Successful Strategic Business Planning: Core

Successful strategic business planning: Core elements of a successful strategic plan A strategic plan is a three to five-year plan that gives an organization a series of goals that can be reached through step-by-step processes. These goals have "definite objectives and end products that can be implemented and evaluated" (Strategic planning, 2009, FP&M). Strategic planning is meant to be the antithesis of crisis management.

Instead of organizational panicking, the strategic planning process uses trend analysis and other measurements to set benchmarks for the organization based upon critical economic indicators and to anticipate potential problems. "Indicators include census demographic statistics, economic indicators, government policies, and technological advances" and any other information that is pertinent to the industry (Strategic planning, 2009, FP&M).

Focus and flexibility are the keys to making a strategic plan effective over the course of its duration: the plan must be focused enough so that it sets achievable and directed goals and thus channels the energies of the organization in a productive fashion, yet it also must be flexible enough to change with the needs of the environment, as no preliminary environmental analysis can perfectly predict the future.

"A successful plan is, by definition, a usable plan -- one that informs the organization's activities as well as its long-range view, and one that yields meaningful improvements in effectiveness, capacity and relevance" (Ten keys, 2010, TCC). While the environment is never static and the organizing committee must be responsive enough to external realities to rethink and regroup, the plan reminds decision-makers of goals and priorities, so the enterprise does not lose focus.

The founding plan must be ambitious yet profoundly realistic and should include: "strengths, weaknesses and limitations" (Ten keys, 2010, TCC). The information must come from a wide array of sources of to control biases. It is critical that some of the information comes from outside the organization, to be truly effective and to avoid groupthink. There is a balance between the visionary and the practical in the best strategic plan. "A strategic plan is not a wish list, a report card or a marketing tool.

It is certainly not a magic bullet or a quick cure for everything that ails an organization -- especially if the plan winds up on the shelf. What a strategic plan can do is shed light on an organization's unique strengths and relevant weaknesses, enabling it to pinpoint new opportunities or the causes of current or projected problems"(Ten keys, 2010, TCC).

Simply the process of creating a strategic plan can be useful: "No matter how relevant its original mission, no organization can afford to shackle itself to the same goals, programs and operating methods year after year" (Ten keys, 2010, TCC). Strategic planning demands the continual reevaluation of methods and methodology. It provides standards of accountability for people, programs, and resources to ensure that no aspect of the organization becomes irrelevant. The best planning process is participative in nature. The needs, vision, and objectives cannot be dictated in a top-down fashion.

All elements of the organization can provide valuable input about environmental issues and trends from their vantage point: a salesperson in the field, for example, may.