course the runner that packed only essentials will win the race. Companies that strive to be well equipped in all areas often find themselves burdened down, whereas a company that focuses on elements that help achieve the strategic plan are in a far better position to win.

For example, Toyota built their strategic position and their key focus of their efforts around improving the dependability in the way they designed and manufactured cars. For years, this strategy has paid off for Toyota.

Consumers’ belief in Toyota’s dependability meant Toyota could charge a premium price. Yet, somewhere along the way Toyota tried to do too much by building cars as well as trucks -and they wand to do it for every consumer segment, even segments that may not be able to afford reliability. As a result, dependability as a core focus didn’t get the attention it needed and corners were cut. Thus resulting in mass recalls.

Article Quote:

“A winning strategy points out your company’s point of focus (where it will win) and then makes trade-offs on where to place your energy so that you can win the race at that point of focus.”

Link: http://planninga-from-nanninga.blogspot.com/2010/02/strategic-planning-analogy-306-focus.html

Keeping the focused on core aspects most critical to your company’s strategic position and downplaying or outsourcing other factors allows your company to succeed without peripheral distractions. If a goal or an objective doesn’t add subsistence to the focus of the company, then it should not be pursued.

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

Summary:

Although a strategic plan translates to a greater ability to accomplish goals, few invest the time necessary to actually create a plan. Strategic planning involves a lot of marketing research, forecasts, and a clear understanding of the business.

Management should review the company’s mission, vision and cultural statement and assess goals, objectives, strategies and a tactical plan to get from Point A to Point B. A good plan usually covers 3-5 years and should be a living, breathing document providing focus, but that allows for changes in direction should opportunities or threats arise.

The first step in developing a business plan is to understand what these plans are supposed to achieve. A good business plan should provide detailed guidelines, objectives and action that will enable you to:

1. deliver a product that satisfies the customer
2. become more efficient than your competition
3. become more profitable

Article Quote:

“I am amazed how many people spend weeks planning their vacations, but never set aside time to plan the year(s) for their business or life. I also see the opposite, people who over complicate their strategic planning and get overwhelmed and discouraged in the process.”

Link:http://small-business-management.bestmanagementarticles.com/a-35901-how-do-you-or-should-you-do-your-small-business-planning.aspx

Developing a strategic plan is only the first half of the battle, executing the plan is the second. In order to successfully execute a strategic plan, it needs to be broken down into actionable steps that easily translate into to-do’s and objectives. This enables leadership to monitor results and make course corrections when necessary, while at the same time keeping the plan alive.

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