(This module is in the organization development program. However, this module can also be used by anyone as a self-study exercise to learn more about strategic planning and writing a strategic plan.)
INTRODUCTION
Simply put, strategic planning
identifies where the organization is going over the next (typically) one to
three years and how it's going to get there. The "strategic" part of this
planning process is the continual attention to current changes in the
organization and its environment, and how this effects the future of the
organization. Skills in strategic planning are critical to the long-term success
of your organization. This form of planning includes:
a) Taking a
wide look around at what's going on outside the organization and how it might
effect the organization (an environmental scan)
b) Taking a hard look at
what's going on inside the organization, including its strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (a SWOT analysis)
c) Establishing statements of
mission, vision and values
d) Establishing goals to accomplish over the next
(usually) three years or so, as a result of what's going on inside and outside
the organization
e) Identifying how those goals will be reached (strategies,
objectives, responsibilities and timelines)
Strategic planning determines the overall direction and goals of the
organization. Consequently, strategic planning influences numerous aspects of
the organization, including what:
a) Products and services will be provided
by the business and how those products and services will be designed
b)
Organizational design and roles are needed by the organization
c) Performance
goals are established for positions throughout the business
d) Board
committees should be developed (in the case of corporations)
e) Resources are
needed to reach those goals, and consequently, how much money is needed to
procure those resources -- ultimately, the goals determine the content of
various budgets
Two key points to remember while proceeding through this module:
1) The
planning process is at least as important as the planning document itself.
2) The planning process is never "done" -- the planning process is a
continuous cycles that's part of the management process itself.
NOTE ABOUT BOARD COMMITTEES: Consider establishing a Board Planning Committee (in the case of corporations) to review and help guide implementation the information in this learning module. The Planning Committee might be comprised of chairs from other board committees. Major activities and goals from this learning module could be incorporated in that Committee's Committee Work Plan. This module includes additional recommendations for membership of the group of planners.
NOTE ABOUT OCCASIONAL REFERENCES TO NONPROFIT MATERIALS: Various links below refer to nonprofit strategic planning -- this is little difference between strategic planning in for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Consequently, all of the materials referenced below can be useful to understand strategic planning in for-profit organizations. See "First, a Point About For-Profit and Nonprofit Strategic Planning" at Recommended Approach to Understanding Strategic Planning.)
NOTE ABOUT HOW TO DEEPEN AND ENRICH LEARNING IN THIS MODULE: Adults learn best when they actually a) apply new information and materials, and b) exchange ongoing feedback with others about their experiences. You can substantially deepen and enrich your learning from this module by forming your own local learning community! Members of the community support each other to apply new learning, exchange ongoing feedback and share results from their experiences. Form an Authenticity Peer-Training Circle for about $10 a member!
Introduction to Basics of Planning (general to most planning
processes)
Read all of the following document referenced by the
following link.
General
Planning Process (basic elements of planning process)
Introduction to Strategic Planning
Read all of
the following documents referenced by the following links.
Benefits
of Strategic Planning
Basic
Description of Strategic Planning
When
Should Strategic Planning Be Done?
Basic Overview
of Various Strategic Planning Models
Preparation for Strategic Planning
Read all of
the following documents referenced by the following links.
Need
Consultant or Facilitator to Help You With Planning?
Who
Should Be Involved in Planning?
How
Many Planning Meetings Will We Need?
How
Do We Ensure Implementation of Our New Plan?
Conducting Strategic Planning
Read all of the
following documents referenced by the following links.
Basics of
Developing Mission, Vision and Values Statements
Basics of
Identifying Strategic Issues and Goals
Basics of
Action Planning (as part of strategic planning)
Writing and
Communicating the Plan
Basics of
Monitoring, Evaluating and Deviating from Plan
Introduction to Strategic Planning
1. What is
the overall purpose of strategic planning? (See Benefits
of Strategic Planning, What
is Strategic Planning? (go to Strategic Planning) and Getting
a Feel for Strategic Planning.)
2. What's the difference between strategic planning and long-range planning? (See What are The Key Concepts and Definitions in Strategic Planning? (go to Strategic Planning))
Preparation for Strategic Planning
1. What are
some preparations to make before conducting strategic planning? (See What
Do I Need to Know Before I Start the Planning Process? ) and How
Do I Use Retreats in the Planning Process? )
2. What are some basic considerations when deciding if you need to use an outside facilitator or not? (See Should I Use an External Consultant?) and Need Consultant or Facilitator to Help You With Planning?
3. A major complaint about strategic planning is that the plan document ends up collecting dust on a shelf. What are some considerations to ensure that plan is actually implemented? (See How Do We Increase the Chance of Our Plan Being Implemented?)
4. Who should be involved in strategic planning? (See What Are the Individual Roles in Strategic Planning?)
Conducting Strategic Planning
1. What are the
basic steps in the strategic planning process? (See What
Are the Basic Steps in the Strategic Planning Process?, Basic
Description of Strategic Planning and Basic Overview
of Various Strategic Planning Models
2. What is a vision statement? (See What is a Vision Statement?)
3. What is a mission statement? (See What is a Mission Statement?)
4. What is a values statement? (See Basics in Developing a Values Statement.)
5. What is a situational assessment? (See What is a Situational Assessment?, Environmental Scan (taking a wide look around) and Looking at Organization's Strength's, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)
6. What is a strategy? (See What is a Strategy?)
7. What is an annual operating plan? (See How Do You Develop an Annual Operating Plan?)
9. What should a strategic plan document include? (See What Should a Strategic Plan Include? and Basics of Writing and Communicating the Plan.)
10. What's involved in writing and communicating the strategic plan? (See Writing and Communicating the Plan.)
11. How is a strategic plan evaluated? What if we end up changing our plan? (See Basics of Monitoring, Evaluating and Deviating from Plan.)
Organizational Systems and Practices Driven by Strategic
Goals
1. In the Introduction section of this learning module, you
read about numerous aspects (5) of the organization that were directly
influenced by the results of strategic planning. Name as many of these items as
you can and then compare your answers to those listed in the Introduction
section of this module.
Questions for Organizations That Have Already Done Strategic
Planning
1. Identify any issues in your current approach to
strategic planning and address the issues before you begin your next round of
strategic planning. Consider the following questions. Is your strategic plan
being implemented? If not, why not? Was your board (in the case of corporations)
sufficiently involved in strategic planning? If not, why not? Write a one-page
description of the issues you see with your planning process, how it can be
improved and who must do what to improve it. Discuss this description in an
upcoming board meeting for feedback and to write an action plan to address the
issues. (The following link may help you in your considerations. See How
Do We Increase the Chance of Our Plan Being Implemented?)
Preparation (for Organizations That Have Not Yet Done
Strategic Planning)
1. Address any hesitations that planners might
have before you start planning. Do you have any reservations or hesitations
about the value of strategic planning? If you do not want to pursue the
strategic planning process as it is described in this module, then how will you
(the board, chief executive and other employees) decide what your organization
will be doing over the next few years and how it will do it? (Many
banks/funders, prospective board members and chief executives will want to see
some form of a strategic plan document. Consider this in your decision about how
your organization will do strategic planning.) (The following links may help you
in your considerations and preparation. NOTE: They refer to nonprofits, but
apply to for-profits, as well. See Benefits
of Strategic Planning and What
Do I Need to Know Before I Start the Planning Process?.
2. Who should be involved in the planning? Consider who is responsible for the direction of your organization, who will be responsible for carrying out all or portions of your plan and people who will be effected by implementation of your plan. Then decide who will be involved in your planning. (The following links may help you in your considerations. They refer to nonprofits, but apply to for-profits, as well. See What Are the Individual Roles in Strategic Planning?)
3. How many meetings might you plan for your strategic planning process? (The following links may help you in your considerations. They refer to nonprofits, but apply to for-profits, as well. See How Many Planning Meetings Will We Need? and How Do I Use Retreats the Planning Process?)
4. Might you need a consultant to help your through the process for the first time? (The following link may help you in your considerations. They refer to nonprofits, but apply to for-profits, as well. See Should I Use an External Consultant? and Using Consultants.)
Developing Your Basic Strategic Plan
1.
Write Your Mission Statement
In the section labeled "Mission
Statement" in the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write a concise description of the purpose
of your organization. Answer the question: "Why does our organization exist?"
When answering this question, include the nature of your products and the groups
of customer who buy your products. The mission statement should provide
continued direction and focus to your plans and operation in your organization.
(For additional assistance, see Writing
Mission Statements.)
2. Write Your Vision Statement
In the section labeled
"Vision Statement" in the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write your vision statement. Answer the
question "What do you hope for your organization and customers?" Ideally, it
should be written in a compelling, inspirational fashion. (For additional
assistance, see Writing
Vision Statements.)
3. Write Your Values Statement
In the section labeled
"Values Statement" in the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the important values from which
you want your organization to operate. The values statement depicts the
priorities in how the organization carries out activities with stakeholders.
(For additional assistance, see Writing
Values Statements.)
4. Conduct an External Analysis
In Appendix C of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down your thoughts from an external
analysis. An external analysis looks at societal, technological, political, and
economic trends effecting the organization, e.g., trends in the economy, recent
or pending legislation, demographic trends, rate of access to trained labor, and
competition. In your external analysis, don't forget to look at stakeholders’
impressions of the organization, including bankers', customers’, community
leaders’, etc. (For additional assistance, see Environmental
Scan (taking a wide look around).)
5. Conduct an Internal Analysis (SWOT)
In Appendix C of the
Framework
for a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down your thoughts from your
internal analysis. Write down the major strengths and weaknesses of your
organization. Write down the major threats and opportunities regarding your
organization. Consider trends effecting the organization, e.g., strength of
sales, reputation of the organization, expertise of employees, facilities,
strength of finances, strength of administrative offices and operations, etc.
(For additional assistance, see Looking
at Organization's Strength's, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
(SWOT).)
6. Identify Strategic Issues
In Appendix C of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the major immediate and
near-term issues that your organization must address. New organizations, in
particular, are often better off to first look at the major obstacles or issues
that if faces, and next identify the more forward-looking, developmental goals
to accomplish over the next few years. For example, current issues might be that
sales are dropping, there is no research and development to generate new
products, employee turnover rate is too high, etc. Developmental goals for a new
organization might be, for example, build a board, do a strategic plan, do a
market analysis to build a new product, hire employees, etc. (The following
links may be useful at this point when identifying issues: Life Cycles of
Organizations.)
To identify the key issues identified from your strategic analyses, consider
the following guidelines:
a) From considering the effects of weaknesses and
threats that you identified, what are the major issues that you see? List as
many as you can. Consider issues over the term of your strategic plan, but look
very closely at the next year especially. Many organizations have stumbled badly
because they ended up "falling over their feet" while being focused much too far
down the road.
b) Consider each of issues. Ask whether it’s “important” or
“urgent.” Often, issues seem very important when they're only urgent, for
example, changing a flat tire is an urgent issue -- but you'd never put
"changing a tire" in your strategic plan. Attend only to the important issues
and not the urgent issues.
c) Deal with issues that you can do something
about. Issues that are too narrow do not warrant planning and issues that are
too broad will bog you down.
d) Issues should be clearly articulated so that
someone from outside of the organization can read the description and understand
the nature of the issue.
7. Establish Strategic Goals
In the section labeled "Goals
and Strategies" in the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the strategic goals to address
the above-identified issues and the more forward-looking, developmental goals.
Consider goals over the term of your strategic plan, but look very closely at
the next year especially. Design and word your goals to be "SMARTER", that is,
specific, measurable, acceptable to the people working to achieve the goals,
realistic, timely, extending the capabilities of those working to achieve the
goals and rewarding to them. Don't worry so much about having to specify goals
to be exactly "correct". Carefully consider whether the goals and
strategies are closely aligned with your mission, vision and values.
As noted above, if you are developing a new organization, then you'll probably have goals to build a board, do a strategic plan, do a market analysis to build a product, hire employees, etc. You'll probably have organization-wide goals (for example, goals in regard to building and running your organization, for example, board development, staffing, getting a new building, etc) and product-specific goals (goals that are directly in regard to providing products or services to your customers). More on this later in the Module 7: Marketing Your Products (For additional assistance, see Strategizing.)
8. Establish Strategies to Reach Goals
In the section
labeled "Goals and Strategies" in the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down the general approaches needed to
reach the goals -- over the next year especially. Consider strategies over the
term of the strategic plan, but especially over the next year. Carefully
consider whether the goals and strategies are closely aligned with your mission,
vision and values. Note that these strategies may become overall action plans
for developing programs. More on this later in the Module 7:
Marketing Your Products. (For additional assistance, see Strategizing.)
9. Develop Staffing Plan
In Appendix E of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write a rough draft of a staffing plan. To
do this, reference each of the strategies to reach the goals and consider what
kind of capabilities are needed to implement the strategies. This might seem
like a lot of guesswork, particularly if you don't have experience in
supervision. However, don't worry so much about being exactly correct --
you will likely refine your staffing plan later on as you design and plan your
products. If you are developing a new organization, you might think about
including the following typical roles in your initial staffing plan (but again,
consider these roles in terms of implementing the strategies in your plan):
chief executive, administrative assistant and product managers for each of your
major product goals. (The following link may help you when developing your
staffing plan. See Organizing
Staff.)
10. Conduct Action Planning (objectives, responsibilities and
timelines)
In Appendix A of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, for each strategy, write down the
objectives that must be achieved while implementing the strategy, when the
objective should be completed and by whom -- especially over the next year. As
you identify who will accomplish each of the objectives, you might end up
refining your staffing plan. (For additional assistance, see Action
Planning.)
11. Develop an Operating Budget for Each Year in the Plan
In
the table labeled "Your Budget Planning" in Appendix F of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, list the resources you will need to achieve
the goals in the strategic plan and what it will cost to obtain and use the
resources. You don't have to be exactly accurate -- besides, you may end
up changing your budget as you give more attention to product design and
planning in the next learning module. You should do a budget for each of the
years included in the span of time covered by your strategic plan -- but give
particular attention to the first year of the time span.
Look at each of your product-related goals. Think about how much revenue the product might generate. Next, think about the expenses to produce, sell and support the product, such as human resources, facilities, equipment, special materials, marketing and promotions, etc. (Note that this budget planning often provides strong input to the overall budget. We'll likely convert your operating budget to a set of program budgets. More on this later in the Module 7: Designing and Marketing Your Products.)
12. Associate Strategic Goals to Performance Goals for Board and Chief
Executive
In Appendix D of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down which board committees (in the
case of corporations) will be addressing which strategic goals. The chief
executive should be attending to responsibilities and goals that are directly
aligned with the strategic goals of the organization (as should the
responsibilities and goals of everyone else in the organization). Therefore,
after strategic goals have been identified, it's timely for the board to update
the performance goals of the chief executive (who, in turn, updates the
performance goals of everyone else in the management and staff of the
organization). (For additional information, see Performance
Management, Board of
Director's Evaluation of Chief Executive and Employee Performance
Management.)
13. Specify How Implementation of Plan Will Be Monitored and
Evaluated
In Appendix H of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down how the status of implementation
will be monitored and evaluated. Consider, for example, weekly written status
reports to the chief executive from employees, and monthly written reports to
board members. Status will address whether goals and objectives are being met or
not, current issues and any resource needed to implement the plan. (For
additional assistance, see Monitoring,
Evaluating and Deviating from Plan.)
14. Specify How Plan Will Be Communicated
In Appendix I of
the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document, write down how the plan will be
communicated. Consider distributing all (or highlights from) the plan to
everyone in the organization. Post your mission on the walls of your main
offices. Consider giving each employee a card with the mission statement on it.
Publish portions of your plan in your regular newsletter. (For additional
assistance, see Writing
and Communicating the Plan.)
15. Complete Rest of Strategic Plan Document
To complete
your strategic plan document, update the following sections of the Framework for
a Basic Strategic Plan Document:
a) Complete the section labeled
"Executive Summary" (guidelines are provided in the framework)
b) Gain
authorization from your board (in the case of corporations) (they should sign in
the section labeled "Board Authorization of Strategic Plan")
c) In the body
of the plan in the section titled "Organizational Information", include
descriptions, for example, of the history of the organization, its major
products and services, highlights and accomplishments during the history of the
organization, etc.
d) In Appendix B, provide description of the process you
used to develop the strategic plan, including what worked and what didn't. This
information will be useful to planners when they next do strategic planning.
16. Acknowledge What You've Done -- Congratulations!
2. Are you discussing topics and materials with peers, board members and others, as appropriate? Discussion and ongoing feedback are some of the best methods to really learn new information and materials.
3. Are you helping others to hold you accountable to your times that you committed to reading and study in this program?
Reminders About Your Organization
1. The results of your
strategic plan should produce updates to a variety of aspects in your
organization. Consider:
a) Are your products and services directly aligned
with your new strategic planning goals and strategies
b) Should any job
descriptions and performance goals be updated for personnel in your
organization?
c) Should your board committees be re-organized to be more
aligned to contribute toward achieving your new strategic goals?
2. How are you ensuring that your whole board understands and contributes to achieving your strategic goals?
TRACKING OPEN ACTION ITEMS
1. One of the first
indicators that an organization is struggling is that open action items are not
tracked and reviewed. (Open action items are required actions that have not yet
been completed.) Instead, organization members only see and react to the latest
"fires in the workplace". Whether open action items are critical to address now
or not, they should not entirely be forgotten. Therefore, update and regularly
review a list of open action items that includes listing each open action item,
who is responsible to complete it, when it should be completed and any
associated comments. When updating the list, consider action items as identified
during discussions, learning activities and assessments in this module. Share
and regularly review this action item list with the appropriate board,
management and employees in your organization. You can use the following Action Item Planning
List.
2. If you have questions, consider posing them in the national on-line discussion groups HRNET or ODNET which are attended by many human resource and organization development experts.
3. How could this module be improved? If you have suggestions, then please see contact information (and thank you for your suggestions!).
(Learners in the organization development program can return to the home page of the organization development program.)