Key Words • Strategic planning • Strategic planning process • Business plan template The following post is focused on the strategic planning process. This is a process that many oganisations go through but also large projects will undertake as part of their governance process. You may also find some of the tools and templates that I have used to deliver projects,here, including the most popular item in the store, a project quote tool that helps you build a fully priced project commercial model. You can find it here. All products are offered with a money back guarantee. Also please check out the resources page for more useful resources to make your life easier. Are you enjoying this blog? If so, please forward this to a friend or colleague and suggest that they sign up here. It is free and you will receive a coupon code to allow a free download from our store + regular updates on tools, templates and interviews to help get it done! Thanks for reading. Andrew Everett Strategic planning
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, setting objectives and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In addition good teams and projects will also define the measures by which success can be judged. Strategic planning is the process of developing high-level; visionary plans to set a company’s strategic direction and overall planning framework within a short to medium timeframe. Strategic management is a technique you can use to create a favourable future and help your organization to prosper. To create this future, you must involve your organization's stakeholders in envisioning the most desirable future and then in working together to make this vision a reality. The key to strategic management is to understand that people communicating and working together will create this future, not some words written down on paper. Strategic Framework The strategic framework will be used to provide the stakeholders and the staff or company with strategies for delivering projects and business outcomes during the defined planning cycle. The strategic framework is formed through consultation with key stakeholders and often through the strategic planning process. Strategic plans usually include • What is the organisation’s vision • What principles drive the ability to achieve the vision, how will we operate to achieve • What is the relationship with others? (Influence, advocacy, management, partnership, consultation) • What type of organisation does the business need to be to deliver on the vision, are we set up for success? • What is the businesses value proposition, why would businesses want to work with the business. • What are threats e.g. importing skills • What are opportunities, e.g. what are value add industries that you can create • What are the constraints or threats • What are the strengths • What are the objectives • What are the projects or tasks that will be undertaken to meet those objectives • What are the ways in which the organization or business will measure achievement of those objectives. Getting started & inputs Often the strategic planning process will be building or enhancing an existing strategic plan. Therefore there will be several existing documents or business templates that exist within an organization already. These can be re used and updated as part of the strategic planning process. • Vision • Mission statement • Corporate values • Business objectives • Key strategies • Major goals • Strategic action programs • Priorties • Industry analysis • Trends • Review and define business or corporate objectives • Conduct a SWOT analysis • Determine tactical objectives (to keep you going while you conduct the strategic planning process) • Create a list of projects and objectives • Data to support and inform decision making Strategic vision You need a vision statement for what you stand for. The strategic vision is an ambitious view of what the organization or project stands for. It is often lofty and wordy but should be linked to the how the organization or project would like to be viewed from the outside. SWOT Analysis Everyone knows this one • Strengths • Weaknesses • Opportunities • Threats Proactive Management and strategic planning Proactive management and strategic planning is how executives manages proactively and continuously reviews, improves, and enhances processes and the enablers used in managing the program. It also defines how the strategy planning team and other parties will quickly adapt to and meet new or changing business requirements. Objectives This can be broken down as follows • Strategy • Tasks • Inputs • Outputs Measurement All objectives should be measurable. I prefer the SMART process • Strategic • Measurable • Achievable • Realistic • Time bound That is the objective should be linked the strategy. The objective should be measurable. For example the objective is to increase stakeholder engagement then the measure could be to increase the number of shares on each new social media post. To manage your social media I recommend products like hootsuite, you can find out more about their products here. The objective should be achievable. & realistic For example the objective might be to build a new website, this is realistic and can be achieved, but if the objective is “world peace” then that is more nebulous and should be left to beauty pageant contestants. To actually build a website I have used and recommend weebly which can be used to get a website up and running in less than 2 hours. Finally the objective should be time bound. That is there should be a finite time in which to achieve and meet the objective. For example if the objective is to launch a new on line store, it would be reasonable to have this objective limited to less than 1 week. In fact if it needs to be done faster you can use products like shopify which says that you can create your own online store in less than 60 seconds. Outcomes, Activities and Key performance areas Once the strategic plan business template is completed, it is prudent to map out the process by which the activities will be measured. This can be done through looking at the outcomes, activities and key performance areas. • What will we do • What did we do • How well did we do it • Did it have an impact Caution A strategic or business plan is no guarantee of success, however the chances of business success are increased with the frequency and quality of planning and the engagement with the project or teams that will be required to help get it done. All the best for strategic planning process. Resources Products and template can be found here. Useful resources that I use and recommend can be found here. As always it would be great if you can join us as a subscriber so that you can have all of this useful stuff delivered direct to your email, each week, subscribe and get a promotion code for a free download from our store. You can sign up here. Thanks for reading Andrew Everett Comments are closed.
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For the project office to use. A list of things to check off in managing a project grouped into sections from scope, time, budget, quality and management. Instantly check the health of any project by scoring against these 117 questions.
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The following is a project checklist, which can be used by project managers, program managers, delivery managers, pre sales consultants and anyone who is focused on ensuring that all areas of a project are being managed to ensure successful delivery. It is organised around the lifecycle of a project from initiation through delivery and close out.
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