Posts tagged planning

Energized by a business plan

Meandering Genius Strategic Planning February 17, 2014

Ever been interested in starting your own business, but wasn’t sure where to start? Have you started to build that new business and lost some drive floundering on the next step?

Well, I’m in the process of building a new business, which requires writing a new book, an assessment tool, creating a website, developing extensive training materials, and creating a consulting approach and appropriate certification program.

I have the idea, but what gets me jazzed and on the road is writing the business plan. Maybe this isn’t for everyone, but I just can’t see anyone risking all the effort and potential money in the development of an idea as a business and not have a plan.

The best part about writing the plan is that it documents everything running around in my head, which gets in the way of other stuff I need running around in my head.

The first task is to outline the plan. Like any good paper, you need a framework. If you plan to seek funding (loans or investments) you will need a good business plan–ideas without plans are just that. Few will financially support that. So this is where you start.

I’m at the second step…the fun part. Describing the idea–the business–and writing out the mission and vision. This is what truly frames out what you are trying to do. Many people think that “Making Money doing something” is their mission–if you start there, you’ve failed. Chances are that your business will fail too, probably in the first six years. Your mission is really WHAT you do–the purpose and part of the why you exist. Your business will either plan to make something or to provide something (product or service); possibly both. What is the expected outcome of these products and services.

I always thought that Booz Allen Hamilton had a pretty effective mission statement.

We solve our clients toughest problems.

That in itself is powerful–we weren’t there to make money off whatever job you needed, no you were calling in experts to focus on the hardest things you had to deal with. Yes, we made money at it, but that wasn’t the purpose of the company.

Next is the vision. This is really powerful and can send a definite message as to what you are all about. Throw out the statements like being best, being world class, etc… Think big and think about what effort you are willing to put behind your vision. Being the best at something means devoting time and money into becoming the best. Are you willing to do that, because if you are not, your vision will be empty.

Consider Booz Allen’s vision:

Delivering results that endure.

What this meant was that we came in, solved your toughest problems and then taught you how to keep the problem solved. We didn’t build a position or a technology that required regular financial support to keep it running. Many contractors do that–they create solutions that you have to continue to fund or they will collapse.

This was very empowering to me–it meant that I had to be so good that I was the solution that they couldn’t live without. Basically, I would become their trusted provider and the person they constantly turned to for their toughest problems.

Your vision should reflect that. It should scare you and excite you at the same time. It should represent a belief that puts you at risk, but promises much more.

This is why writing a business plan jazzes me and motivates me when thinking about starting a new business. Not only am I clearing my mind by fully documenting my ideas, but I’m really framing out the why in my new business endeavor. This is exciting.

The Importance of a Stakeholder Assessment

Change Management Strategic Planning Think Big February 15, 2014 2 Comments

Strategic planning, as a structured and systematic process, is successful when it is leader-led and overcomes the five reasons 70% of all strategies fail. Learn how to see your plan through to success. The strategic planning process is where leaders of an organization establish the vision of the organization’s future and then develop and implement the actions necessary to achieve that future. This article expands on the strategic planning concepts addressed in Think Big, Take Small Steps and is designed to help you achieve success in your strategic planning process.

Conducting a Stakeholder Assessment When Developing a Strategic Plan is Crucial

I see a “strategy” being made up of three things: A mission, a vision, and goals on how to get from where you are now to where you are going. Those goals represent CHANGE in an organization–strategic change.

Anytime there is a change, there will be people who are for it and against it. The rest are the movable middle. Anytime you are planning a change, you need to analyze the audience that will be impacted by that change and continually manage that audience through the change.

Case in point: One of my clients had the words, “Meet customer’s expectations through product delivery,” in one of their goal statements. The strategy had been in place for several months, and the head of their operations was not supportive of the strategy–he wanted to create it himself versus as a leadership team. He also liked living in the realm of strategy because then he really wasn’t accountable for doing anything. Note that ‘accountable’ is a key word here. I was in a meeting with the head of the strategic planning department and the operations director and he said, quote, “I will not hold my people accountable for meeting customer expectations.”

Who, in the right mind as a leader, can say something as ludicrous as that? By this time, the strategy was really rolling out–plans were in place and changes were occurring. All this went on regardless of how much he tried to stop it. This was the cry of a desperate man. As a result of the shadow he cast, one of his directs was responsible for deploying part of the plan–specifically under this goal. We were attempting to establish actions and dates, when he broke down in a whiney voice almost on the edge of tears, and cried, “But, I don’t want to be held accountable to this.”

These situations are real. Strategy–good strategy–means change. If you are not prepared for this type of behavior from people that have influence and you require to make the strategy reality, then you will get stopped by this type of behavior.

I know in Good to Great, you are supposed to get people on the bus and off the bus to make things work, but in the real world, some organizations don’t have that luxury. Then you have to determine how to deal with them.

In a strategic change, there are four potential groups that you have to consider. Obviously, first are the stakeholders–those who have a vested interest in the change and impact of the change. Second are the customers–those who direct your organization to deliver goods and/or services. All customers are stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are customers. Two other potential groups are Partners and Suppliers. Partners and Suppliers are those you work with to deliver your goods and services to the Customer. Sometimes they can be everything, or sometimes, not. Understanding who they are and who of them are key–make a difference and can impact the change–is important. Note this Venn diagram and how these audiences interact.

Once you know who they are, list them out and try to determine what you know about then and what you don’t know about them. List out what stake they have in the change–what will be impacted and how they feel. On a scale of 1-5, rate their level of support of the change and on the same scale rate the level of influence that can have to impact it–1 being lowest. This tells you where you potentially could have your most difficult problems. As you can imagine, the Operations Director in my above example was low in support and high in influence–not a good combination. Those that are high in both can also become your greatest champions. Those who are low in both probably can be ignored–best to spend precious resources on the most important stuff.

With those that are important to this effort, plot them each on this continuum:

If they are low, or not even on the continuum, then, strategic activities designed to raise them on the continuum might help their acceptance and assistance. Sometimes they fully understand what is going on, but, getting them higher is impossible. In the case of the Operations Director, we basically forced him to retire and the next director that was hired supported the strategy. The bus activity; however, this took time. Obviously, if someone is simply aware of the strategy and doesn’t understand why it’s being done and what its impact is, then desiring advocacy and ownership is impossible. So, if you have someone at awareness, but you need them as an advocate, then you need to first get them to understanding, and then next to acceptance. Makes sense, right?

This is also helpful to determine if you already have someone at advocacy and that’s where you want them, then you don’t need to do anything. If someone has little influence on the strategy and change, then maybe awareness or understanding is fine. These decisions again allow you to focus your efforts in strategic areas.

Another way to map your audience is through this tool:

It’s a bit simpler in its approach, but can be effective. For a strategic plan, which takes years to implement, I like a much more detailed assessment and action plan than this, but you can choose. I also am Prosci certified in ADKAR, so I like to use that approach, but I am not free to share their proprietary process on this blog. You can read about it in books from Amazon and their certification is very effective. The approaches I’ve shared here are based on my Master’s-level Change Management certification from Georgetown University and are not proprietary.

So, you can see how important a Stakeholder Assessment is to develop during the Organizational Assessment. This, like any change effort, when done early, helps to prep the space and get people on board quickly or identify those you need to work around. This tool, is a lasting assessment that you may revisit regularly to see how things are progressing.

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

2. http://www.amazon.com/Change-Management-The-People-Side/dp/193088561X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1392477543&sr=8-2

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_analysis

How dedicated are you to what you do?

Meandering Genius February 12, 2014

Some people are extremely dedicated in what they do and many others clearly appear to not be. But what tells you that someone is or is not dedicated?

Part of my long term professional and personal plan is to be an established writer with several books written on multiple business topics. I also have ideas for golf instruction and fiction, like my first book, One Dead Marine.

Is dedication measured through the writing of books or something else. I would suppose that if I talk about it enough, you might deduce that I’m pretty dedicated even if I never published another book?

However, I don’t believe the act of actually publishing some books demonstrates my dedication to writing. At this time, I don’t even think I’m as dedicated as I could be, but that is because I temper my level of dedication with the other aspects of my plan. Otherwise, if I focus too much in one area I won’t have time in another. Right?

So, dedication, in my mind is involvement in the thing(s) you do. Not just putting in overtime at work if it’s your job, but to really get involved.

Take out a piece of paper and right down the big things in your life: family, work, church, kids school, sports, etc. just list them on the page. Chances are you don’t have too many and today the list may have some items that might be replaced next year.

Now,poking at each item, if you regularly talk about that big rock in your life, put an X by it. By regularity talk about it, you often bring it up in conversations with your family and friends. When you go to dinner with the in laws and they ask you what’s been going on, it is often on your short list to talk about. This demonstrates a level of commitment to tell people what we are actually doing, which makes us vulnerable. People could challenge what we are doing and if we’re not too dedicated, I might not be prepared to discuss or defend my decisions. Perhaps it’s not as important as other things in your life that you would rather talk about, so it just doesn’t come up. Maybe it’s a stretch for you to do this–you’ve never done it before, so you’re afraid of failing and it’s best not to tell people that you are doing it at all.

If you have some kind of plan; perhaps a short range New Year’s resolution or maybe a long range, multi year plan that involves this big rock, put an X next to it. Committing something to a plan is a level of mental dedication that something is going to happen this year, or over the next few or several years. Let’s say you want to go back to school to get a higher degree. Is this something you simply talk about, or have you sat down and thought out where you want to go, what you want to study, when you’re going to start, and how you’re going to get it paid for? Plans don’t have to be written down to be a plan, but written plans are a little bit more solid. Regardless, if you have a plan, then your dedication level just increased.

If you are actually doing the big rock today, then put an X by it. By now you may have noticed that this is not necessarily a progressive growth assessment. For example, Work might be one of your big rocks. You are clearly doing it today, so you get an X. However, you might never talk about work with your family and friends and you might not have a plan written down or in your mind for Work. So, just because there are no X’s for the first two items doesn’t mean you don’t put an X here. Doing something demonstrates a level of dedication.

If you research and read about your big rock, the. Put an X next to it. If you get magazines, are subscribed to blogs, buy books, etc. that are related to your big rock, then you are demonstrating a level of dedication to that item. You may have noticed by now that I’m not asking how many or if you even read them, just that you get them. In everyone of these questions, you can see that there could be a sliding scale of dedication from say 1 to 5. However, for now, if you are research around your big rock, you get an X, regardless of how much.

If you participate in some way to the advancement and development of your big rock item, then put an X next to it. If one of your big rock’s is your son’s education, do you participate in things like PTA or do you regularly tutor your son on his homework? If a big rock is work, do you active in your union, or do you teach others regularly about how to do things. Basically, do you work with your big rock to make it more than what you found it?

So, this was pretty simple, huh? You have a list of big ticket items that are in your life. For each of them you might have anywhere from 0 to 5 X’s next to it. This demonstrates your basic level of dedication to each item. One item maybe you think is important, but really all you’re doing is talking about it right now. Perhaps you think something is important in your life, but all you do is “do it.” How dedicated is that?

Looking at this list–this very simple tool, can you think of some things to do to demonstrate and prove your true dedication to each of these items, or maybe you’re happy with your level of dedication. At least now you have a better idea of how dedicated you are to your perceived big rocks.

With that knowledge, you can now do more if you desire.

Assessing Your Organization Using the Military’s DOTMLPF – FREE Assessment

Strategic Planning Think Big February 8, 2014 11 Comments

Understand How to Use this Military Assessment Tool to Assess Your Business

Several years ago I was working with a major Army headquarters in the north central United States. They had been growing over the past several years, merging various related responsibilities into their organization. The problem was that they were more just bolting these new capabilities on, versus really integrating themselves to deliver a seamless capability.

I was called in to help them come up with a multi-year strategic plan. This was mainly because the headquarters over this headquarters was developing a new strategic plan. So there wasn’t a lot of buy in for strategic planning.

They even had a planning department with five people that were responsible for strategic planning. After the kickoff, I sat down with the head of the strategic planning team and he told me they had already developed three strategic plans over the past five years and I would fail at delivering anything useful, but he was here to support the year-long project.

Nice start, huh?

In the first blog of this series Think Big, Take Small Steps, I talk about the three things that you must have in strategic planning or you probably will fail:

Executable Focus
Strategic Framework
Traceable Implementation
Rigor and Accountability
Communication

In that article, I point out that all successful plans have an Executable Focus. If a plan lacks focus on fixing organizational problems and overcoming barriers to the organization’s vision it is not built on the realities of the environment impacting the organization.

Well, this team had built three strategic plans by themselves by coming up with fancy words that started with mission and vision, but were not built off any discernible assessment. As a matter of fact, they were so proud of their last “strategic plan” because they were able to get it to one page.

So, I’ve explained why doing an solid organizational assessment is important to ensure the success of your plan. The reason I highlight this client over many others that were much the same, is because this client is where I developed my DOTMLPF-FREE approach that I still use today.

It was very important to the commanding general of this organization that we use Army and Joint Force strategic planning guidance and approaches. Actually, the plan was actually called a “Campaign Plan” to fit this desire. So, I needed an assessment approach that he and his staff understood and accepted. The term “Environmental Scan” was foreign to them–this is something I’ve run into before with military clients. I decided to use the framework used in Joint Force planning called DOTMLPF. Unfortunately, their literally is nothing significant written about this, aside from what the letter mean.

D — Doctrine
O — Organization
T — Training
M — Material
L — Leadership
P — Personnel
F — Facilities

I was also concerned about things this approach didn’t cover, so I added the acronym “FREE” to the end of this assessment tool:

F — Finances
R – Relationships
E — Efficiency
E — Effectiveness

So, to use this in phonetic terms, say, “Dot Mil P F, Free.”

I won’t talk about it here, but I have since added “Plus I Squared,” to the acronym (DOTMLPF-FREE+i²). This incorporates Innovation and Information.

I outline my interview template following this format. I also ask through the interview for the interviewee to rate a particular item from 1 to 5 and I’ll ask, if it’s not a 5, what would it take to get to 5. I gather all these score and present the results in a Radar chart (see below).

Doctrine
Doctrine covers is current mission, vision and guiding principles of the organization. Here is an example of how in depth I get with the questions associated with the mission part of doctrine:

1. A “mission” captures and expresses the enduring nature of what the organization is about – its purpose and focus. The current mission statement of your organization is, “XXX.”
1.a. What does this mission statement mean to you?
1.b. Do you feel the mission statement articulates the fundamental purpose of your organization? If not, what needs to change?
1.c. Do you feel the mission statement provides enough focus to define your organization’s reason for being, yet allows maneuvering room to execute it? If not, what needs to change?
1.d. Do you feel the mission statement focuses on “what” your organization does or “how” ASC does their mission? If not “what,” what needs to change?
1.e. Do you feel the mission statement clearly reflects customer and stakeholder needs and expectations? If not, what needs to change?
1.f. Where does your role in the organization fit in the mission statement?
1.g. If you would define the mission of your organization differently, how would you define the mission of the organization?

As you can imagine, I get quiet in depth with the categories.

Organization
In organization, I’m looking at structure (looking for stovepipes), accountable governance, and internal communication.

Training
Training covers organizational education, training, and development of all leaders and personnel.

Material
Material or Materiel, covers equipment, suppliers, tools, and information systems and software.

Leadership
I’m looking at capability, emotional intelligence, servant leadership, and engagement.

Personnel
Your employees are your greatest asset. In personnel, I examine the knowledge, skills, and abilities; how they are being used (8th waste in Lean); do they have the right types and amounts; capacity and productivity; and their engagement.

Facilities
Facilities includes things like buildings, space utilization, conference rooms, and furniture. I look at this from a main headquarters and distributed offices perspective…normally HQ is much better than the geographically located offices.

Finances
I ask several different questions. How well is the organization budgeting and forecasting? How close is their planned and actual? What do they do with excess or when they overspend? Do they use any activity based costing or management techniques.

Relationships
Relationships covers how they interact with their customers, stakeholders, partners, and suppliers. I also talk to the key ones in each group and find out what they think about the organization and how the relationship is. It’s always amazing how much different the two are.

Efficiency and Effectiveness
Efficiency and Effectiveness speaks to their use of metrics, process management, improvement activities, total cost of ownership understanding, and operational excellence.

As you can see, by following this guideline, you can really obtain a very well-rounded assessment of any organization. Although this was a military tool that I repurposed, it works for any organization. Today I have added Innovation and Information as two other areas I look at, but I think you get the gist.

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

Related Links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOTMLPF

2. http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf

3. http://soldiersystems.net/2012/05/11/dotmlpf-what-is-it/

New project? Begin with the end in mind.

Meandering Genius February 7, 2014 1 Comment

Have been given the new task to develop something new or fix something that exists today? In the project management world, that’s a “project.”

Project Management Institute defines a project as something that is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end, and therefore defined scope and resources. A project is unique in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal. So a project team often includes people who don’t usually work together – sometimes from different organizations and across multiple geographies.

Their definition is a bit wordy, but the most important part is that projects have a beginning and an end. If you are running a program and you are going to improve that program, but the program will continue to run after you have improved it, the program is still managed throughout the improvement effort, but the improvement effort is a project.

With that in mind…we take on projects all the time. Project management is just a way of life for all of us. We do projects at work as well as at home. What’s the best way to make sure your projects–all of them–are successful?

I’m going to steal a Coveyism–Begin with the End in Mind! Stephen Covey, in his Famous 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, highlighted the second habit as Begin with the End in Mind. Covey’s habit was very personal-based. He spoke to having a personal mission statement. I think it more talks about having a mission and a vision, but I digress.

I want you to draw a table on a piece of paper or on a white board. The table will have five columns. Label the columns: Project, Plan, Execute, Measure, Analyze. Make it look like this:

In the Project column, write down the name of the project and you name as being the project manager. Now you are ready to begin.

When you start a new project–any project–begin with the end in mind. Ask yourself (and confirm with the sponsor of the project if one exists) what is the desired outcome of this project? What will things look like when I’m done with this project?

Once you have that mental image–write it down. This is the goal of the project. When you think about this goal, also consider if this is something that you will need to sustain over time. If so, how do you design it in the project that provides sustainability? Put this goal right under your name as the project manager in the first column of your paper.

Now, with the goal written down, think about what major aspects of this goal that can you analyze at the end of the activity that will tell you that you have met the goal of the project. There are probably two to four things, maybe more, that you can look at about the project that you would expect to look a certain way…write these down in the Analyze column.

Now think about what things do you measure today or will you need to measure that you don’t measure today that you will review in your analysis. It helps to look at each one of the items that you’ve listed in the Analyze column and ask what do I need to collect measures on that will tell me that I have achieved this. Measures can be quantitative, qualitative, or milestones. Write these items down in the Measure column–even if they don’t exist today.

By understanding the goal of your project, what that goal looks like from an analysis aspect, and what you need to measure that will tell you that you have achieved your goal, you have begun your project with the end in mind.

The purpose of this blog was to frame up your thinking of starting everything with the goal in mind, as an added bonus, let me share the remaining steps of this little exercise that you can use with every planning activity.

Now that you have your project, analyze, and measure columns filled out, move to the Plan column. The first three steps of planning your project area done–defining the project, end state, and measurements.

Now list the activities you need to accomplish before you get started doing anything on this project. You will write these items as activities:

The first activity (after define the project, end state, and measurements) is to determine who will lead the project–this might be you, or you might have to find someone else.
Determine if a team is required and build the team.
Determine your budget and resource requirements for the project
Conduct any research or benchmarking
Write and approve a project charter and a project plan

These activities in the Plan column vary based on every project–you might not have to write a charter or a plan, their might not be any resources required other than the team…a team might not even be required, but this gives you and idea of the things you think about before starting your project.

With four of the five columns filled out now, its time to think about the major activities that you need to accomplish to get this project done so that it achieves the goal. Write these steps down in the Execute column. Sometimes you might want to describe the step in a bit more detail with sub bullets, but this is what the step looks like, not actions required. Write things down like develop, create, build, gain or receive approval, etc.

By writing this down, you create the major milestones along the way. Don’t forget to develop new measures, to start measuring after implementation, to document, train, and communicate any changes. These things are often overlooked when doing something. Make sure you are addressing the project, analyze, and measure columns in your actions–if you are doing something in execution that doesn’t build to the project, analyze, and measure columns, why are you doing it–are you doing the right things.

Your final sheet will look like this:

This deliberate approach should only take you an hour to accomplish. If you consider what you now have on paper (see the example above), you have just drafted your entire project plan using a very simple and repeatable approach. If you really need to get detailed, you can assign a start and stop date to each item starting with your plan column and working your way right. You also can determine what has to happen before something else and what can be done together (concurrently). Additionally, you can assign each step of the plan to a specific person to accomplish. This creates a very complete and well thought out project plan.

All from taking a few minutes to begin with the end in mind.

Understanding the Different Assessment Tools

Strategic Planning Think Big February 1, 2014 6 Comments

Strategic planning, as a structured and systematic process, is successful when it is leader-led and overcomes the five reasons 70% of all strategies fail. Learn how to see your plan through to success. The strategic planning process is where leaders of an organization establish the vision of the organization’s future and then develop and implement the actions necessary to achieve that future. This article expands on the strategic planning concepts addressed in Think Big, Take Small Steps and is designed to help you achieve success in your strategic planning process.

Knowing What Assessment Tools Exist is Half the Battle.

Last week, I highlighted several organizational assessment tools in my blog How to Conduct an Organizational Assessment. This will be a relatively short blog, compared to my others, because I just want to highlight some tools and in future articles, I will describe them in more detail. Please Follow My Blog to keep up with this running story. If you want to start at the beginning, check out the linked article in the first paragraph.

The most important thing to do, when conducting an assessment, is to structure your approach. I use an approach that I term DOTMLPF – FREE. This covered the areas of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Material, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities, Finances, Relationships, Efficiency, and Effectiveness. This is a fully rounded approach that allows you to score, evaluate, analyze, and report out an organizational assessment. I will fully cover this tool next in Assessing Your Organization Using the Military’s DOTMLPF – FREE Assessment.

When I conduct an organizational assessment, I always use three specific tools: a Stakeholder Assessment, a Change Readiness Assessment, the SWOT Assessment.

The Stakeholder Assessment is great for any change-related activity to determine who will be supportive and who will not of the change. It helps to outline what actions you need to take to gain their involve or mitigate their negative influence. Being a certified Prosci practicitioner, I use the ADKAR model for my assessment. All strategic plans, if implemented, result in change, so this is a very helpful tool to prepare for the development and eventual implementation.
Additionally, I like to use a Change Readiness Assessment to determine how ready the actual organization is for the upcoming strategic change. This is different than the Stakeholder Assessment, because it looks at change readiness from the organizational point of view. It is very helpful and a relatively short assessment that is easy to perform with a small team.
The SWOT assessment, if generally how I report out everything I find from my interviews following the DOTMLPF-FREE format. If you didn’t know, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. As a general rule, I change the word Weaknesses to Challenges–it just goes over better. Most leaders have heard of the term SWOT Analysis from some business class or in the course of their work–seldom do you find anyone who can conduct one. The trick is, that I don’t “conduct” a SWOT Assessment–I assess what I learn about the organization using a SWOT grid and present the results in that manner.

SWOT, in my mind, is a high-level assessment and report. I also assess what I’ve learned from the DOTMLPF-FREE approach through a TIPS Assessment–Trends, Issues, and Problem Statements. What I do, is, using Affinity Diagramming, I build the major TIPS that the organization is faced with. These are also called “Emerging Insights,” which I’ve used in Army Campaign Planning. Under each major issue (defined through the Affinity Diagramming), I provide this general view:

Emerging Insight, Focus Area, or TIP Title
Assessment Observations: Things learned from the research and interviews aligned to this specific area.
Initial Recommendations: Specific recommendations I have, based on the observations, that they need to do to overcome this issue.

When I collect information from my research and interviews, I normally start organizing it in Microsoft Excel under buckets. The beauty of this type of analysis is that it provides the leadership with key areas that they need to work on to make their strategy successful. In many ways, these formulate at least some of the objectives during the facilitated session. Everything else builds to these key items.

You may find use for several other types of assessment and I would love to hear about ones you’ve used, especially if you can share links in the comments below. I love using maturity models for assessing organizations. I’ve even created a specific maturity model when none existed. These models provide a very organized view of the organization’s or domain’s maturity, benchmarks them against industry, and provides a roadmap for them to follow to get better.

Additionally, there are a number of industry specific assessment tools–like a specific assessment to look at non-profits, or assessments to look at finance, information technology, innovation, etc. When you discover a specific (major) challenge with a company, I suggest you research possible assessment tools, or don’t be afraid to create your own. A key point is, normally an assessment tool is nothing more than a structured survey method. All of these assessment tools ask specific questions and the results (answers) formulate the assessment of the organization.

A good example of a powerful assessment tool would be Gallup’s Employee Engagement Survey. This is a widely-use industry standard assessment tool to determine how engaged (or committed) an organization’s employees are. This can be a very helpful assessment and I’ve worked with the results for a couple years now.

Another example, would be ISO 14001–Environmental Management System. For several years, I worked for several EPA and DoD clients in the world of Environmental Management. I used this ISO standard as a key assessment tool for these engagements. This brought a level of professionalism and validity to my work with them, but also gave them something to use year-after-year, much like the Gallup Survey.

The summary of this article, which I expected to be shorter, is that you need to develop a stable of key assessment approaches and tools to analyze and present your analysis in the next phase of the strategic planning effort. You also should be aware of other possible tools for the industry you’re dealing with or tools that can help the organization focus on a specific area. A key factor is that you can overanalyze a situation by bringing in too many tools. Make sure the ones you use are effective and you keep overlap to a minimum. For an example, I use a Stakeholder Assessment and Change Readiness Assessment with every organizational assessment. They both deal with change capability, but they are focused differently and together complement each other.

Stay tuned to future weeks where I will explain some of these specific assessment tools and demonstrate more about how I use them for analysis and for reporting. I will also try to provide at least one example of the tool for your use.

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

Related Links (find three links related to the topic of the article):

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOTMLPF
3. http://www.gallup.com/

How to Conduct an Organizational Assessment

Strategic Planning Think Big January 25, 2014 10 Comments

Establishing an Executable Focus to Ensure the Success of Your Strategic Plan.

It really doesn’t matter what you are doing; if you are planning to change something from what it is today to something different tomorrow, then you need to understand the way it is today. The reason this is important in strategic plan development is because a strategy and associated plan should be designed to overcome current barriers to your vision. I like to use the image of building a bridge over troubled water. Today you’re on one side of the bridge and you need to get to the other side.

If you didn’t know how deep, how fast, and what lies below the surface of the water you plan to cross, then you’re bound to fail. So, an organizational analysis is a survey of the river and a testing of the banks to determine the best way to build your bridge.

I have heard many terms over the years, like preplanning analysis, environmental scan, SWOT analysis, etc. There is nothing wrong with these terms, but my plan is to show you how to ensure whatever you call it, it provides you with the data you need. I use the term organizational analysis, because that seems to be the least technical and better understood by my customers.

Some of those terms used above are tools that you might use during an assessment. I plan to cover many of these tools next week in Understanding the Different Assessment Tools. Also, I want to share a very specific tool that I learned about in the military and now apply in all of my assessment activities. I will talk about this tool in two weeks in Assessing Your Organization Using the Military’s DOTMLPF – FREE Assessment. Future articles in this series will cover other tools, like a Stakeholder Assessment, a Change Readiness Assessment, the SWOT Assessment, and Scenario Planning.

Today is simply an overview of the approach I use and when I apply these various assessment tools. I look forward to your ideas on the approach and others you have used.

The closest approach to what I use to assess an organization, that I have seen documented, would be the Delphi Technique. The Delphi Technique is comprehensive, but I add some things to it. Let me outline the activities as I like to see them occur during an assessment. Sometimes, this approach changes, or (in many cases) things happen at the same time. I’ve completed assessments as quickly as a couple of weeks and I’ve had one take four months. This will depend on the size and complexity of the organization. Additionally, if the organization already has somewhat of a grasp of strategic planning and a plan in place that isn’t too bad, it can speed up the process. Don’t simply rely on what they’ve done–there is a good chance they missed things to get it done quickly.

Here are the activities I employ to conduct the assessment:

RESEARCH

First I start with conducting as much research on materials and data the organization uses to communicate, direct, evaluate, and improve the organization. I review everything they put out about their company in print and through the web and social media. I look at current strategies, policies, and directives. I review their organizational structure and understand the purposes of each organization and relative employee and contractor strength. I look at what training programs they employ and attend and the level of knowledge, skills and abilities of employees and leadership. The list goes on…

In two weeks, I will lay out the specific framework that I use to review an organization and formulate the next stage. A key component of this research is to determine who to interview and what to ask. The next step in my assessment is developing interview questions that are influenced by my research.

The most important thing is that you can’t conduct an assessment on research alone. What people put in writing is never exactly how things are really working. You must interview people to verify your findings and get to the entire picture.

Expect your initial research to take up to a week. You will continue your research even after you’ve started your interviews, because you will come across other things to consider and review.

INTERVIEWS

Interviews with key leadership, knowledgeable employees, organizational stakeholders, customers, and strategic partners are key to the success of an organizational assessment. Your interviews should be focused on obtaining a good picture of what the organization is facing. Much of the topics listed in the research section are repeated here. The framework I use to gather data is the same framework that I use to interview. I call it DOTMLPF-FREE.

The number of interviews vary based on organizational size and complexity. I normally can get away with simply 10 to 20 interviews, but my longest project had 44 interviews. The client was adamant about us getting many views from across the organization and outside the organization. Honestly, in three or four interviews, I normally know what’s going on…the remaining interviews simply validate what I know and what’s already been said.

To ensure that you are systematic in your interview approach, make sure you use an interview questionnaire. Don’t ask the questions word-for-word, but use it as a template to drive your interview and make sure you don’t miss anything. It can be helpful to send the questionnaire out before the interviews to help people prepare their thoughts and possibly provide key documents that you might need. However, don’t allow them to fill it out and send it back–you will lose everything in this approach, Trust Me.

Written interview templates help your clients see the breadth and depth of your assessment before you are too deep into it. I normally have them approve the questions and also ask if there is any question(s) they would like added–something they really want to know. Your clients should also approve the interviewee list and can recommend adding names of people you hadn’t thought of.

Be careful with the number of interviews–rule of thumb is it take three hours for every interview–an hour for the interview, an hour to document the interview, and an hour to tie the results into your analysis. So, ten interviews is 30 hours–almost an entire week. When you apply how busy the interviewees might be, getting on their calendars means you can expect a week per ten. If the interviewees require travel to other locations (in other states or countries), then you can expect this timeline to increase. The organization that took me four months, took a month for the research, and three months for interviews due to schedules and traveling. Part of that time, of course, is the next steps of putting it all together.

Having written interview templates helps if you have multiple interviewers working with you on the team. They can follow the template and bring back data. Make sure they know what and how to ask questions–they can’t simply follow the questions, it has to be a guide. But, for large efforts, a team can help. I always try to have someone to take notes, so I can simply ask questions. I do take my own notes and write everything down afterwards, but having a second person helps me focus on the interviewee. Once I used a recording device, but I think this was a distraction for the interviewee and don’t recommend it.

ADDITIONAL ASSESSMENT TOOLS

Based on time and availability of staff, I like to conduct various different analyses of the organization. These take the form of change readiness assessments, stakeholder assessments, culture assessments, process and enterprise maturity assessments. Using these types of tools, if you understand them, can provide a measuring stick for the organization to use over-and-over, year-after-year. This way they serve as a solid stake in the ground for the current state, a progression meter for the future, and in some cases a basis for comparison against other organizations. A great tool used by many organizations is the Gallup Employee Engagement Assessment. This tool measures employee engagement within the organization off a small set of questions. I will discuss several of these tools in future blogs, but the Gallup tool, I’ll leave to your own research.

Once you’ve done your research, I like to organize my assessment presentation in a very specific manner. I normally (taught by Booz | Allen | Hamilton) use a very detailed and in-depth PowerPoint presentation, but the format can work with a written assessment as well. Here are the major areas of the assessment:

1. Purpose.

2. Key Recommendations.

3. Planning Approach showing the entire planning approach being used and where we are at the point of this report.

4. Assessment Inputs:

a. Number of Interviews.

b. Key Documents researched.

c. Assessment tools used.

4. List of all interviewees by type.

5. List of key documents reviewed.

6. Identification of key Stakeholder, Customers, and Partners. I will talk much more about this in a future blog.

7. Organizational structure at a high level and manpower/human capital assessment.

8. Key metrics used by the organization that highlight strategic progress. Thos in the areas of satisfaction, financial, performance, and personnel.

9. Assessment tool results.

10. A high-level Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis — like an executive summary of the big study.

11. Consolidate and prioritize the trends, issues, and problems (TIPs) facing the organization and develop them into single issues. This is the meat of the assessment and what formulates the Key Recommendations in the front of the assessment.

Once I’ve completed my assessment, I will sit down with the primary Client so that he or she can review it before anyone else in his organization sees it. This way, they get the unfiltered view of what is going on, but can adjust the product so as not to embarrass or throw anyone in the organization “under the bus.”

At this point the assessment is completely truthful and if the client is part of the problem I will say it. I honestly do not pull punches, I just deliver with tact. Never tell someone they are the problem without justification and examples and always be prepared with recommendations on what they could and should do about it.

Also, I don’t highlight anyone’s specific opinions from the interviews. This protects them for telling the truth and protects your reputation. I caveat my analysis based on research and interviews. What I saw, might not be the full truth, since sometimes you only see a slice of what really is happening.

The strategic plan should be a transformational document for the organization. It will clearly outlines the mission and purpose of the organization and where they are going in the next 3-5 years, which is codified in the vision. A good strategic plan should lays out a systematic plan to close the “gap” between where they are now and where they are going. This “gap” is identified by the organizational assessment results. A good and throughout assessment will help define a very strong strategic plan.

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

Related Information:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method.

2. http://www.gallup.com/.

3. 12: The Elements of Great Managing, by Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter

When Does Your Company Need a Strategic Plan?

Strategic Planning Think Big January 19, 2014 3 Comments

Realizing When You Need a Ship and When You Need a Life Raft

You know you have a problem in your company. You see your profits dropping, your customers are leaving you, your market share is eroding, employee turnover is at an all-time high. All signs point to a company on the rocks–and I mean “on the rocks!”

Shaking your head as you read over your latest figures, you wonder what’s going wrong? In that business class you took a few years back–the one that you thought would help you run things better–they talked about the need for a strategic plan. “Every organization should start with a plan–a business or strategic plan,” you remember the professor saying.

Looking back at your numbers, you realize that’s something you really never got around to. When you came back from the class, you remember drafting up some words that describe what you do and calling it your mission statement. You even created a lofty vision statement just like the man said to do. You had them posted in a frame in the front office for all your customers to see.

That seemed like the thing to do. You really weren’t sure, because you didn’t put much stock into planning at the time. Maybe you were wrong? Maybe you should have paid more attention during that lecture? Perhaps it’s time to create a strategic plan after all?

Nope!

The first rule of strategic planning is that it’s never a quick fix for your company. Planning–good planning–takes time. The result is a plan, not action. In reality, it can take one or two years for an organization to actually mature their strategic plan into something that actually makes a difference. And that’s if you get the plan right in the first place. An implemented strategic plan doesn’t actually fix your organization, what it does is position you strategically to take advantages of opportunities in business and provides capability to improve operations.

Thinking that a strategic plan will solve your problems when you are “on the rocks,” is like throwing a lifebuoy to someone who fell overboard in a hurricane. There isn’t much chance of survival.

If your organization is bleeding that much, you need immediate professional assistance–you need a tourniquet, not a band-aid. Call in the professionals and have them conduct a throughout assessment of your operation. Chances are you might even be part of the problem–learn to accept that and move on. Most likely, not only do you have back office business problems like a lack of communication, lack of training programs, lack of performance and process management, and a lack of strategy, but you probably have significant operational issues too. What you are delivering to your customers lacks quality, doesn’t meet their needs, or is constantly being delivered late.

For organizations that have a pretty solid operation–they’re delivering good work, but seeing stresses on their organization and operation, generally there are business constraints that are holding them back from delivering better service. Ignored for too long, these stresses turn into stress fractures and everything starts to fall apart. When the operation is solid, but there is room for improvement, then strategic planning is the first step. It should have been the first step anyway, but if you have issues in your organization, I’m going to guess that what plan you currently have (if you have one at all) is pretty weak.

When the operation–the core thing you do–is failing, then immediate triage is required. Fix the operational issues first and then look to the strategic plan. I’m not telling you that you don’t, or won’t need a solid effective strategic plan that overcomes the five reasons that strategic plans fail, but it’s not going to save you. Right now you need CPR!

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

2. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/happiness-know-when-to-plan-and-when-not-to.html

Life is like golf

Meandering Genius January 16, 2014

How many of you play golf? How many actually like the game? Well, I started playing back in early 2000 and it didn’t take me too long to figure out that every hole in golf is like a day in our lives.

When you play golf, you take every hole one at a time. Each hole provides different challenges and different rewards. Every day in our lives is much like that too.

Think about when you wake up in the morning or even before you go to bed the night before. You think about the day ahead of you. When do I need to be to work, what meetings are planned, what do I need to get done, etc? Golf is the same–you depart the last green and you start to think about the next hole you will play. What is par for the hole, what club will I start with, what hazards will I need to avoid, etc?

How a professional approaches the game of golf and how you approach you day can have a direct correlation. A pro learns the course before competition and then develops a plan to deal with the course each of the four days he will play it in a tournament. Pros know which are the easy and hard holes that they will have to deal with every day. The pros also examine how something like weather conditions can change the course each day. Planning out how you will deal with future days before they happen is pretty much the same.

The hole you play is much like the day you’re having–you have a plan, but sometimes things don’t work like you plan them, right? In golf, how well you hit the ball, wind conditions, and even humidity can affect the perfectly planned golf shot. What you planned to be a hole in one turned out to end up is a hazard–the unexpected.

It’s really not how we play the perfect game of golf–the one that is perfectly planned and happens exactly as expected. It is how we respond to the hazards that crop up in our day when we least expect them. Do we adjust our stance, accept the bogey lay up, and play through; or do we refuse to recognize the hazard and try to make our original plan happen even when it’s not feasible to achieve?

The biggest thing is that how you play every hole on the golf course is like every day in your life. Yes, you might have trouble on one hole, but if you can put that behind you, you can move forward and succeed in the game. Life is the same–do you focus on past mistakes and past challenges, or do you continue to strive to achieve greatness that you originally envisioned in your plan?

Without risk, there is seldom reward. Most of the time we play the same golf course all the time. When we start out playing, we believe that we can make the green in one stroke and putt in for birdie. However, experience on the course reins in our expectations and after a while we become happy with a double bogey on the hole. We have let our past experiences hold us back from going for the green in one every time–we learn to play it safe and stay out of trouble (and stay off of other’s people’s radar).

Like him or not, Tiger Woods has always been a risk taker. He is an exciting player to watch because with every shot, he believes he can do more so he tries it. He pushes himself and when Tiger messes up, he usually does so on a grand scale. Do you push yourself everyday or are you content with a 100 game?

Everyday we are faced with a choice in life, do I go for the green or do I lay up for a safer second shot? The things that the pros do is practice getting better at the game and this they reduce the chance in their shots and become more accurate. This is something we can do in life as well. Have you stopped going to school or is there some work-related training you can take that would improve your day-to-day ability. Do you jump at the opportunity to play another course–one that you are not familiar with, or do you remain content (and stagnant) with the same old par three course you have learned very well. Even if a new course isn’t available to you, how well do you know the one you play every day and do you constantly try to improve your game on the same course every day?

So, regardless if you love the game or never played, take today to look at your day and the days in the future to plan out your game. Look for the opportunities to go for it and try a few risks on your same old course. Up your game with new equipment and training that allows you to play better over time. Practice at being better. And most of all, seek out the opportunity to play on new courses whenever possible, even if it’s one day.

Today is your day to challenge yourself to play better.

What Is Strategic Planning Really?

Strategic Planning Think Big January 7, 2012 24 Comments

Why Does Your Company Need a Strategic Plan?

Strategic planning, as a structured and systematic process, is successful when it is leader-led and overcomes the five reasons 70% of all strategies fail. The strategic planning process is where leaders of an organization establish the vision of the organization’s future and then develop and implement the actions necessary to achieve that future. This article expands on the strategic planning concepts addressed in Think Big, Take Small Steps and is designed to help you achieve success in your strategic planning process.

For many business people, strategic planning is a very foreign language. When I discussed the importance of strategic planning late last month, several people were probably giving the post a “deer in the headlights” look. The problem lies in the common definition of what strategic planning is. This lack of common definition causes everyone to form an opinion about what strategic planning is and then why they think they do not need it for their business.

Today I will distill the term strategic planning and demonstrate why it is so important to business success.

Understanding Planning

The Latin word for “Plan” is “Cogito.” Cogito is defined as to think, ruminate, ponder, consider, and plan. Plan; however, can be an action verb meaning to decide on and arrange in advance, or a noun meaning a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. Confusion starts with whether you use the word “plan” as a verb or noun. No wonder everyone is confused.

An actual plan is any diagram (like a schematic) or list of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve an objective. The common understanding of “plan” is as a set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal. Plans can be formal or informal.

The most popular ways to describe plans are by their frame of reference or purpose, breadth, time frame, and specificity; however, these planning classifications are not independent of one another. For instance, there is a close relationship between the short- and long-term categories and the strategic and operational categories.

Planning is setting performance expectations and goals for groups and individuals to channel their efforts toward achieving objectives. It also includes the measures used to determine whether expectations and goals are being met. Planning, in essence means to develop a plan and keep it going.

Where a lot of the additional confusion arises is in the specific types of plans that are out there. Many times I have worked with different groups of people who say they are doing “strategic planning,” when in fact, they are not. There are many different types of strategic plans — all this tends to get very confusing so let me break these plans (and thus planning — the act of developing the plan) into easy to understand categories:

Plans fall into two different categories: Level and Type. First, I will define the two categories, and then I will provide some examples to help you understand the application.

Level. The level of planning is broken into Strategic, Operational, and Tactical. The best way to explain these three levels is to look at it from the reverse — tactical first. Tactical is your day-to-day, project-level activities. Tactical plans are short in duration (weeks to months) and usually implemented at the lowest level (not always developed there though). Operational plans are normally at the program level — there usually are several tactical plans that make up one operational plan and a few operational plans in a strategic plan. Operational plans are somewhat broader and longer lasting than tactical plans (months to years). Strategic plans are at the highest level. There normally is only one of each type (see below) in an organization. They are very long term (many years) and should drive all other (operational and tactical) plans (see figure below).

Type. There are many types of plans and as noted, there can be different levels of each type of plan. Generally the different types of plans follow somewhat functional lines. Some examples of plan types are business, financial, communication, marketing, information technology, etc.. This is the area that really confuses people, especially when you have the same level plan in an organization (e.g., A company has a strategic plan, strategic communications plan, and an information technology strategic plan).

As you can see, between the different definitions, the different levels, and the different types, the whole subject of strategic planning (or any planning for that matter) can get very difficult to follow.

Let me give you a few examples of situations and the plans that would accompany them:

Your supervisor tells you that the organization is trying to account for all the computerized assets they own and he directs you to conduct a major inventory and determine how to keep track of all the computer hardware and software for the 50 personnel in the section — you would develop a Tactical Information Technology Plan.
Your office has a new product line that has been out for a few months and is not selling well. In line with their communications strategies, they want you to develop and implement a marketing program for the new product — you build an Operational Communications and Marketing Plan.
As the new CEO of a small business, you were hired to improve the company. You see they lack direction and have a host of problems. You sit down and work with the organization to build and implement a Strategic Business Plan.

As you can see from the above examples, each of the plans developed are slightly different in their operational level and function; however, they are all just plans — a list of steps with timing and resources used to achieve an objective. The important thing is to understand the hierarchy of organizational plans and the differences between them.

A real world example of planning at its finest would be United States (US) National Strategy. The US develops an overarching National Strategy Document that outlines the country’s focus as a sovereign nation — this encompasses diplomatic, information, military, and economic realms and is at the strategic level. Both operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were major operational plans of activities that focused mainly on military, but also encompassed diplomatic, information, and economic activities. At the tactical level, specific actions were occurring over time to achieve these operational plans.

The Organization’s Strategic Plan Trumps All

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” ~ Lewis Caroll

Lewis Caroll’s quote from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is commonly referred to in many books and statements regarding planning. This quote; however, is especially important to every organization’s Strategic Plan. This is the granddaddy and mother rabbit of them all! If your organization does not have a published and well understood strategic plan, then somewhere in your organization someone is wondering why they are doing what they do.

Every plan that exists in your organization and every action in your organization should harken back to the Strategic Plan. If you are doing something that is not listed as an important strategy for the organization that either the strategy is wrong, or what you are doing is wrong. Something needs to be fixed.

If you do not have a strategic plan or you do but it if it does not influence anyone or anything, then something is wrong.

The first question I ask as a consultant is, “Why are you doing this?” The correct answer should link back to the organization’s strategic plan. (e.g., “We build these widgets because it allows our customers meet their needs, which is our purpose outlined in our mission.”)

Overcoming the Reasons Not to Strategically Plan

Recently I read a couple articles on Yahoo Voices on why firms should skip strategic planning (Morningside) or why strategic planning is a waste of time (VanAmee). That prompted me to do a little more research into the subject and identify the reasons some think strategic planning should not be done (Reynolds). That finally drove me to write this blog.

In a future article, I plan to discuss when a company really needs a strategic plan and when they do not. Sometimes, a company is in so much trouble that they need a crisis action plan and they can focus on strategic planning when they get through the crisis. This section; however, relates to why companies feel they don’t need a strategic plan at all:

1. Overcoming the bad taste in their mouth. Face it, not only have I seen, but I helped create many strategic plans that do nothing but collect dust on a shelf — what I refer to as “shelfware.” I have worked with many organizations that have been bit by the “planning bug” too many times and they are downright sick of it. You hear them say things like, “This is just another management fad,” or “We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work.” Let me tell you — the reasons you tried it before is because you needed it then and you need it now. The problem is the way you developed the plan was flawed and it was no good, or you failed to implement it — chances are, both of those reasons are correct. Get yourself a professional and invest some time and money in solidifying your company’s future. That means dedicating resources to planning year-round, not just once.

2. The belief that strategic planning is a waste of time and money. This excuse always kills me. I talk about this in my previous blog on the importance of strategic planning. Planning is about preparing yourself for the future…about thinking ahead. If any organization thinks that it can operate by the seat of its pants and stay in business, this would be why 7 out of 10 small businesses fail. It costs an organization a minimum of 25% more money to react to an unplanned situation than to plan for and be ready when the event happens. In rework alone dealing with a crisis, the cost can destroy a company.

3. It is not the right time or we are alright. Every organization should have a strategic plan, they should review their progress regularly against that plan, and they should update that plan annually. If you are alright now, then now is the best time. The speed of change in the world today is so intense that any organization that sits back on its laurels and thinks it is doing ok is about to be out of business. The proverb, “There’s no time like the present,” seems to fit right here.

4. Fear of change that comes from strategic transformation. Strategic planning means changing your organization. You determine where you are, develop a vision of where you want to go, and lay out a plan to get there — transformation. The official term for fear of change is Metathesiophobia. This fear can severely reduce one’s will to continue in life; sometimes one may feel like they have no control in life and may want to end it. Those with this fear constantly look back on the past and wish it would come back, but know it will not; they are willing to do anything to go back and tend to fill themselves with false hope or lose faith in life. If you do not think this is real, read “Who Moved My Cheese.”

5. We are just too busy to plan right now. Excuse me, but there is a reason for that. You are too busy right now because you have not and are not planning, thus you are running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Good strategic planning will help you overcome the “we’re too busy to do anything productive” syndrome.

6. Developing a plan is too much work. Strategic planning, just like proper education and training, quality improvement, etc., will always be “work” for a company. Too much, would be because of an over-emphasis on the planning process. Having someone conduct an organizational assessment and taking a day or so once a quarter to emphasize the direction of the organization is nothing to the results you will gain. All too often, planning becomes a “get around to it” type of thing, when it should be the most important thing leadership does — they set the vision and evaluate the organization’s progress achieving it. Along the way, they adjust their effort and resources to continue to move closer to success.

7. People are rewarded for the wrong thing. Have you ever worked in an organization where people were rewarded for crisis management and those who planned and prepped were not? This type of attitude breeds a culture of “fire fighters” not planners. This will encourage an organization full of people who cannot look past six months on a schedule and are always fighting to get deadlines met. Soon customers will start leaving, budgets will dry up, and the company will fold.

8. We are fine; we do not need a plan. This is especially true of small or overconfident businesses. Many small businesses think strategic plans are only for large companies and they do not need one yet. Talk to some of your mentors who have big businesses now and see how they started — they planned. Business will grow if you have the right mix of things like product, demand, and placement. But have you thought about how you will grow? Some companies think they are doing just fine without that “holy plan;” however, the environment has a way of changing and if it is not evaluated and monitored, it will catch you when you least expect it. Big or small, effective or not, everyone needs a strategic plan and continuous strategic planning.

9. We built a plan and it is fine. Congratulations! Having a strategic plan is a great first step. The importance of it has been recognized; however, how good is it? How often do you look at it? Does anyone even use it? Strategic plans can be pretty and used as a marketing device, but must be living and constantly reviewed and updated. Every organization will start with a very basic plan and if it is constantly reviewed in a professional manner, they will improve and refine it over time. Just because you have one, does not mean you are done.

10. No one can plan for the future. Unless you have a psychic or soothsayer on your staff, then you are right, no one can predict the future and plan for it. What good organizations do; however, is identify the potential threats and opportunities they face with their best guess and take steps to put measures in place to prevent the future from negatively impacting them. Examining potential actions against your current strategy and determining if they fit, sometimes prevents a company from making unwise and risky decisions. It is the whole, “Look before you leap,” philosophy. If we all had crystal balls, then everyone would be rich and their businesses would run perfectly — since no one has a crystal ball, the next best thing is a strategic plan.

Plans come in all shapes and sizes. Your organization probably already has a few or more that people have created (formally or informally). The most important plan for every organization; however, is a Strategic Business Plan — normally just called the strategic plan. Do not be fooled by other strategic-level plans — there is only one strategic plan and it trumps all others. There is no solid reason why any organization should not have a good strategic plan and implement regular strategic planning activities. Some reasons might sound convincing at first, but in the end, having a strategic plan is key to organizational prosperity.