To assure your success in strategic planning, follow these nine tips:
1. Carefully select the members of your planning team.
Use two criteria for selection - first make sure you include those who can, and will, contribute positively to the content of your resultant plan. Second, make sure you also include those who are positioned to drive the successful implementation of the strategies within the plan. That means leaders - both formal (per the organization chart) leaders and informal (natural) leaders.
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2. Educate your planning team members to the strategic planning process.
Make sure they all understand the definition of, and the importance of, key terms like, “mission” and “objective.” The best form of education is a participatory workshop in which your planning team members “roll up their sleeves” and work on a case study. By doing so, they’ll actually experience developing a strategic plan.
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3. Involve employees beyond those on your planning team.
Let them know you value their participation – for you’ll later need their help in implementing your strategy. Have them participate in pre-planning surveys to “bubble up” issues for discussion at your up-coming strategy sessions. And be sure to offer them feedback on the outcome of those sessions. Remember, asking for their input implies a promise to feed back. If you forget that feedback, they’ll feel cheated.
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4. Gather applicable information prior to your strategy sessions.
Have your planning team think through the issues you’ll likely discuss at your up-coming strategy sessions. Next, decide on the information you’ll need to deal with those issues and to arrive at strategic decisions. Then, prior to your strategy sessions, gather and share that information among the members of your planning team. And when gathering information, you have yet another opportunity to involve employees beyond those on your planning team.
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5. Hold your strategy sessions away from your office.
Avoid the interruptions and distractions which so often arise when your offices are “just down the hall.” It’s too easy for a meeting member to step out “for just a moment” to check a message, and return much, much later. Don’t fall victim. Meet “off campus.”
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6. Encourage open communication.
If you’re the boss, you’ll play the most difficult role in the strategic planning process. For you’ll walk the fine line between being an active participant and coming across as “too strong.” And because you’re the boss, others will hear your voice a bit more loudly than the other voices. Tone it down a bit and encourage others to participate.
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7. Link your strategic plan to your budget.
Have your employees develop specific tactics to implement your strategy. Then estimate the resources required to accomplish those tactics. In estimating resources, include: people, money, facilities and equipment. As these resource estimates feed into the budget, your budgeting cycle should, ideally, follow development of your strategies and tactics.
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8. Communicate your strategy.
Once you’ve assured that you have the resources for implementation, tell your employees of your strategy. After all, it is they who will help with its implementation. And don’t just tell ‘em once. Tell ‘em again. And again.
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9. Keep your plan alive.
Hold quarterly review meetings to monitor progress of your strategic plan. Remember, it’s one thing to develop a strategy, and quite another to implement it successfully. This is hard work! You’ll need to manage it as such.
Bill Birnbaum, CMC, is President of Birnbaum Associates, business strategy consultants. He helps clients develop a shared strategic vision, then turn that vision into a sound business strategy.
He's taught strategy courses for the American Management Association and authored “Strategic Thinking: A Four Piece Puzzle” (Douglas Mountain Publishing, 2004).
His website contains informative articles on business strategy development and implementation: www.BirnbaumAssociates.com/
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