LEARNING FROM THE BEST a Swiss-Romanian Cooperation Project · The project wants to develop the...

CO-FINANCED PROJECT BY A GRANT OF SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE SWISS CONTRIBUTION FOR

ENLARGED EUROPEAN UNION

www.sempermusica.org

LEARNING FROM THE BEST

– a Swiss-Romanian Cooperation Project

How to organise a strategic planning process?


About our project!

The project <Learning from the best – a Swiss-Romanian cooperation project> wants to develop the

capacity of Semper Musica Association to better respond to the present needs of its beneficiaries, starting

from the experience and expertise of our Swiss partner, ABQ Bern, an organization located in Switzerland

with an important experience in developing and organising activities based on anti discrimination and

LGBT, addressed to high school students, and also to their teachers and parents.

ABQ Bern will increase the capacity of Semper Musica Association, Romania, to organise and deliver

efficient sessions on these topics, addressed to young peopple, their teachers and parents. More than

that, ABQ Bern will develop the capacity of Semper Musica Association, from an internal point of view, via

know-how transfer and good practice regarding the internal procedures and the instruments which could

be used by the organization to increase it efficiency.

For further information regarding the project, please visit us to: http://sempermusica.org/swiss/ (RO)

http://sempermusica.org/swiss/


Strategic planning

What is it?

- A systematic process of an organization which decides its essential priorities which respond to the

mission assumed and the external environment. The process guides the organization in identifying and

assigning the resources to respond to these priorities.

The strategic planning process is organised outside the every day activities of the organization and shows

us the panoramic view of what we do and what we want to achieve. The strategic planning offers a clear

image of what it is targeted and realised, and also of what should we do to realise them; it is not an

operational plan for the daily activities.


The strategic planning can see...

Attention!The strategic planning can see a future which is difficult to be foreseen and which is also

variable/changeable; it can see the planning as a continuous process; it takes into consideration more

options related to future and develop strategic directions based on the internal and external assessment

of the environment. The strategic planning asks the following questions: - Based on the data we have

about the environment surrounding the organization, do we do the proper activities? How can we better

use our resources to achieve our mission? etc


FAQs for strategic planning!

1. Who are we? (as an organization)2. What are we doing now and why?

3. What problem/s do we want to solve?

4. What is the change we want to make?

5. What critical situation do we want to answer?

6. How do we manage to achieve what we want?

7. What should be our priorities? In which direction should we allocate our resources?

A strategic planning should not be strict, but it can set up some parameters/indicators for the direction of

your organization. This is why it is important for the strategic planning process to be based on a clear

image of the external environment and your own ability, the strenghts and weaknesses.


The first steps

First of all, to understand if it is the proper time for a strategic planning!

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Very easily!

You make a questionnaire which is applied to the management team. The questionnaire should answer

the questions related to the vision of the organization, its values, mission, present resources, purpose and

objectives, and how they are followed, etc.

If you need the questionnaire, write us to:

[email protected] and we will send it to

you!

mailto:[email protected]


The first steps

You also need to answer the following questions:

- Why do we do that?

- Is it a need of the funder or is it an activity from a financed project?

- Does it help us to understand the direction of the organization?

- Does it increase the capacity of the organization?

- Does it respond to a crisis?

- Does it help to prioritise our efforts?

- Does it improve the communication inside the organization?

- Does it increase the efficiency of the organization?

- Another reason: ........

- Identifying specific problems or alternatives which should be solved by the strategic planning

- Clarifying the roles of the participants to the project

- Identifying the people interested

- Identifying the information which should be gathered to make us ble to take decisions

- During what period of time it should be realised?

- What problems or challenges do we hope for the plan to bring foreword?

- Do we have the authority, the resources and the necessary time for the process?

- Who is the person responsible for this project? Who will be the members of the team responsible for the

process?

- Do we want an external facilitator?

- How long do we assume it would take? And other similar questions which could help you understand if it

is the proper time!


YES for strategic planning?

OK! – Internal assessmentThe next step is to apply a questionnaire for the members of the team to get used to actively contribute

to this process. Our questionnaire has 10 questions about the employees’s opinion on the external and

internal context/environment where the organization acts.

If you need the questionnaire, write us to

[email protected] and we will send it!



Internal assessment!

In this stage, you can also use other instruments, others than the previous questionnaire:

- 1 questionnaire related to the present performance of the organization, its profile, its purposes and

objectives, from the point of view of the employees/board members, the present capacity and the

needs of the organization;

- 1 questionnaire related to the perception on the present activity: the present activities drive us away

from and lead us to what?

- 1 questionnaire related to the internal situation:

If you need the questionnaires, write us

to [email protected] and we will send it!

: internal problems/trends

identified in the last 6 months,

the causes of conflicts, if there

was a high employee turn over,

weaknesses of the financial and

administration system,

challenges the organization

could face, problems related to

the managing style, etc



The plan of strategic planning!

It is recommended for you to develop a plan of the strategic planning process: Till when? Who? What? Resources?

If you need a plan model,

write us to

[email protected]

and we will send it!



Revising the VISION

Before revising the vision, take care of assessing the employees/ board members/ funders’ perception on

the current one!

If the final result consists in more NO’s, you should clearly revise the vision!

How do I do it? During a strategic meeting: top management, the Board of the organization, founding members.

Statements : YES NO

Does the vision of the organization offer a clear image of the ideal future

existence?

Is the current vision an inspirational or a challenging one?

Is the current vision brief and easy to remember?

Does it represent me and inspire me as an employee?


Collecting the data – the vision

You can ask your colleagues/ the Board of the organization/ the founding members/ the volunteers, etc about the

following:

Imagine we are in 2026 and we realised all we wanted. We have such a great success that TIME Magazine will use

us for this month front cover.

- What will the message of our organization be for this cover?

- What representative photo have they chosen for the cover?

- Who are our beneficiaries and what do they say about us?

AND

In a local paper – paper of big circulation – we are going to talk about:

1. What will be the impact we desire in the following 3-5 years?

2. What beneficiaries do we want to have? How will we reach them? And at what level (local, national, only from

some towns)?

3. What will be the impact we want to have at the community or national level?

4. How will the success of our organization look like?


Revising the MISSION

Statements: YES NO

Does the mission reflect the unique character of the organization?

Is the mission brief and concise?

Is the mission easy to understand?

Is it easy to remember?

Are you proud of it? Would you frame it? Would you tell other people about it?

Does it show what the organization does to obtain the ideal world described in

the vision?

For this step we should answer the following questions:


The organizational diagnosis

The instrument of organizational self-assessment (Capacity Building Matrix), through the information collected by its

help, will permit you to draw a panoramic view of the level of organizational development. The instrument will be

completed in a participative way by a team formed of (recommended): a person of the board of the organization, a

person of the executive management, the project manager, a beneficiary and a person of the financial department.


External assessment

It is the right time you asked the partners, the funders, the volunteers, the external contributors what they think about your

organization!

It is time you collected information about:

The situation of the organization “market”

The new ways of approaching the problems appeared

The new needs and identified beneficiaries

What the other similar organizations do

New problems appeared which are waiting for an answer

The factors and the external tendencies we identified in the past which are still waiting for an answer.

HOW?

Through the analysis of the target groups of the target groups/stakeholders

Through SWOT and PEST analyses

Through an online brief questionnaire, designed according to the specific activities of the organization.


You collected the data, the meeting is

nextDid you collect many data from the employees and the board of the organization, the founders, the external contributors,

beneficiaries, volunteers, partners and funders? Do you have a resume of all the information, including one of the

organizational diagnosis? PERFECT!

The next step is to establish if you use an external consultant or you assign an internal resource person. If collecting data

is more or less a difficult process, conducting discussions for identifying the strategic directions, could be extremely

difficult.

WHAT DID WE DO?

We contracted an external facilitator/moderator to whom we transmitted all the information, we organised a strategic

meeting where we gathered all the members of the team and we had debates. To be sincere, we benefitted of a grant

offered by The Swiss-Romanian Bilateral Programme. Such a process is an INVESTMENT and not very

expensive so you should try it!


The meeting agenda

If you have decided to organise a meeting, you need an agenda for this.

Here you are a sample agenda, the one we used for our meeting of strategic planning.

If you need a sample agenda, then write us to

[email protected] and we will send it to

you!



The meeting, part 1

At the meeting we started to analyse the data obtained after the

internal and external assessment.

We analysed the organizational diagnosis, an opportunity to

notice the domains which should be improved. We passed to the

revising of the vision, a process which started with the internal

assessment data, and also with the image of an ideal world from

the employees’ an founding members point of view, an ideal

world where our organization could exist. We also revised the

mission starting with the internal data and activities, and our

values too. At the end of this process we went on with the review

of the projects implemented by us, and we obtained information

which suggested us the domains which represent a priority. In the

end, we formulated the strategic goals which took into

consideration the vision and the mission, and also the priority

areas.

To each strategic goal, not more than 5, we added strategic

objectives and key performance indicators.


The meeting, part 2

Once the correlation between goals, objectives and indicators is

done, we passed to the arrangement of them in a strategic

planning form (a document; goals, objectives and indicators will be

arranged in a table).

The operational plan included the activities designed for the

following year, which respond to the strategic objectives and goals.

Each activity also included the time period for achieving it, the

responsible, the existent or the needed budget, other necessary

resources, indices.

Below you have a sample of an operational plan you can use if you

consider it proper. The plan should be monitored once a trimester,

and in the last trimester of the year, you should develop the

operational plan for the following year, if the strategic planning

lasts more years.

In our case, the strategic planning was developed for 3 years.


What does a strategic plan look like?

If you need this

model, then write us

to

office@sempermusic

a.org and we will

send it to you!



What does an operational plan look

like?

If you need one of

these models,

then write us to

office@sempermu

sica.org and we

will send it to you!



What does ABQ Switzerland say

about strategic planning process?In developing this process, we received assistance from our Swiss partner - ABQ Bern.

Here you are the opinion of a Swiss organization about it:

“The strategic planning is important to guide the organization; it is necessary to manage to include all targeted groups of

stakeholders – board members, employees, partners, founding members, etc. Practically, the strategic planning help you

understand what you have to achieve and thus you can use your resources to fulfil your strategic directions.

In Switzerland most of the medium sized organizations have such a plan, and the all the big ones. It is clear you need

resources and time to develop this strategic planning, and even if it is apparently a difficult process, it is also one which

should be made if you are an organization with self respect and high standards. I recommend Romanian ONGs to try to

develop such a plan, which does nothing else but help the organization to evolve.”

Jochanan Harari, ABQ Bern President, Elveția


Thank you! We hope this guide was

useful for you!

For further information or question write to: [email protected]

and we help you!

Good luck!

Power point presentation translated from Romanian into English by

Lăcrămioara Țupu, english teacher, Tecuci, România, and a founding member

of the Semper Musica Association Branch in Tecuci, Galați county.


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