Strategic planning process: how to meet business challenges head on

The strategic planning process in a complex organisation

The strategic planning process in a complex organisation is tough to get right. It is not just about aspiration, ambition, leadership, and visioning. It is about articulating the challenges that face your organisation now and in the future and encapsulating how you are going to address such multiple, complex and fast-moving challenges.

In this series of blogs I will be describing my approach to the strategic planning process. This will include an innovative strategic and operational planning model the Business Lifesystem®. This model helps simplify and streamline 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

In this first blog we take a look at what strategy is and how to approach it.

Meeting your business challenges: here’s how

In order to be successful, the business outcomes that you are looking for must be expressed in a set of measurable objectives. These define

• what you are trying to achieve

• along with an explanation as to why you are trying to achieve them and, most importantly,

• how you intend to achieve them.

The most significant aspect of the strategic planning process is that it should articulate how your objectives will be accomplished and not just a definition of what they are.

How to determine your Business Objectives: Assessment, Approach, Action

The strategic planning of your objectives can best be undertaken in a three step process;

• Assessment - identifying significant challenges that your organisation faces.

• Approach - defining an overall approach for dealing with those challenges.

• Action - designing a coherent set of actions that implement the approach.

The important point here is that your strategic planning must contain action that is coherent and coordinated. It must be focused on overcoming the many obstacles and addressing the complex challenges facing your organisation.

Assessment

The first step is Assessment. The gaining, by investigation, an in-depth understanding of the nature and circumstances of specific challenges faced by your organisation.

Assessment is about defining the nature of your challenges and identifying the key obstacles that need to be overcome in order to address them.

Challenges are either;

• external business drivers (dealing with threats to the organisation or maximising opportunities for the organisation) or

• internal value drivers (addressing weaknesses or leveraging strengths within the organisation).

Challenges are often associated with external competition or internal change.

Approach

The second step is to determine the overall approach for dealing with your challenges. This is done by overcoming the associated obstacles identified in the assessment stage.

Common approaches are based on

• leveraging internal strengths and

• minimising weaknesses

in order to maximise external opportunities and mitigate external threats.

The approach stage sets out a specific direction without defining exactly what actions must be undertaken. It reduces complexity and provides clarity about the situation. This enables a plan of action to be developed that coordinates and focuses resources and effort effectively.

Action

The third step is to devise a coordinated set of actions that are designed to implement the approach you have specified.

Determining Your Business Objectives

The assessment, approach and action-plan process enables you to develop a clear set of Business Objectives to be identified that define a successful Business Outcome. In other words that the obstacles have been overcome and the challenges met.

It is important that, through the definition of Business Outcomes, Business Objectives are:

• Achievable - the Business Outcomes must be realistic and achievable.

• Quantified - you must be able to measure progress towards achieving them. This quantification also defines the value that the Business Objective is contributing to the business.

• Prioritised - it is important to understand the priority required to achieve different Business Outcomes in order to enable you to focus your resources appropriately.

• Owned - it must be clear who is accountable and who is responsible for the achievement of each Business Outcome.

• Scheduled - the Business Outcome must be planned so that you know when it is due to be achieved.

• Cohesive - it must be clear how all Business Outcomes relate to each other i.e. how they contribute to the next Business Outcome. This creates an Outcomes Realisation Map that enables you to manage the realisation of the Business Outcomes.

• Measured - having quantified the Business Outcomes it is important that you measure progress towards their achievement.

A good strategy is realistic, achievable, timely and delivers the desired Business Objectives.

The strategic planning process is about

• articulating the challenges facing your organisation through assessing those challenges,

• determining an approach to overcoming them and

• developing a coordinated set of actions to address them.

Next steps

In our next blog we offer an overview of an innovative strategic and operational planning model the Business Lifesystem®. This applies and builds on this Assessment-Approach- Action process to streamline your strategic planning process and totally transform the performance of your business.

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