The Basics of Strategic Planning and Strategic Management

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. It is a disciplined effort that produces fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. Effective strategic planning articulates not only where an organization is going and the actions needed to make progress, but also how it will know if it is successful.

What is a Strategic Plan?

A strategic plan is a document used to communicate with the organization the organizations goals, the actions needed to achieve those goals and all of the other critical elements developed during the planning exercise.

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SWOT Analysis Example

In SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, the analyst first looks into the business unit to identify its strengths and weaknesses. The analyst then reviews the environment in which the business unit operates and identifies opportunities presented by that environment and the threats posed by that environment. The following lists show questions that an analyst would ask in conducting a SWOT analysis.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

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The Value of a New Business Acceptance Framework

Creating a framework for new business prospects streamlines the process and helps you discern between good business and good enough business.

Over a decade of business experience has taught me a simple rule: not all business is good business. Sometimes when a prospect crosses your desk, the best thing to do is say no.

Earlier this year my business partner and I developed a “New Client Acceptance Framework,” in part to help us with saying no to projects that aren’t a good fit for our studio. While a New Client Acceptance Framework may sound fancy, it is a simple Google Spreadsheet that outlines a list of “yes” and “no” qualities for evaluating potential new business. Simple? Yes. Valuable? Definitely.

When it came to sales and business development, we were noticing two pain points in our company:

2. Too much back expertise 

1. Fluctuation in size and expertise

What considerations should you include in your framework?

Budget

Industry

Internal support

Timeline

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استراتژیِ تکرار درست!

همه می دانند که استراتژی یعنی چه و به چه کاری می‌آید. همیشه ترجمه‌ی استراتژی به عملیات یا همان جاری‌سازی استراتژی از چالش‌های مهم پیش روی مدیران ارشد سازمان‌ها و مشاوران مدیریت بوده است. مدل‌ها و رویکردهای مختلفی برای این منظور در ادبیات موضوع ارائه شده‌اند؛ به‌ویژه کارهای مهم رابرت کاپلان و دیوید نورتون روی کارت امتیازی متوازن.

جیمز آلن که مشاور شرکت معروف بین در انگلستان است،  در وب سایت مدرسه‌ی مدیریت هاروارد به همین موضوع مهم از زاویه‌ی دید جالبی پرداخته است. آلن می‌گوید تفاوت کسی مثل استیو جابز با دیگرانی که ایده‌هایی شبیه او در مورد محصولات مصرفی الکترونیکی داشتند در این بود که جابز به‌خوبی توانست ایده‌های‌اش را در زندگی روزمره‌ی اپل و کارکنان‌اش جانمایی کند. همه هر روز که در اپل سر کار می‌‌آیند می‌دانند باید چه کار بکنند و این کار هم دقیقا به استراتژی و ایده‌های کلان اپل متصل است. در واقع در اپل و تمامی سازمان‌های موفق، استراتژی به‌خوبی به کارهای روتین و روزمره ترجمه شده است.

استراتژی ابزاری است برای ساختن آینده‌ی مطلوب و در نتیجه معمولا فرض می‌شود که باید بر کارهای جدید متمرکز باشد. آلن می‌گوید که خیلی وقت‌ها سازمان‌ها این‌قدر روی پیدا کردن ایده‌های جدید برای استراتژی‌های آینده متمرکز می‌شوند که یادشان می‌رود هنوز ایده‌های قدیمی بسیار عالی دارند! در واقع تکرار درست ایده‌های قدیمی و موفق، خودش یک استراتژی موفق محسوب می‌شود. “شرکت‌های موفق معمولا ایده‌ها و مقصود رقابتی (Competitive Intent) ثابتی دارند.” چیزی که آن‌ها را موفق می‌کند، هر روز زندگی کردن با همان ایده‌های ثابت و قدیمی است. در واقع سلاح رقابتی و ابزار تغییر برای این شرکت‌های موفق، جا‌ی‌دهی درست ایده‌ها در زندگی روزمره‌ی کارکنان شرکت است.

یک آمار جالب هم توسط آقای آلن ارائه شده:۸۰ درصد تیم‌های مدیریتی معتقدند که یک پیشنهاد عالی را به مشتری ارائه می‌کنند؛ این در حالی است که فقط ۸ درصد مشتریان با آن‌ها موافق‌اند!

منبع: گزاره ها

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

What is strategic management?  Strategic management  can be used to determine mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, roles and responsibilities, timelines, etc.

What is strategic planning?  Strategic planning is a management tool, period. As with any management tool, it is used for one purpose only: to help an organization do a better job - to focus its energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. (Adapted from Bryson's Strategic Planning in Public and Nonprofit Organizations).

A word by word dissection of this definition provides the key elements that underlie the meaning and success of a strategic planning process: The process is strategic because it involves preparing the best way to respond to the circumstances of the organization's environment, whether or not its circumstances are known in advance; nonprofits often must respond to dynamic and even hostile environments. Being strategic, then, means being clearr bout the organization's objectives, being aware of the organization's resources, and incorporating both into being consciously responsive to a dynamic environment. 

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Ten Rules for Effective Strategic Planning

• The definition. First things first. Strategic planning is any process meant to determine a company's future direction, including its key goals, strategies for achieving them, and business plans.
• Executive owner and facilitator. You need a member of the executive staff to own the process from start to finish, plus an objective facilitator from outside the company with expertise in this sort of thing.
• The team. The team must be committed to participating in the entire process from start to finish. It's usually executive management. There can be additions but there's a size tradeoff: bigger equals more ideas but harder to manage.
• Rules of engagement. The facilitator or executive owner sets ground rules or rules of engagement, i.e. attack the problem, not the person; be quiet unless you have something material to add; don't beat issues to death; no cell phones; that sort of thing.
• The problem and process objectives. You're doing this for a reason. Agree on the problem statement and objectives of the process. You can also give it a name if that will help galvanize everyone.
• Situation or SWOT analysis. Takes time, but it must be brutally honest and objective with no sugarcoating. If you don't know where you stand versus the competition, the entire process is a waste of incredibly valuable executive time.
• No sacred cows. Executives get too close to and emotionally wrapped up in their groups, responsibilities, programs, and products. The team has to get beyond all the subjectivity to achieve open and honest perspective. Everything's on the table.
• Brainstorm. Be completely open to any ideas. When they're all listed, have each person pick their top three ideas (weighted first = 3 points, second = 2 points, third = 1 point), then add it up, take the top x ideas, assign each to an exec who develops a business plan.
• Coalesce. Present the plans, debate, coalesce on company direction, key goals, strategies, etc. Several meetings and iterations are fine, including bouncing off the next level of management and a controlled group of outsiders to get feedback (optional).
• Plan and execute. Develop a set of plans for communicating the new direction down through the organization and externally, affecting organizational and behavioral change, product development and launch, marketing and sales, etc. The devil's in the details.