Applying Tools for Strategic Planning Option

The strategic plan of our nursing department does align with the mission of the department, which is to "Discover. Teach. Heal." The mission statement succinctly describes the purpose of the healthcare facility and provides an ever-present reminder to all why the organization exists. Therefore, it represents the interweaving of excellence regarding patient care, research and education. From here, strategic decisions are made, which empowers nursing into defining its unique role within the nursing philosophy and strategic plan. The organizational vision and core values (respect, service, accountability, excellence, and innovation) have also served the department by transcending nursing to having one foundation with the organization (DeSilets & Dickerson, 2008).

Despite global competition that has brought about competitive climates in business environments, the nursing department of the healthcare facility I work for has managed to break down its internal barriers. By doing this, it has enabled it to align with the strategic thinking and goals and objectives of the departments. Therefore, the department has developed the critical strategic vision and mission, which goes along with the necessary agenda items of our department. After accomplishing this, the department was able to align its planning of the strategic...

The objective of doing all this was to ensure a strong connection exists among the mission of the organization and its operational resources. Secondly, it aimed at fine-tuning the goals and objectives of the organization and discovering the implementation gaps that were present in the organization. Lastly, the objective of alignment planning was to address issues existing around internal efficiencies and effectiveness.
A balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system used extensively in organizations worldwide to align business activities to organization's vision and strategy, improve the internal and external process of communication, and monitor the performance of the organization against its strategic goals. Therefore, the balanced scorecard includes helping planners to identify what needs to be done and measured and thus, executives can execute their strategies entirely (Kaye, Fox & Urman, 2012, p. 30). Thus, companies are prescribed what they need to measure for the organization to attain balance in their financial perspective. As such, the balanced scorecard includes the mission and vision of the organization together with the strategy, which is later translated into action. Moreover, it includes the internal and external environment of the business outcomes that will continue to improve the strategic performance and results of the…