What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the art of formulating business strategies, implementing them, and
evaluating their impact based on organizational objectives.

The concept focuses on integrating various business departments (accounting and

finance, research and development, production, marketing, information systems,
management) to achieve organizational goals. The term strategic planning is
synonymous with strategic management, only that the former is used in the corporate
world and the latter in the academic setting.
Benefits of Strategic Planning
1. Helps formulate better strategies using a logical, systematic approach

It is still the most important benefit. Some studies show the strategic planning process
makes a significant contribution more than the decision itself.

 2. Enhanced communication between employers and employees

Communication is crucial to the success of the strategic planning process. It is initiated

through participation and dialogue among the managers and employees, which shows
their commitment to achieving organizational goals.

Strategic planning also helps managers and employees to show commitment to the
organization’s goals. It is because they know what the company is doing and the reason
behind it. Strategic planning makes organizational goals and objectives real, as the
employees can understand the relationship between their performance and
compensation. As a result, both the employees and managers become innovate and
creative, which fosters the growth of the company further.

 3. Empowers the individuals working in the organization

The increased dialogue and communication across all the stages of the process
strengthens the employee’s sense of effectiveness, initiative-taking, and imagination. It
explains the need for companies to decentralize the strategic planning process by
involving lower-level managers. A good example is that of Walt Disney Co., which
dissolved the strategic planning department and assigned the roles to Disney business
divisions.

Strategic Planning and Management Insights

The strategic planning process are the steps that you go through as an
organization to determine:

 the direction of your organization (Vision)

 what you're going to do and for whom (Mission) 
 how to measure it and guide your strategy to get to where you want to be
(Goals)

In this overview of the strategic planning process, we'll go through the steps that we
use to create and implement a strong strategic plan. 

There are many different ways you can create a strategic plan, much like there are
several different ways you can create a meal, and some may be more efficient than
others. 

We will share the process that we, at SME Strategy, believe best prepares
management teams with sufficient information and direction to create and implement
their strategic plan.

Before we get into the steps, it's important to understand why we do strategic planning
in the first place:

 To get your team on the same page and aligned with your organizations vision,
mission and goals
 To maximize your organization's resources to avoid wasting time and money on
projects or activities that are not important 
 To understand industry trends and scenarios that could impact your organization
in the coming years
 To identify and evaluate the best way to accomplish your goals
 To develop an implementation plan to keep you and your team on track and
accountable for deliverables
 And much more ... 

A strategic plan is a valuable guide for your employees, your organization's leadership
and your stakeholders to know where you're going and why you're going there.

The document that contains the strategic plan is not what is valuable; it's the information
within it and the process used to create it, that is then SHARED and COMMUNICATED
with the rest of your team. A great strategy is most often re-evaluated on an ongoing
basis (yearly or quarterly, for example), rather than being a static document just sitting
in a binder. 
Strategy is about choices: knowing what to do as much as knowing what not to do. Your
strategic plan tells your people what they should be doing so that they don't have to
worry about doing the wrong things, or having to go to a manager every time there is a
decision to make.

A strategic plan that is well communicated gives you access to greater

productivity, culture, empowerment, and overall effectiveness. 

Now that you know the importance of strategic planning, let's walk through the strategic
planning process in four steps:

1. Part one: How did we get to where we are now?

2. Part two: Where do we want to go? What is our vision of success?
3. Part three: What is going to get in our way? What do we need to be aware of?
4. Part four: What do we need to do to get there?

The complete strategic planning process 

Strategic Planning Step 1: Gather inputs 

 Successes and results from past strategic plans, environmental scans, and staff
surveys
 PESTLE: Outside of your business, there are many factors that affect how you
can do business, competitors being one, but also the Political, Economic, Social,
Technological, Legal and Environmental climates that your organization or
business operates in.
 SWOT: Throughout the strategic planning process, you'll also have to identify
internal processes and situations that may affect where you go in the future
(strengths and weaknesses). There are also external factors that might affect
your business strategy (opportunities and threats).
 These "inputs" are the ingredients to your successful strategic plan. The right
information will help you make the right decisions, so gather and assess
carefully. Once you know where you are at as an organization, and what's going
on in the world outside of your organization, then you can start to figure out
where you're going.

Strategic Planning Step 2: Vision

 Where are you going? What does winning look like? 
 There's one thing to have a vision statement, and it's another to have a very clear
vision of the future, like a blueprint to a house. This is the foundation of your
strategic plan. 
 As an organization (for-profit, non-profit, government, growing startup, etc.), what
are you building, and what is that rallying point for your people?
  Spending the time to get agreement and alignment on this future is key, because
otherwise each individual will be following their own destination of success.
 Another way to think of your vision is: "If success was a place, how would we
know if we got there"

Strategic Planning Step 3: Mission

 What is your purpose? Why do you exist? What do you do, and who do you do it
for?
 This is an opportunity to focus your energy on a specific set of stakeholders
(staff, shareholders, board, customers, etc). If you had to dedicate the majority of
your resources to a group, who would it be? This is a tough question because the
tendency is to say: "everyone".
 Your mission is the key driver in accomplishing your vision. It's your: HOW

Strategic Planning Step 4: Values

 If you want to find the number one contributor to a successful organization, it's
having values that are understood and agreed on.
 Values create a set of behaviours that everyone on the organization can count on
and expect. 
 It's like having everyone playing by the same rules that clearly identify how you
can be successful. You want your people to feel successful and fulfilled in their
jobs? Live, eat and breathe your values so they know how they can contribute to
making the organization a success.

Strategic Planning Step 5: Competition, Risks and Road blocks

 You didn't think it was going to be that easy did you? There will always be things
that will get in your way of success. If you take the time to identify scenarios,
what the impact of specific roadblocks happening will be, and what you're going
to do to mitigate these risks, you are less likely to be caught off guard.
 You can look at incorporating a risk register or scenario planning as frameworks
to help you manage these risks and uncertainties.

Strategic Planning Step 5: Strategic Priorities, Goal, Strategies and Tactics

 This is where you can tie into the big picture thinking into action items as part of
your strategic planning process.
 Strategic priorities are a handful of areas that will make the most amount of
progress towards accomplishing your vision. 
 Want to increase the focus of your strategic planning? Focus on the right
strategic priorities.
  Once you have your strategic priorities, find a way to measure its success. Think
of it as moving it from its current state: X, to its future state: Y by a certain date.
From X to Y by DATE
 Then you make the individual action steps that are going to contribute to the
accomplishment of that goal. Check out this article if you want some ideas on
what strategic priorities to pick as part of your strategic plan.

Strategic Planning Step 6: Communication Plan

 This is where you'll make your plan as a team to communicate your strategic
plan, and the things that you're going to get people bought in to your plan.
 Remember how we mentioned that a shelf plan is not very useful, and that
making sure you keep your strategic plan and strategic priorities at the top of
mind is key; this is where you do that.
 Audio, video, meetings, whatever you need to do: Let people know where the
organization is going, and how they can contribute to making that plan a success.
 Communication goes both ways. You'll have better buy-in if you listen as well as
speak. That's the difference between pushing a plan on people, versus pulling
them towards you and inspiring them to want to contribute.

Strategic Planning Step 7: Action plan

 Implementation is where most organizations falter, so a strong action plan is
needed. 
 Now that you know where you're going, and how you're going to measure your
success, do the things that are going to move the needle on the success of your
strategic plan.

Big picture thinking is the easy part of the strategic planning process. What's a little
harder is the implementation of the strategic plan in practice. Most organizations fail at
implementing their strategic plans - 71% failure rate (See slide deck above for why). 
The strategic planning process might seem pretty simple at first, but the intricacies of
people and the moving parts of most businesses make planning a crucial but also
challenging art form. Combining effective long range planning, with short term
implementation is a skill of great managers and great leaders.