Typically, the OSM lives in the finance departmentor it could be its own separate division that reports directly to the CEO. and requested that you make a strategic plan and then report back to the leadership team when youre donestop right where you are. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. But many businesses go through a time-consuming and costly strategic planning exercise, only to find themselves with a plan that is ignored or just glanced at once a year. endstream endobj startxref s m"(0gS@hM Mghb And our team of strategy implementation experts is always available to provide guidance on every aspect of execution, from setting up an efficient management process to using our reporting tools optimally. The importance lies in ensuring youve chosen the elements in the pyramid that work best for your organization, and making sure those components are going to help you achieve strategic success. If you want to integrate this checklist, this is the time to do so. Step 1: Gather your team, set up meetings, and create a timeline. See our most popular templates here. practices, resources, initiatives) youll take to get there. Its important to note that throwing together an impromptu meeting to go over results isnt going to get you anywhere. Months or years later, strategic leaders are left wondering why the company never achieved what was intended. You now have all the background information necessary to create your strategic plan! Modify them or use a strategy evaluation framework to make sure theyre focused and move on. Heres how to do that. Do you currently create reports for your board and management team? If youre just becoming familiar with how strategy mapping works, this article will teach you exactly how to read oneand what you need to do to create one. What is strategic planning and why is it important? Step 1: Confirm your mission and vision statements. The future state section should include these elements: One or more subsections can be included to give additional details on various elements and why theyve been adopted. LpF^l-B^+&(p/ (ue#J^K) 0LA&\9)$deXJ\e bjVHo]mtwvI*Xlt14V=Wlu]KjuUmq2m-,~n}=aet~sy6jn-ric&.ZV;:@I * BLiP8T'XqG(W@hqra1A"P TL `0' What actions need to be taken to continue making progress? Although its written last, the executive summary is presented first in the final report. Its imperative to have a system in place that will measure and monitor your progress toward goals during the execution phase. The point is to show how all these elements fit together and relate to the strategic plan as a whole. %PDF-1.6 % You can be in the small percentage of businesses that actually achieve the goals in their strategic plans, and were here to tell you how. This section is typically around 10 to 15 pages long and is based on workshops and interviews that Dwivedi holds with key employees. The executive summary includes the companys vision and mission statements and a very brief description of these elements: It can also be useful to include a small subsection or box highlighting key observations or findings about the company and its goals. A full-page color poster overview of the City of Renos 2016-2018 Strategic Plan. As for timing, there are three types of strategy review meetings: For each of these, youll want to send out calendar invites in advance and make sure people know these meetings are a top priority. Thats not an effective plan. The section is generally 10 to 15 pages long and includes these elements: The action plan is a simplified summary of the whole plan and should be referred to continually by your team to make sure their daily actions add up to the strategic plan, Dwivedi says. Objectives are three-to-five year goals of where you want your organization to be. The best strategic plans have clear goals, key metrics to track the goals, and smart initiatives to help meet these goals. The idea is that your defined objectives and measurements help employees, managers, and executives link to and align with overall strategic priorities. Develop the framework that will hold your high-level priorities. The Strategic Plan will serve as the guiding map for all internal and external quality improvement, including annual quality improvement and strategic objectives within DWIHN, and providers, including responsibility assignments, performance measurements and evaluation. Good planning is only half the battle; the lions share of forward progress is in executing that plan. You improve communication and build employee engagement. Putting your strategic plan into practice. A strategic plan must give you and your team a simple, clear roadmap of what to do next. For future resource allocation, link your operations (what some refer to as the work planning process) to your strategy. Dont worry, though, yours can be one of the success stories.) Below are three things you should be aware of going into the process. If you have a goal to improve patient satisfaction, a measure might be average patient wait time. Avoid squandering time and energy on excessive analysis by making sure the right people are focusing on the right data and actions: Leadership should focus on organization-wide goals and progress. Subscribe to receive, via email, tips, articles and tools for entrepreneurs and more information about our solutions and events. You dont need to completely rewire your budget, but you do need to create direct linkages between how your resources are allocated and how those efforts support your strategy. The BSC divides up your objectives by perspectivesfinancial, customer, process, and peopleand themes, like innovation, customer management, operational excellence, etc. The participation and dialogue that takes place among managers and employees throughout the strategic planning process improves transparency and engagement on everyones part. Why is strategic planning so effective? Without a strategy, your organization is walking blindly with no clear, aligned goals in sight. However, try to avoid adding yet another meeting onto everyones plates; instead, there may be a current meeting you can replace or redesign to make time for strategy discussion. You should be shouting it from the rooftops to keep it top-of-mind across your organization. Ted, Founder and Managing Partner at ClearPoint, has over 25 years of experience working with organizations to improve their performance management and strategy execution processes. Youll get a purpose statement, change agenda, and strategy map template with measures and initiatives. Weve defined each of these concepts more thoroughly below with a few business strategy examples: Whether or not youre using a Balanced Scorecard as your strategy framework, youll benefit from using a graphic model to represent your strategic plan. Putting your strategic plan into practice (our final step) is the key to making it all work during the strategy implementation plan, and getting these details 80% right in a timely fashion is much more important than getting them 100% right in a year. Dont reinvent the wheeluse our assortment of strategic planning templates to get your strategy up and running more easily. The current state section is about 15 to 20 pages in length and includes: An appendix may be added at the end with extra information, such as: The next section describes the desired future state of the company. Do you already manage with a robust set of KPIs? Ten years ago, you may have evaluated your strategy annually. With the right plan in place, tools to support it, and committed leadership, every organization has a good chance of seeing their strategy come to life. As a business, you can do a million things. companies are failing to strategize at all. To support a new goal of developing a COVID-19 response plan, they could simply review the resources used by current projects, evaluate those projects priorities and budget needs in comparison to the new goal, and reallocate funds as necessary. The Theory of Change is a logic model that describes a step-by-step approach to achieving your vision. Create your strategy map or graphic strategic model. 0 Having a strategic plan brings your main focus points to the forefront, so you dont have to dig into the details of everything your organization is doing. 2-page, full-color overview of North Slope Borough School Districts 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. Teams should focus on the individual projects and daily tasks that are helping to accomplish those goals (and the data that goes with them). Many executives, when faced with these stats, are wondering, How do I avoid coming up short in my strategy?. However, the same team that conducted the above analysis also noted that, for strategic planning to work, it requires some specific ingredients, including formal analysis of the internal and external environment, consideration of several strategic options, and careful consideration around whom to involve during the different steps of the strategic planning process. Guidelines on how to build a municipal RFP. The way to do that is by selecting and developing a strategy management framework that will bring all your priorities together in one cohesive format. The idea behind TOC is that if you have the right people doing the right activities, theyll affect change on your customers, which will impact your financials, and bring you closer to your vision. This is a tiring processso be careful to tailor everything in this section to what those in your organization will tolerate. Everything about strategic planning takes time. Software that connects long-term business strategy, goals/OKRs, and weekly results to help your organization adapt and thrive. They help you prepare to create the strategic plan. They arent prepared for the work involved with follow-through, both in terms of the time commitment and the tools necessary to support performance improvement. 1. Heres how objectives, measures, and projects interact: You have a high-level goal in mindyour objective. this article that highlights how you can effectively communicate your strategic plan. Deploy strategy reporting software (if you havent already). They get distracted by a red shiny ball, like a logo or website redesign, or the latest social media platform. A checklist of 29 things to ask a potential strategy software vendor. We live and breathe strategic planning and are here to help! A great example of a this theory of change is the nonprofit RARE. The initial planning activities usually unfold over the space of several months, but strategy execution itself is an ongoing process. Having a plan doesnt mean your organization will execute on it. That naturally leads to faster, more efficient decision-making, especially when that data is readily accessible to employees at every level. Understand how they all fit into your own strategic planning process, and then move forward with the sections youre missing. Doing so helps ensure resources are allocated correctly, and in a way that aligns with your goals. Tying the budget directly to goals also makes it easy to adjust when necessary, if circumstances change and new goals are prioritized over old. NCQA will help us be one of the leading community mental health agencies in the country. Strategy is focused on the destination and how you are going to get there, and tactics are focused on the specific actions you plan to take along the way. You allocate resources more effectively. But those that develop a disciplined approach to both planning and execution have been shown to improve performance significantly. After each step, Dwivedi prepares a report to sum up the discussion and key findings. Report on strategy progress via the quarterly or monthly review meetings you scheduled early in the process. You then need to look at the threat of substitutes. These sessions usually lead to a short list of five to 10 ideas to research further. Annual refresh meetings may include upper levels of management and occasionally board members. Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, Coordinate & collaborate with coworkers, members, and providers, Effective employee & member engagement (dignity, respect, and rights), Empower efficient communication among employees, Our 3-year NCQA accreditation = quality care, Stay current on training and credentialing, Strengthen the quality of our system of care by helping to identify strengths and weaknesses. Did you recently do a SWOT analysis and create new vision and mission statements? Because it fosters healthy organizational practices that drive better outcomes. The plan shouldnt be academic or stuck in theory. If metrics are off-track, for example, what can be done to get back on course. Now that youve prepared for your strategy You may have researched risk assessments, core competencies, scenario planning, or industry scans as part of your strategic planning. That means theres no time wasted analyzing irrelevant and extensive data points in strategic meetings; instead, everyone stays focused on what is most important or where improvements need to be made. High engagement will directly impact your organizations financial health and profitability. This may include reiterating your mission and vision to add context around the conversation. A successful strategic plan must be actionable and easy to understand, Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology (ICE) Venture Fund, Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative (VCCI), Kauffman Fellows Program Partial Scholarship, Growth & Transition Capital financing solutions, please consult our strategic planning services, How to avoid common mistakes when building your business plan, Why every small business owner needs a growth plan, How to put customers first in your new business, Canadian business productivity benchmarking tool, Improve your financial management to stay profitable, A company overview past milestones and achievements, current products or services, markets, key competencies, financial analysis, sales performance and trends in recent years, current key performance indicators. Instead, your strategy review meetings should be meticulously organized and accompanied by an agenda. Theres no typical scenario, but there are some common pitfalls that have the power to make or break your chances of success. Whatever the case, dont expect this to be done by the end of the week. But this plan doesnt live in a vacuumso well start by revisiting your mission and vision statements and then get into the nuts and bolts of the planning process. Using a framework such as Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Theory of Change (TOC), or Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is critical to your strategic success. The report you use should highlight progress on your measures and projects, and how those link to your objectives. ExternalYou also need to be sure you have a plan for communicating your strategy outside the organizationwith board members, partners, or customers (particularly if your organization is municipal or nonprofit). This report is then validated with the CEO and key employees and any input integrated before work starts on the next step. is a visual tool designed to clearly communicate a strategic plan. When Dwivedi works with his clients, he normally ends the strategic planning process by writing a one- or two-page executive summary. To make strategy execution work, reporting is unavoidable. nfe Yf'>74(vjkK1P} 3 66UJUF^ll 0sFD8T-XL7+{:Of2M+t8 Tl[:U| Highlights of these achievements have been captured annually in progress reports shared with the University community. Organizations should have no more than 10 objectives. When that shared vision is communicated clearly and consistently, it inspires employees to take ownership over their role in the plan, and they are typically more motivated to do their best work. shown to improve performance significantly. Its a time-honored strategy execution framework built around the competition in your industry. Strategy consultants are excellent guides for plan creation, but most offer no guidance on how to carry it out; as a result, organizations are left floundering. Not only does OKR strive to measure whether objectives are successful, but also how successful they are. Strategic Planning is a process that seeks to set a strategic direction and plan to advance the organizations interests and ensure long-term growth and sustainability. In the short termwhich would be your next budgeting cycle or something similarwork to structure the budget around the key components of your strategy. People wont give it a passing thought unless you engage themso every department head should be charged with explaining how their team fits into the strategy and why it matters. Together we will improve the quality of our system of care one inch at a time. Your expectation should be that the process of aligning your resources to your strategy can happen within year two of your strategic planning execution. Think through how it will be shared, and which parts of it are relevant to outside parties. The Balanced Scorecard, developed by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, has been one of the worlds top strategy management frameworks since its introduction in the early 1990s.