How to Make a Strategic Plan ? – { Part 1 }
Do you know that strategic planning undergoes a stage? A process needs to implement and even you have a definite goal in mind, there are goals that need to achieve first before reaching the core objective. This article is divided into five parts and the first article will tackle the following questions to ask yourself if strategic planning is right for you, the right committee, and the reasons of strategic planning implementation.
A plan is a roadmap when and where your plan and organization are headed. It provides you direction as well as information. Just like in strategy, you cannot let it exist without strategic planning. Every aspect of our life involves planning and that includes building a business and to become known around the market.
There are some people that only focus on the goal that in turn became more of a fantasy dream than a reality. They expect too much, but not wary enough to see the signs of trouble.
That is why you need to take into account the factors when you are embarking on strategy planning. It’s a process, and you had to treat is as such, so don’t force expedite it and ensure that everyone is working on smaller goals to bring the plan into success.
Gather the people who will be involved in strategic planning. Facilitate a meeting to determine the methods, objectives, and tasks necessary to ensure a smooth strategic planning. Hence, you need to run some certain questions to have a clear visual of your plan.
How Are We Ready for Strategic Planning?
Don’t embark on strategic planning for the sake of acquiring money from it. When it comes to funds, ask yourself if you can shoulder the expenses—not how you will able to get it. A valued return will generate if you are doing your strategic plan correctly.
Next, determine your task-fulfillment history. You need to have people who are willing to haul in and contribute to strategic planning. Some just plan and never implement. If such scenario happened to your team before or multiple times, you have to take your team and leadership status into account and do some necessary improvement. If you can, ask your Board members to join in the brainstorming sessions to add more details to the plan. The goal here is everyone should be in agreement of what the plan holds, the tasks to fulfill, and the budget being brought to the table.
Who Are the Members of the Planning Committee?
Regardless of the size of the plan and the team, the planning committee should consist of the head of the board, chief executive officer, leader or manager for each program, and an expert in strategic planning.
The following people mentioned above should be sufficient enough to lead numerous and different tasks to implement strategic planning and steer the plane to the right direction. If you have a bigger project and plan, you might expand the working process by creating teams on the tasks.
Why Are We Doing Strategic Planning?
The following reasons for strategic planning depend on what approach you are going to take. So it’s best if you have a definite answer to the question above and be familiar with the usual reasons below:
- That time of the year. Certain seasons or months are ideal to implement strategic planning.
- Major issues occur between the board and members and this is usually a disagreement in regards to the plan.
- The organization wants or needs additional product or service department.
- Investors don’t just whip out a wad of cash—they need an actual plan, not a stack of papers with no specific information and direction.
Once you have all the answers to the questions, it’s time to build your strategic plan and work your way with the tasks. The next article will discuss the next questions in regards the plan within a plan.
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