Strategic planning: how to ensure delivery of your planned strategy

This is the final blog in our series describing our approach to strategic planning including an innovative strategic and operational planning model the Business Lifesystem® which simplifies and streamlines the strategic planning process for complex organisations.

You can find our series of blogs on how to write a strategic plan that seriously improves your business performance here;

1. Strategic planning process: how to meet business challenges head on

2. The best of the business planning tools: The Business Lifesystem®

3. Your business management system: know your business drivers

4. Business planning: the important things you didn’t know

5. Your risk management process: is it the right one?

6. Strategic planning: how to ensure delivery of your planned strategy

Strategic planning and delivering the planned strategy

Strategic planning is about identifying key challenges and how to overcome the associated obstacles in order to meet those challenges through a set of coherent actions.

It is therefore crucial that the achievement of those actions and associated outcomes are managed effectively.

Anything that needs to be delivered or achieved within a business (whether seen as business-as-usual, business change programmes, delivery projects, benefits realisation projects or innovation initiatives) should have a controlling structure or vehicle managing it.

In a complex organisation these include governance, methodologies, processes, resource allocation/management and risk management.

In fact, managing delivery has ten main aspects to it:

1. Outcome Definition - a breakdown and definition of what is required to be delivered in terms of Outcomes (benefit and value).

2. Work Breakdown Structure - a breakdown and definition of what enablers need to be delivered in order to achieve those Outcomes.

3. Activity - a breakdown and definition of what action and activity is required to be taken in order to deliver the Enablers.

4. Plan - a plan of when that activity will take place and the dependencies between the activities, with associated achievement milestones.

5. Resource - an assessment and ongoing management of the resources required to undertake the activity and deliver the plan. This should include allocation of clear responsibility and accountability for delivery.

6. Finance - an assessment and ongoing management of the budget (capital and revenue) required to pay for the resources and other assets required.

7. Stakeholder Engagement and Communication - regular, appropriate and timely engagement and communication with the different stakeholder groups that are affected by, or contribute to delivery.

8. Risk Management - identification of the risks and assumptions that need to be mitigated and managed in order to maximise the potential for successful delivery.

9. Progress Reporting - regular reporting on the progress of delivery both in terms of achievements and exceptions to the plan.

10. Lessons Learned - an assessment of lessons learned at the end of delivery in order to refine and improve the process for the future.

Strategic planning and Programme and Project Management

The Business Lifesystem® refers to these controlling structures as ‘Delivery Management Vehicles’ (DMVs) and they can be portfolios, programmes, projects, work-streams, initiatives, departments etc.

The scope of a Delivery Management Vehicle (DMV) is set out as a range of Enablers and/or Business Outcomes as indicated by the following diagram.It is a combination of the Business Objectives, Business Outcomes and Enablers that constitute the Business Case associated with the DMV. A definition of what it will deliver in terms of value, how much it will cost, the net return on the investment and how long it will take.

Strategic planning in a complex business: The Business Lifesystem®

Strategic planning is an assessment of business challenges and the definition of an approach to overcome the obstacles in order to meet those challenges.

It requires a clear set of cohesive and coordinated actions to be identified, managed and delivered.

A structured approach to strategic planning ensures clarity, consistency and collaboration.

It enables the organisation to focus its resources appropriately on resolving its biggest challenges, seriously improving the performance of the business.

The Business Lifesystem® is an innovative strategic planning and operational planning model which provides that structured approach to ease and streamline strategic planning in a complex organisation.

Next steps

We hope you have found our blog series on strategic planning interesting and informative. Contact us for more information on The Business Lifesystem®.

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