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NETWORK FOUR
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Strategic planning will help you determine which activities you're doing are important and which
ones arent. If you're trying to determine that for your business, you first have to figure out where
you want to go; whats your Vision? What are you hoping to achieve in your business, long
term?
And then think: What do you do on a daily basis that's going to get you there?
In other words: What is your mission? Why do you exist?
Strategic Planning is a process whereby an organization makes choices about:
Why do we exist?
What are the major goals of this organization?
What resources do we need for a successful future?
Who will be our customers?
Strategic Planning helps management understand the current situation. This in turn allows management to
plan for the future. And since the rate of change seems to be escalating, the importance of strategic
planning continues to grow. In fact, the best managed companies tend to engage in continuous strategic
planning. Some organizations have intuitive thinkers who almost seem to see into the future.
Therefore, strategic planning is a way of preparing for the future by attempting to simulate the
future.
It is essential that any planned changes are based on objective evidence of need, not change for its own
sake.
Organizational Preparedness
An organization needs to be ready for a strategic planning process. If there is too much occurring in the
organization or underlying conflicts exist, it is not the time for planning. Any unresolved conflicts should
be addressed prior to the planning process. The organization needs effective management and good
communication channels before embarking upon a planning process.
Planning Process
Once it has been determined that the organization will proceed with planning, decisions need to be made
about who will conduct the process, what information is at hand to contribute to the process and how it
will be carried out. It is critical to ensure all stakeholders are engaged in the process. Following the
meetings, it is vital that the work to compile the planning document is completed within an agreed time
frame.
The key elements of a strategic plan are now in place - Mission, Objective, and Goals. It is
Time to pull all of the elements together and draft the Strategic Plan. In order to make the plan
Complete, additional sections will be added. These sections include:
the first thing to do is create outline for our plan might include; main topics or points that are important to
the people. the basic head in will be;
A one or two page summary of the Strategic Plan which touches on the main components, such
as mission, objectives, and current situation.
Objectives
Mission and vision both relate to an organizations purpose and are typically communicated in
some written form. Mission and vision are statements from the organization that answer
questions about who we are, what do we value, and where were going. Mission and vision guide
strategy development, help communicate the organizations purpose to stakeholders, and inform
the goals and objectives set to determine whether the strategy is on track.
Vision
The vision statement is a narrower, future-oriented declaration of the organizations purpose and
aspirations.
a. Look at mission/values and comparing to current state
i. Where is there convergence; what is going well that you want to sustain
ii. Where is there divergence; what do you want to change
b. What will you look like in future?
Mission
A mission statement communicates the organizations reason for being and how it aspires to
serve its key stakeholders.
Goals
are the ends toward which a program or problem solution is directed. Goals are outcome
statements to guide implementation of the strategy (i.e., the tactics of what is planned to be
done). While goals tend to be general or broad and ambitious, they also must be clear and
realistic in order to clarify the team's direction and gain support of other stakeholders.
Challenge of consensus over clarity Challenge of who provides input versus who decides
Preparing a long, ambitious a shelf Finding a balance between process and a final.
product Communicating and executing the plan
Lack of alignment between mission, action, and finances
A strategic plan is an important tool to guide the work of any organization. It will help maintain
a focused, long term vision of the organizations mission and purpose, and aid decisions about
the allocation of human and financial resources. This opens with some guidance on how to
ensure that a strategic plan is developed on the basis of a shared vision of the future. briefly
defines strategic planning and outlines some benefits that can be gained from the process and its
product: the strategic plan. It goes on to provide in-depth guidance on the steps involved.
There are 10 steps to developing a strategic plan. It is important to document the outcomes and
discussions of each step carefully to provide a basis for the written strategic plan. Notes of the discussion
will also be useful for developing the annual team work plan and annual budget.
Question to ask
1. Who will be involved in the process (which staff, stakeholders, beneficiaries)? What will their
precise roles be? What roles will different members of the team and the governing body play? How
will counterparts, partner organizations and beneficiaries contribute? Who will be involved from
outside the organization? What kind of external perspectives and experiences will help in planning?
2. How much time will be set aside for strategic planning? And over what period of time? How much
time will different members of the team allocate to strategic planning? What is the timetable?
3. Planning will be quicker and easier if relevant documents are collected in advance. Who will be
responsible for collecting the relevant documents?
4. Who will be responsible for ensuring that written notes of the discussions are kept? Who will be
responsible for providing administrative support for the planning process?
1. For what purpose was the organization established and what policies and principles influence the
way it operates?
2. What external legislation and agreements (eg with funding agencies, the government) affect its
operations and how?
3. What internal rules and regulations influence the organisations work?
4. What influence do stakeholders have on the service or programme?
5. Given all this, what is it possible and not possible for the organisation to do?
Here are some key questions to guide discussion and debate about how effective the
organisation is.
1. What human and financial resources and capacity are available to the organisation?
2. What are the organisations weaknesses and strengths?
3. What makes the organisation different or distinctive?
4. What are the main lessons to be drawn from an analysis of the effectiveness of the
organisations current and past programmes?
This step draws together and builds on the work completed in the previous steps. It is
designed to help answer the question:
What are the key strategic issues that the organisation wants to address (taken from steps
2, 3, 4)?
It is important to identify the strategic issues that have emerged from the analysis so far
because this helps to:
1. focus attention on really important issues
2. identify the major choices facing the organisation
3. highlight areas needing change
4. provide insights about how to resolve the issues.
Because the number of strategic issues is likely to be large, the key questions to ask in Step 6 are:
1 What are the most appropriate strategies to pursue in working towards the identified strategic
aims?
2 What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of methods such as research, project funding,
networking, advocacy and capacity building for realising each of the strategic aims?
5 Whom will the organisation collaborate with: government departments, international agencies,
STEP 8: IDENTIFYING RESOURCE NEEDS
Once the strategies have been defined for each of the organisations three or four strategic aims, it is
necessary to work out what human and financial resources will be needed?
financial resources
1 What financial resources are currently available, for which aspects of the work planned, and where do
these come from (eg international donors, government, international agencies)?
2 Are there new sources of funding that could be explored (what, how, etc)?
HUMAN RESOURCES
1 What human resources are currently available to the organisation (analyse staff skills and
experiences, and contributions from others including partners, beneficiaries and other agencies)?
2 What are the gaps between what is available and what is needed?
3 How might these gaps best be filled? For example, consider the merits of staff development and
training, developing new partnerships with others, the employment of new staff.
4 Is the balance between different categories of staff (management, finance, administration and
programme) optimal? If not how might this be changed?
5 Within the programme staff team is the balance between project, communications, advocacy,
capacity building and networking skills good? If not, how will the imbalances be addressed?
During the strategic planning process a significant number of strategic issues will have been identified
that relate to organisational capacity, its strengths or weaknesses. Where these relate directly to the final
strategic aims, it is important to link them to the strategies for achieving those aims.
This step concerns the resources that will be needed to implement the strategic plan. They will need to
cover the strategies identified for each strategic aim and the internal capacity building plan. Below are
some factors to consider when costing.
1. Identify the inputs required to implement each strategy in terms of people, equipment, services
and materials. Distinguish between the essential and less essential components, in case it is
necessary to prioritise later.
2. Categorise the costs of inputs. One way of doing this is to distinguish between recurrent office
costs, management costs, and direct programme costs (for example small grants, costs of working
with partners, workshops, advocacy and research costs, etc).
3. Assess the organisations income. Identify funds that have already been pledged (by funding
agencies, for example) and gaps or new areas that are not funded.
4. Translate the gaps into the fundraising strategy
CONCLUSION
Strategic planning is a disciplined process for making key decisions and agreeing on actions that
will shape and guide what an organisation is, what it does, and why it does it. The steps listed
above are just one approach to developing and implementing a strategic plan. During the strategic
planning process a significant number of strategic issues will have been identified that relate to
organisational capacity, its strengths or weaknesses.
In conclusion, this can be an important team building exercise and ensure all members are
focused on shared objectives and strategies. It is important to retain a strategic approach to all of
the operations and to ensure the long-term vision is retained in an ongoing manner.
1, Strategic Planning Process: Steps in Developing Strategic Plan Schilder, Diane, Harvard
Family Research Project
2, Strategic Plan Builder Resource includes the steps to be taken in planning and planning
templates:
3, All about Strategic Planning Authenticity Consulting LLC, Free Management Library