Strategic Planning | The Process
The work of all organizations falls into one of two categories… routine work and change work. Routine work is the work that is going on within your organization every day. For instance, hopefully, there are people answering the telephone, selling products, making products, delivering services completing paperwork, billing customers, etc. In principle, this work should go on (and on and on) whether you are present or not. Routine work has no place in a strategic plan. Change work, on the other hand, should be captured in a strategic plan. Change work is the work that your organization must implement if it is going to meet the changes taking place in your marketplace. Strategic alliances are being announced on a daily basis, new technologies are being introduced weekly, and competitive landscapes seem to be in constant flux. As a result of these external forces and trends, virtually every organization is being pressured to improve quality, increase productivity, reduce costs, and provide increasingly innovative types of products and services. If you do not internally change your organization to deal with these external factors, your organization will inevitably fall along a continuum that ranges from ineffective at best to irrelevant at worst.
Strategic planning is the process by which your organization envisions its future and develops the necessary strategies and objectives to achieve that future. The basic steps of the Tweed-Weber-Danks strategic planning process are as follows:
Conduct a SWOT analysis.
Identify key issues that will be at the heart of the planning process.
While organizations without good plans can and do make progress, those with strategic plans statistically perform better. Once finalized and communicated, your strategic plan will enable your organization to proactively maximize the opportunities of your marketplace.
Strategic planning is the process by which your organization envisions its future and develops the necessary strategies and objectives to achieve that future. The basic steps of the Tweed-Weber-Danks strategic planning process are as follows:
- Clearly define the current state of the organization.
Conduct a SWOT analysis.
Identify key issues that will be at the heart of the planning process.
- Define/affirm your organization’s mission statement.
- Define the organization’s vision of the future.
- Define the organization’s long-range strategies.
- Identify the objectives the organization will commit to implementing during the first year of the strategic plan.
- Assign accountability and target dates to the appropriate people within your organization.
- Prepare the final strategic plan document.
- Develop a plan to communicate the strategic plan to the appropriate stakeholders of your organization.
While organizations without good plans can and do make progress, those with strategic plans statistically perform better. Once finalized and communicated, your strategic plan will enable your organization to proactively maximize the opportunities of your marketplace.