Initiatives are projects designed to help meet your goals. Four steps to streamline strategic planning Take the Assessment, Why isnt my strategy working? Statistics around the failure rates of corporate strategies varysome put it as high as 9 out of 10 while others say nearly 7 out of 10. What are they doing? Review our Privacy Policy to learn more.Got it! Throughout the process, the entrepreneur and their team work closely with the consultant. Dont worry, though, yours can be one of the success stories.) LpF^l-B^+&(p/ (ue#J^K) 0LA&\9)$deXJ\e bjVHo]mtwvI*Xlt14V=Wlu]KjuUmq2m-,~n}=aet~sy6jn-ric&.ZV;:@I
* BLiP8T'XqG(W@hqra1A"P TL `0' The Theory of Change is a logic model that describes a step-by-step approach to achieving your vision. According to the Harvard Family Research Project, the steps to create a TOC are: OKR was originally created by Intel and is used today in primarily two ways: At the enterprise/department level and at the personal performance level. Make sure your leadership team knows the difference between strategy and tactics going forward! Strategy is focused on the destination and how you are going to get there, and tactics are focused on the specific actions you plan to take along the way. For future resource allocation, link your operations (what some refer to as the work planning process) to your strategy. But dont worrythese abysmal statistics dont mean youre doomed to failure. hb```I,,B x! Annual refresh meetings may include upper levels of management and occasionally board members. On one hand, that definition makes strategy planning sound like a Business 101 conceptdefine your goals and a plan to achieve them. The strategic planners job is to align thoughts from the leadership team with a process the organization can use to execute on their strategy. Performance management tools like ClearPoint allow organizations to track a variety of metrics related to strategic projects, helping to maintain focus over the long term. The participation and dialogue that takes place among managers and employees throughout the strategic planning process improves transparency and engagement on everyones part. Strategic planning is the art of saying no more than the art of saying yes, Dwivedi says. Many management teams fail at this point simply because of their disorganization! The executive summary includes the companys vision and mission statements and a very brief description of these elements: It can also be useful to include a small subsection or box highlighting key observations or findings about the company and its goals. Two tools that will help build your mission and vision statements: If youve already created mission and vision statements, confirm that both are aligned with your current strategy before proceeding to the next step. This free Balanced Scorecard template will help you become the strategy superhero your company needs. Putting your strategic plan into practice (our final step) is the key to making it all work during the strategy implementation plan, and getting these details 80% right in a timely fashion is much more important than getting them 100% right in a year. Now that youve prepared for your strategy You may have researched risk assessments, core competencies, scenario planning, or industry scans as part of your strategic planning. Lets get one thing straight right now: If your organization has turned to you (or your department, a colleague, etc.) Good planning is only half the battle; the lions share of forward progress is in executing that plan. It has to be boiled down to the basics so it is very clear to everyone what your goals are and what actions are needed from each employee.. The TOC is focused on how to achieve the change youre looking for, and is popular amongst mission-driven organizations who are describing a change theyre making in the world instead of putting change in their pockets. %%EOF
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Engaging in strategic planning will benefit you in multiple ways: Setting goals and choosing the relevant metrics to track progress toward achieving them means you always have meaningful data to reference. (The idea of perspectives is fully developed in Norton and Kaplans book The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action.) This team isnt responsible for doing everything in your strategy, but it should oversee strategy execution across the organization. If youve never done strategic planning before, Increase Market Share Through Current Customers (Financial), Achieve Order Fulfillment Excellence Through On-Line Process Improvement (Internal), Align Incentives And Rewards With Employee Roles For Increased Employee Satisfaction (Learning & Growth). Is there another product consumers could purchase instead of your industrys product, for example, substituting natural gas or solar for coal when it comes to electricity generation? Porters Five Forces is another tool used to find these inputs. s m"(0gS@hM Mghb They may talk a good game and be able to explain an innovative new mission, but they cannot articulate the processes and business models that will make it happen. Define your objectives, measures, and projects. But this plan doesnt live in a vacuumso well start by revisiting your mission and vision statements and then get into the nuts and bolts of the planning process. Strategic analysis of the internal and external environments this may include: Current organizational structure, vision and mission statements and value chain, A PESTEL analysis chart identifying external or macro factors affecting the business (PESTEL is an acronym for political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal), Porters Five Forces (tool for analyzing the competition), A BCG Growth Share Matrix (chart devised by Boston Consulting Group to illustrate each strategic business area according to growth rate and market share). But in todays business environment, thats not a feasible option. 2-page, full-color overview of Chitimacha Tribe of Louisianas 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. Unfortunately, the strategic planning process isnt as straightforward as it seems, especially for large companies. But even if your budget only extends through the fiscal year, consider how youll align your strategy to projects in the future. Create your strategy map or graphic strategic model. This section is typically around 10 to 15 pages long and is based on workshops and interviews that Dwivedi holds with key employees. What is strategic planning and why is it important? That naturally leads to faster, more efficient decision-making, especially when that data is readily accessible to employees at every level. These sessions usually lead to a short list of five to 10 ideas to research further. You dont need to completely rewire your budget, but you do need to create direct linkages between how your resources are allocated and how those efforts support your strategy. Its imperative to have a system in place that will measure and monitor your progress toward goals during the execution phase. Your meetings should revolve around three key issues: Encourage candid dialogue and make sure the discussion stays focused. Who are your rivals? Think through how it will be shared, and which parts of it are relevant to outside parties. A SWOT Analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Create reports to highlight your results. A checklist of 29 things to ask a potential strategy software vendor. Rather than doing everything, its more important to realize there is overlap between these steps. Are you making progress toward these goals? (As we noted at the beginning of this guide, organizations that actually meet their strategic objectives are in the minority. Organizations should aim for 2-4 measures per objective. Its important because employees need to understand what they are responsible for and why its important to the overall success of the organization. A Custom Scorecard created to present the performance of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Departments Strategic Plan. companies are failing to strategize at all. 0
Your measures answer the question, How will I know that were meeting our goal? From there, initiatives, or projects, are put in place to answer the question, What actions are we taking to accomplish our goals?. Its a filter. Dwivedi gives this advice for what a strategic plan should contain and how it should be written. While many people use a strategy map (shown in the example below), you could also use icons or a color-coding system to visually understand how the elements of your strategy work together. The Strategic Plan will serve as the guiding map for all internal and external quality improvement, including annual quality improvement and strategic objectives within DWIHN, and providers, including responsibility assignments, performance measurements and evaluation. A strategy gets your team aligned on what your long-term goals as an organization are. What actions need to be taken to continue making progress? Deploy strategy reporting software (if you havent already). Your expectation should be that the process of aligning your resources to your strategy can happen within year two of your strategic planning execution. Strategic planning is about finding a short list of the highest-impact projects. Strategic planning is how we make it happen. Sometimes it is smart to keep leadership out of the tactics, but other times, you might need a strong hand to guide the organization through some details. Next, you need to work out a timeline in which you can complete your strategic plan and move through the process. 2. Its okay! You then need to look at the threat of substitutes. Having helped hundreds of organizationsfor-profit, nonprofit, and local governments includednavigate through the strategic planning and implementation process, weve seen firsthand the many challenges that arise along the way. Now that youve created your strategic vision Chapter 3: Put Your Strategic Plan Into Practice. Without a strategy, your organization is walking blindly with no clear, aligned goals in sight. You can use your OAS or Strategic Shift exercises to help you define your priorities and objectivesbut more importantly, you need a way to manage these elements. For a process that takes you through these steps start to finish, try out our Strategy Execution Toolkit. A strategic plan is your organizations long-term goals and highlights how you want to grow in specific categories. A strategic plan has to be actionable and easy to understand so your team can execute it and use it as a daily reference, says Devesh Dwivedi, a Senior Business Advisor with BDCs Advisory Services, who specializes in counselling businesses on strategic planning. At a minimum, you should be reporting on your entire strategy on a quarterly basis, or breaking down your strategy into pieces and reporting on one of those pieces each month. Its important to note that throwing together an impromptu meeting to go over results isnt going to get you anywhere. They help you prepare to create the strategic plan. Ted, Founder and Managing Partner at ClearPoint, has over 25 years of experience working with organizations to improve their performance management and strategy execution processes. Report on strategy progress via the quarterly or monthly review meetings you scheduled early in the process. Now its time to dig into your internal and external information. You can be in the small percentage of businesses that actually achieve the goals in their strategic plans, and were here to tell you how. This is also a good time to think about your strategy review meetings, which are a necessity for staying on track over the long haul. You might review key metrics and the status of initiatives and milestones. There is a danger of analysis paralysis.. Create your internal and external strategy communication plan. If you want to integrate this checklist, this is the time to do so. Those who use the BSC do so to bring their strategy to life, communicate it across their organization, and track their strategy progress and performance. You improve communication and build employee engagement. This may include reiterating your mission and vision to add context around the conversation. Develop the framework that will hold your high-level priorities. They arent prepared for the work involved with follow-through, both in terms of the time commitment and the tools necessary to support performance improvement. This will generate the atmosphere you need for everyone to start reporting honestly and working together to achieve the organizations goals. Over the years, weve helped hundreds of clients beat the odds using the steps outlined in the guide below. With the right plan in place, tools to support it, and committed leadership, every organization has a good chance of seeing their strategy come to life. Not only does OKR strive to measure whether objectives are successful, but also how successful they are. A strategic plan must give you and your team a simple, clear roadmap of what to do next. Dwivedi shares a few extra tips about how strategic plans should be written: In the final plan, the sections appear in this order: The executive summary and future state plan come first in the plan because we want to emphasize the purpose of the whole exercise, which is creating a roadmap to achieve your goals, Dwivedi says. People wont give it a passing thought unless you engage themso every department head should be charged with explaining how their team fits into the strategy and why it matters. Once youve gathered up the quantitative data from the sources above, youll also want to get feedback from a number of different sources: Combined, all of this data will help you get a better grasp on the future of the business. Step 1: Confirm your mission and vision statements. 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During your search for strategic planning tools, youve almost certainly come across a Strategy Pyramid (shown below). Weve defined each of these concepts more thoroughly below with a few business strategy examples: Whether or not youre using a Balanced Scorecard as your strategy framework, youll benefit from using a graphic model to represent your strategic plan. Well discuss this further when we talk through the Office of Strategy Management. As a result, nothing about their way of doing businessincluding their priorities, projects, or culturechanges. Using a framework such as Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Theory of Change (TOC), or Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is critical to your strategic success. This report is then validated with the CEO and key employees and any input integrated before work starts on the next step. Based on the companys capabilities, these should be narrowed down to three to five initiatives that will lead the business to its goals in a sustainable and profitable fashion. this article that highlights how you can effectively communicate your strategic plan. The overall purpose of an organizational strategic plan is to support the organizations business through continuous quality improvement. For actionable tips, check out this article that highlights how you can effectively communicate your strategic plan across your organization. A successful strategic plan must be actionable and easy to understand, Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology (ICE) Venture Fund, Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative (VCCI), Kauffman Fellows Program Partial Scholarship, Growth & Transition Capital financing solutions, please consult our strategic planning services, How to avoid common mistakes when building your business plan, Why every small business owner needs a growth plan, How to put customers first in your new business, Canadian business productivity benchmarking tool, Improve your financial management to stay profitable, A company overview past milestones and achievements, current products or services, markets, key competencies, financial analysis, sales performance and trends in recent years, current key performance indicators. When that shared vision is communicated clearly and consistently, it inspires employees to take ownership over their role in the plan, and they are typically more motivated to do their best work. The importance lies in ensuring youve chosen the elements in the pyramid that work best for your organization, and making sure those components are going to help you achieve strategic success. Because it fosters healthy organizational practices that drive better outcomes. It also strengthens communication between employers and employees. Sometimes it is helpful to use the SWOT analysis framework to organize your interview questions for your qualitative data gathering. A strategic plan is essential for every business. It covers everything you need to know about strategy planning and execution, from beginning to end, in each of the three critical phases: Based on our experience, we know that following this three-phase approach will significantly increase your odds of getting high-quality results. Dont do it again. Typically, the OSM lives in the finance departmentor it could be its own separate division that reports directly to the CEO. your long-term goals and how youll achieve them), well be placing a lot of emphasis on the smaller steps (i.e. In the short termwhich would be your next budgeting cycle or something similarwork to structure the budget around the key components of your strategy. A great way to be sure your leadership team has a firm grasp on your strategy is to ensure they each have a copy of this document, and they can describe the strategy easily to someone who wasnt involved in the creation process. High engagement will directly impact your organizations financial health and profitability. As a business, you can do a million things. This primarily means developing a cascading process to engage and inform stakeholders including providers, employees, persons served, family, advocates, the community and the general public in our quality improvement activity. You dont want to move forward to the future state if the current state isnt accurate.. It doesnt matter which number is right; both estimates are higher than they should be. Strategic planning is intended to create a single, focused vision of where an organization is headed. Here are two additional helpful pieces of content as you move forward: Youve probably seen reference to the Plan, Do, Check, Act framework before. Its easy to find yourself drilling deeper into data when perhaps only a high-level view of the information is needed. As for timing, there are three types of strategy review meetings: For each of these, youll want to send out calendar invites in advance and make sure people know these meetings are a top priority. 2-page, full-color overview of North Slope Borough School Districts 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. Although its written last, the executive summary is presented first in the final report. Dwivedi holds a series of strategic planning workshops and interviews with the CEO and key employees to brainstorm ideas on how to achieve the companys goals. )YnPe@U`o
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#Pi@*W] A)t```y&- $:;,[;~13&1bxe. Thats not an effective plan. Senior Business Advisor, BDC Advisory Services. That means theres no time wasted analyzing irrelevant and extensive data points in strategic meetings; instead, everyone stays focused on what is most important or where improvements need to be made. It tells you and your team where youre going as a company and how to get there. Anticipate devoting extensive time and effort in particular to: Data and analytics are an integral part of strategic planning. The strategic planning process is about looking forward, outside the immediate future for your organization, to reach a particular set of goals. Many executives, when faced with these stats, are wondering, How do I avoid coming up short in my strategy?. Youve made it this farnow you have to be sure you launch correctly! To do so, you need someone from the Office of Strategy Management to push that process, ensure resources are aligned to your strategy, put a solid strategy communication program in place, and get technology to keep you organized. Why? If you have worked through one of these tools before, the results can act as inputs to help you in the next stage. The strategic plan lists objectives and goals for each area your company would like to grow, and lists initiatives the organization will take to meet their goals. but be sure to place a great deal of emphasis on rightsizing this process for your own organization. If you want to learn more about the major areas of responsibility you should be covering in your strategy management processand how strategy software can help with thattake a look at our ClearPoint tour. At this point, your strategy has been launched: Now you need to know whether or not youre making progress! You should be shouting it from the rooftops to keep it top-of-mind across your organization. One example is to improve patient satisfaction. %PDF-1.6
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Dont expect your plan to materialize after a few meetings. Youll get a purpose statement, change agenda, and strategy map template with measures and initiatives. is a visual tool designed to clearly communicate a strategic plan. The plan shouldnt be academic or stuck in theory. InternalBe sure all elements of your strategylike strategy maps or logic modelsare contained within a larger strategic plan document. A comprehensive plan report to report on the performance of Fairbanks North Star Borough School Districts Strategic Plan. Timely, valid, and actionable information is especially valuable in situations where organizations need to react quickly, so they can make the best decisions possible for all their stakeholders. This absence of a strategic plan demonstrates why having one is so important. Strategy consultants are excellent guides for plan creation, but most offer no guidance on how to carry it out; as a result, organizations are left floundering. Get appropriate background information for your strategic plan. The idea behind TOC is that if you have the right people doing the right activities, theyll affect change on your customers, which will impact your financials, and bring you closer to your vision. If this is your role (or even if youre just highly involved in the process), this guide will be immensely helpful as you navigate the coordination of the strategy. Putting your strategic plan into practice. If metrics are off-track, for example, what can be done to get back on course. Where the mission is timeless, your vision is time-bound and more tangible. If youre wondering where these tools fit, theyre all relevant to this first stage of strategic planning. Without this foundation in place, youll either continue on a path to nowhere, or get caught up in a tornado of urgent activities that may not actually benefit your organization in the long term. But as noted in the definition above, it also involves laying outstep-by-stephow youre going to get there. Its important to understand strategy vs. tactics. We believe in empowering teams to do amazing work, consistently & passionately. Dont reinvent the wheeluse our assortment of strategic planning templates to get your strategy up and running more easily. This section describes how your company will bridge the gap between its current state and the desired future state. 4. Theres no typical scenario, but there are some common pitfalls that have the power to make or break your chances of success. Months or years later, strategic leaders are left wondering why the company never achieved what was intended. Did you recently do a SWOT analysis and create new vision and mission statements? (If you use strategy software, the strategic plan document will likely be contained there.) The future state section should include these elements: One or more subsections can be included to give additional details on various elements and why theyve been adopted. You allocate resources more effectively. practices, resources, initiatives) youll take to get there. 1. Having a strategic plan brings your main focus points to the forefront, so you dont have to dig into the details of everything your organization is doing. Most importantly, it enhances an organizations ability to achieve its goals, but theres more to it than that. Think of it as developing a book summary: You can only do it if you have read the entire book, Dwivedi says. shown to improve performance significantly. You should have 1-2 initiatives per objective. Feeling the strategic fatigue? w^-!zqDyX3`:q6&~0&"@3o\xM?L4WJzPl4gssE]Msz'KPo).,W=Y])[[*Bbn%!# If youre just becoming familiar with how strategy mapping works, this article will teach you exactly how to read oneand what you need to do to create one. You now have all the background information necessary to create your strategic plan! It does this by setting policy priorities, developing action plans for continuous quality improvement on the micro and macro level. Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, Coordinate & collaborate with coworkers, members, and providers, Effective employee & member engagement (dignity, respect, and rights), Empower efficient communication among employees, Our 3-year NCQA accreditation = quality care, Stay current on training and credentialing, Strengthen the quality of our system of care by helping to identify strengths and weaknesses.