This post shows how a strategic planning process can be an excellent tool to building a strong team and help develop a culture of excellence and growth. I’m sitting in the Delta lounge at the Atlanta airport talking with several colleagues about the value of strategic planning. Whether your planning process is an afternoon event, a meeting on market planning or a more rigorous process with your board, it is all good. We all agreed to that.

I had the honor of meeting and participating in a workshop led by Edward Demming, the Father Of Management Engineering back in the early 90s before he passed away. I learned many things from Dr. Demming and the one principle I have found most useful and share with organizations I work with is this day is…… STRURTURE, PROCESS, OUTCOME. Good structure and process leads to good outcomes. Bad structure and or process leads to bad outcomes.

A strategic planning process is a key process for any organization. If this process is done correctly it can “turbo” charge an organizations efforts to meet its mission and business objectives. If not done well, the organization will lose its direction and sub-optimizes its resources, talent and efforts.
I prescribe to a very simple but powerful planning method called Hoshine Planning which I will write about in an upcoming Blog. Today’s thoughts are to help challenges and inspire you to look at your own strategic planning process.

Following are 10 mistakes that organizations make when doing strategic planning. How does your organization measure up?

1. No organizational objective. The strategic planning process is not just about designing a “fill in the gap” planning template to fill in. On the contrary, it means carefully coaching the management team through a thinking process to achieve a desired goal. Often, the actual strategic plan is even less important than the process to achieve it.
2. Failing to gather data. Planning teams often meet to develop their strategic plan without having gathered the information necessary to guide strategic thinking.
3. Getting stuck on developing a vision. The classic approach to strategic planning almost always includes the development of an organizational vision for the company. While this is an important issue, as it helps to define the possible objectives, it tends to be a lengthy discussion on its own. It’s better to make this a separate project as it could rapidly become quite theoretical and slow down the rest of the strategic planning process.
4. Using managers as facilitators. Some managers decide to lead strategic planning sessions themselves rather than using a skilled strategy consultant. Unfortunately, they can’t do a good job leading the process and participate in the strategy discussions at the same time; both process and content suffer. As a result, many senior managers ask outside consultants to help them run the session. It allows them to be part of the discussion and not lose credibility.
5. Thinking of strategic planning is anything but an event as oppose to a change process. As mentioned above, strategy is fundamentally about a change process. The very reason many organizations engage in strategic planning is to ensure that the organization arrives at a place or performance level that is materially better than the one they are at presently. Managers should understand that at a primitive level, strategic planning is the search for a business model that works better – and they should be prepared for the product, market and organizational changes that will support that renewed business model.
6. Lack of integration and execution. Planning is just the first step. Some management teams stop short of defining specific action steps to detail their strategies, and they don’t conduct quarterly reviews. They simply assume that once they have developed their strategies, those strategies will simply happen – almost automatically. Participants will rarely read about the meeting they attended; therefore, you should provide a synthesized action plan highlighting responsibilities, and a summary of the discussions.
7. Not involving employees beyond the planning team members. Some managers don’t even think about asking employees beyond the planning team to help. This will guarantee that the organization will miss valuable input.
8. Conducting strategy sessions at the office. In-house planning sessions generally compete with numerous interruptions that are most disruptive to concentration. The quality of the discussions, thus the quality of the plan, suffers. Going off-site is one of the best ways to differentiate the session from the traditional meetings, as people relax, don’t answer the phone or e-mail and are more attentive to the discussion.
9. Failing to link the strategic plan to the budgeting process. Believe it or not, some actually fail to allocate resources to their strategies. They simply assume that the money, people, facilities and equipment will be available automatically.
10. Failure to learn and revise the strategic plan. Some managers consider their strategic plan “cast in concrete.” No matter what happens “out there in the world,” they stubbornly insist on sticking to their strategies. This works just fine until something changes.

How does your organization measure up against these 10 potential mistakes. Please do comment??

I will write soon on the Hoshine Planning process that will outcome how to create a strategic plan. If you would like that information now, drop me a line.

The Best!!!