One Way to Look at Strategic Planning

One interpretation of the major activities in strategic planning activities is that they include:

Strategic Analysis

This activity can include conducting some sort of scan, or review, of the organization’s environment such as the political, social, economic and technical environment. Planners carefully consider various driving forces in the environment, for instance, increasing competition and changing demographics. Planners also look at the various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (an acronym for this activity is SWOT) regarding the organization.

Note that in the past, organizations usually referred to the phrase “long-range planning”. More recently, planners use the phrase “strategic planning”. This new phrase is meant to capture the strategic (comprehensive, thoughtful, well-placed) nature of this type of planning.

Setting Strategic Direction

Planners carefully come to conclusions about what the organization must do as a result of the major issues and opportunities facing the organization. These conclusions include what overall accomplishments (or strategic goals) the organization should achieve, and the overall methods (or strategies) to achieve the accomplishments. Goals should be designed and worded as much as possible to be specific, measurable, acceptable to those working to achieve the goals, realistic, timely, extending the capabilities of those working to achieve the goals, and rewarding to them as well. (An acronym for these criteria is “SMARTER”.)

At some point in the strategic planning process (sometimes in the activity of setting the strategic direction), planners usually identify or update what might be called the strategic “philosophy”. This includes identifying or updating the organization’s mission, vision and/or values statements. Mission statements are brief written descriptions of the purpose of the organization. Mission statements vary in nature from very brief to quite comprehensive, and include a specific purpose statement that is part of the overall mission statement. Many people consider the values statement and vision statement to be part of the mission statement.

It seems that vision and values statements are increasingly used. Vision statements are usually a compelling description of how the organization will or should operate at some point in the future and of how customers or clients are benefiting from the organization’s products and services. Values statements list the overall priorities in how the organization will operate. Some people focus the values statement on moral values. Moral values are values that suggest overall priorities in how people ought to act in the world, for example, integrity, honesty, respect, etc. Yet, other people include operational values which suggest overall priorities for the organization, for example, to expand marketshare and increase efficiency. Some people would claim that these operational values are really strategic goals.

(http://managementhelp.org/strategicplanning/basics.htm#anchor1430315. Adaptado)