Strategic Plans Are Not Enough

In many organizations, the completion of a strategic plan is celebrated with fanfare and held up as a proof of prosperity for the future.

Strategic thinking starts long before a plan in authored, long before the models are prepared and long before a plan is published.  Before starting to articulate where they want to be, an organization has to take a few steps back and look at where they are and what they are.  It is difficult to watch an organization deliver a new strategic plan with no basis for developing an implementation plan.  It is even more difficult to watch an organization develop an implementation plan and not know enough about their current resources to define a starting point. Much like following a map, if you do not know where you are now, it will be difficult to use a map to find your way to the target destination.

So What Is Missing?

In general terms, there are two major areas that typically are not sufficiently addressed in the strategic planning cycle, namely the health of the current organization, its strengths and weaknesses and its ability to change or absorb new ideas. The second area that is not sufficiently addressed is the execution of the plan. How many good strategic plans have remained on the shelf with little or no impact on the direction of the organization? The introduction of a strategic planning process model or methodology would increase the probability of success.

Some organizations start with a dream, a vision or a goal. If a dream, a vision or a goal is articulated in a simple and clear statement then the nature of the business likely supports the statement. This is the starting point as well as the end point of the strategic planning cycle. When thinking strategically, it is a reasonable approach for an organization to revisit its vision regularly, possibly redefining its mission and mandate. The next critical task is to assemble all of the vital information required for the basis of the plan.  Some of this information includes an assessment of financial resources available, cash flow projections, human resources strengths, deployment, skills and the ability to change, product or service acceptance and positioning in the market place, global economic indicators, industry trends and competitive intelligence.  In many cases, political stability, alliances, environmental issues, health and humanity programs will have a significant impact on the development of the strategic plan. 

The key to success is to:

Only with this type of information, can the organization embark on preparing a new strategic plan. And this brings us to the second major area of strategic planning that is not particularly well addressed, the implementation.

Implementing A Strategic Plan

Implementation of a strategic plan is as important as the strategic plan itself.  Typically, this is where an organization falters.   The first challenge is to maintain the excitement, the energy and the expectations that come with the completion of a strategic plan.  Implementation is pushed down an organization to senior and middle managers with little guidance or coordination.  The fact that a good implementation plan may require the same level of resource commitment and may even be more complex that the strategic plans, is usually not considered resulting in an initiative that is not properly resourced or coordinated.  Marketing, Finance, Administration, Distribution and Human Resources etc. all interpret the plan for their own departments and react independently by developing their own objectives and implementation plan.   And while these plans are being developed, the imbedded conflicts between departments over resources, roles and authorities are taking the focus away even further from the strategic plan.

Now What?

The development of an implementation plan has to take into account the current position of the organization, the resources available, the ability to change, the speed at which an organization can change, availability of facilities, materials and distribution channels.  The implementation plan has to incorporate the constraints of cash flow, financial reserves, previous commitments/contracts, current skills pools and lead times required to make change.  The implementation plan has to incorporate external factors that could have a positive or negative impact on the success of the implementation.  Some external factors would include prices for raw materials, resources and facilities, market trends and product competition, political and industry directions.  Typically, the implementation plan has to incorporate some of the past, most of the present and make significant assumptions about the future.  And above all, the implementation plan has to be given the highest levels of coordination and resourcing.  The strategic plan is only as good as the implementation plan, which, by the way, is only as good as the strategic plan ..... which brings us back to the beginning of the planning cycle once again.

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Last modified: August 19, 2005