Strategic Planning BasicsHow to Define and Achieve Your Goals

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

You might be asking…

• How do I achieve my goals? • Where will we be in a year? • How do I reach my $2 million sales goal? • How do I allocate resources?

Planning is the Answer.

Struggling Organizations:

• Have no direction • Have no plan• Have forgotten the basic of the original plan

A goal and a plan to achieve the goal are a must!

- Prussian Army Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke

“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”

Planning is About the Journey

• Plans change on first contact with the enemy• That’s because a “plan” is based upon

assumptions and expectations on how the enemy will react to your actions.

• A plan is not a blueprint for the future.

Planning Helps You to…

• Prepare your “army” for what’s to come

• Properly allocate resources• Anticipate hurdles• Reduce potential risk

Planning Helps You to…

• Determine future obstacles• Pinpoint the help you’ll need from other

departments• Set a timeline• And most importantly…

Define the goal.

A Plan Should Not…

• Be blindly followed• Be put on a shelf as soon as it’s completed• Remain unchanged no matter what happens

Superior Planning…

• Is a continuous process• Should include altering or updating the plan as

needed• Bases changes on regular feedback and

assessments

Definition of Planning

The US Army Field Manual 5.0 defines planning as follows:

“Planning is the art and science of understanding a situation, envisioning a desired future and laying out effective ways of bringing that future about. “

“Detailed planning generally corresponds to the science of operations and detailed planning works out the scheduling, coordination or technical issues involved with moving, sustaining, administering, and directing forces.“

What does this mean?

• Your planning process should be scalable• Every member of the team should be included

What does this mean?

• Someone should be responsible for championing the plan

• Senior leadership should support the process

Remember the Fundamentals of a Plan

• Define a Goal• Planning is a continuous process• Plans are time-sensitive• Keep plans simple• Keep them flexible

Be bold!

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

- Benjamin Franklin

Planning Basics

Planning is an art and a science.

To succeed, you need to convert your ideas into an actionable plan.

The Art of Planning is…

• Combining experience and knowledge of your environment to develop solutions

• Understanding:– The competitive environment– The capabilities of your team

• Maintaining relationships with customers and partners

Planning involves…

• Measurement• Analysis• Answering Questions– How long does it take to build

your product?– How long does shipping take?– What are your organization’s

policies and procedures?

This collected data..

• Provides you with limitations• Helps you build your schedule based on

measured performance

The 6 Steps of Strategic Planning

1. Define your goals. This is the most important step. What are you trying to accomplish? What is your company’s goal? They should be clearly defined. If your goal has been assigned to you or to your department, ensure that you completely understand the goal.

Our recommended method involved a blend of conceptual and strategic planning, broken up into 6 Steps:

The 6 Steps of Strategic Planning

2. Analyze the environment. What will it take to accomplish your goals? What are your internal/external barriers to success? Who are the stakeholders? Who will you collaborate with? What resources might be required? Have you done a SWOT analysis? If so, how will you react to threats and opportunities? Maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses? Uncover all of the assumptions being made about your environment.

The 6 Steps of Strategic Planning

3. Develop objectives. What are your long-term objectives? What are your short-term objectives? Do you have milestones? Deliverables? What resources are required? As you develop your objectives, create small executable steps, so progress can be easily measured and those executing the objectives are not overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.

The 6 Steps of Strategic Planning

4. Create road maps, general strategies. This is where the plan comes together. Create the map or schedule to be followed. How do we accomplish our objectives? Who accomplishes them? When will they be complete? What are the risks associated with the schedule? Explain the strategy here.

The 6 Steps of Strategic Planning

5. Execute the plan. Finally, time to execute! You’ve gone through all of that effort to create the plan-- now use it. The planning process should have prepared you and your team to meet your goals.

6. Review, fix the plan if broken. What worked in the plan? What objectives were not met? Planning is both a continuous and a cyclical activity of the operations process. Regular reviews of your plan should be established and assessments of the plan accomplished.

Issues to be Careful Of

• Don’t forecast events too far into the future• Be wary of including too much detail• Don’t delay or complicate the process with

minute specifications

Getting overly specific won’t improve the end results. Planning can never exactly predict

the future.

The Most Important Aspect of Planning

Is what you learn about yourself while you’re planning.

Planning helps anticipate future action and will help you adapt to changes.

Strategic Planning Basics

The complete version of this article can be found at:

centerforbusinessmodeling.com

About the Center for Business Modeling

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matter experts and practical user-friendly resources. Our tools are designed to accelerate your business’s

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