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Why Bother with Strategic Planning?
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Office Coach is copyrighted to Marie G. McIntyre. All rights reserved.
May be reproduced
with copyright and attribution to
www.yourofficecoach.com.
Do you really need to do strategic planning? Only
if you care about the future of your organization.
As an old saying states,
“If you don’t know where you’re going, then you’ll probably end up
somewhere else.”
The primary purpose of
strategic planning is to identify critical priorities that must be
addressed to insure a successful future. Here are some things that you
can learn through the planning process:
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What your
customers like about your products or services and what they dislike
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Why
customers might decide to take their business elsewhere
§
How your
future success could be derailed or enhanced by upcoming changes in the
business environment
§
Where the
quality of work may be suffering in your organization
§
Why
employees may decide to leave your organization and pursue their careers
elsewhere
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Whether
your current allocation of human and financial resources is in line with
your goals
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How you can
do a better job of holding people accountable for results
At the strategic level,
the planning process takes a “big picture” look at the organization,
studying external trends and changes as well as internal strengths and
weaknesses. At the end of a strategic planning process, you will have
agreed on a limited number of Strategic Priorities & Goals that need to
be addressed over the next three to five years.
What Questions Do You Need to Ask?
Essentially, strategic planning is about answering
questions. The most important questions to ask depend upon your current
circumstances. The relevant questions may therefore change from one
planning cycle to the next. Here are some of the questions you may want
to address.
Establishing the Foundation
To plan
effectively, you must know why your organization exists and what you
hope to accomplish in the future.
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Mission:
What is our purpose? Why was this organization created and what are we
here to do?
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Vision:
Considering our purpose, what results do we hope to have accomplished
three to five years from now?
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Stakeholders:
Who are we here to serve? Whose interests must we consider as we work
towards our purpose?
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Values:
What do we believe about the way we should do our work? What are our
ethical principles?
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Core Functions:
To accomplish our purpose successfully, what must our organization be
able to do well?
Assessing the Current Situation
To be successful, organizations must have the
internal capability to respond effectively to their external
environment. Therefore, an important aspect of planning is identifying
trends outside the organization and evaluating effectiveness inside the
organization.
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Environmental Scan:
What changes or trends may affect us in the next three to five years?
§
Internal Assessment:
Considering our purpose and our environment, what are our strengths and
weaknesses?
Having identified your purpose, your hopes for the
future, and the critical factors in your current situation, you will be
better equipped to sharpen your focus on during the next three to five
years.
§
Strategic Priorities:
Given all available information, what things must you focus on in order
to be successful?
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Goals:
For each priority area, what are the specific results that you hope to
accomplish?
Once you know what you need to be doing, then you
must be sure that your structures and processes will help you accomplish
desired results.
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Organizational Structure:
Are you organized correctly for the results you want to achieve?
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Critical Processes:
Do your critical work processes operate effectively and efficiently?
§
Outcome Measures:
What indicators will let you know if you are successful in carrying out
your purpose?
Once you have completed the strategic planning
process, you are then ready to develop your Operating Plan for the first
year. An Operating Plan contains the specific objectives and action
steps needed to accomplish your strategic goals. While strategic
planning is done every three to five years, operational planning is done
at the beginning of each year. Goals and objectives for each department
or unit should grow out of the annual Operating Plan. Both strategic
and operational planning are necessary for long-term success.
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