Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies E-Book

Erica Olsen

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 541

Beschreibung

Think and act strategically every time In today's business environment, strategic planning stresses the importance of making decisions that will ensure an organization's ability to successfully respond to changes in the environment and plan for sustainable viability. Providing practical, field-tested techniques and a complete 6-phase plan, Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies shows you how to make strategy a habit for all organizations, no matter the size, type, or resource constraints. Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies is for companies of all types and sizes looking to build and sustain a competitive edge, set up an ongoing process for market assessment and trend analysis, and develop a vision for future growth. This revised edition includes: new and updated content on planning for both the short and the long-term; crucial information on succession planning; help preparing for the unexpected using scenario planning and agile strategy; strategies for implementing change and integrating strategic plans successfully by involving all staff members; and more. * The supplementary CD lays out a comprehensive, 6-phase, step-by-step program, complete with downloadable spreadsheets, charts, checklists, video links, and more * Provides value for any business or entrepreneur looking to improve efficiency, focus, and competitive edge * Includes practical, field-tested techniques Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies gives today's business owners and upper-level management the tools and information they need to think and act strategically in order to more effectively weather current economic storms while planning for future growth.

Leseprobe

Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/strategicplanningkit to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Kicking Off Your Strategic Planning Process

Part II: Determining Your Core DNA and Envisioned Future

Part III: Sizing Up Your Current Situation

Part IV: Mapping Your Organization’s Path to the Future

Part V: Living and Breathing Your Plan

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Kicking Off Your Strategic Planning Process

Chapter 1: What Is Strategic Planning Really?

Clearing Up the Confusion about Strategic Planning

Defining strategy

Understanding the importance of a strategic plan

Implementing the strategic management process

Identifying the components of a solid strategic plan

Answering the most frequently asked strategic planning questions

Identifying the Levels of Strategic Management

Getting Acquainted with the Strategic Plan’s Key Elements

Vision: Bringing things into focus

Strategy: Explaining the value you deliver

Goals and objectives: Empowering employees

Execution and evaluation: Ensuring success

Seeing the Signs: Why You Need This Book

Chapter 2: Why Strategic Planning Works

Strategic Planning Is Most Used Tool by Executives

Not Having a Plan Is Too Risky

A Plan Is Required to be a High Performer

What makes great companies great

What successful CEOs are spending their time on

Everyday Decisions Drive Long-Term Results

The day-to-day impact

The bottom-line impact

Agility Is a New Competitive Advantage

Everyone Is Part of Something Bigger

Tribal Knowledge Is Passed on to the Next Generation

You Can Clearly Explain (and Remember) Your Strategy

A Strategic Plan Eliminates Wasted Time and Money

Chapter 3: Getting Set Up for Successful Planning

Previewing the Elements of a Strategic Plan

Where are we now?

Where are we going?

How will we get there?

How will we measure our progress?

Before You Begin: Assessing Your Planning Readiness

Are we ready?

Is the climate right?

Taking a Look at the Strategic Planning Process and Time Frame

Phase 1: Determining your core purpose and envisioned future

Phase 2: Assessing your strategic position

Phase 3: Developing your strategies and priorities

Phase 4: Cascading your strategies to operations

Phase 5: Aligning your people and financial resources

Phase 6: Executing your plan

Selecting Your Planning Team

Getting everyone involved

Determining who’s involved when

Going It Alone or Hiring a Facilitator

Running the planning sessions yourself

Using a facilitator

Smoothing Out Your Process

Part II: Determining Your Core DNA and Envisioned Future

Chapter 4: Identifying Your Strategic Issues

Reviewing What Happened Last Year

Recognizing what you achieved

Understanding why you failed

Evaluating Your Products and Services

Picking the winners

Dumping the losers

Putting Your Portfolio Together (In the Market Attractiveness Framework)

Evaluating market attractiveness and business strength

Creating your own matrix

Looking at Your Financial Performance

Understanding the financial dynamics of your business

Sorting out three-year trends

Trailing your numbers over 12 months

Evaluating your numbers

Seeing the Underlying Forces of Your Industry

Creating Your Short List of Strategic Issues

Chapter 5: Focusing on What You Do Best

Appreciating Your Competitive Advantage

Taking the 30-second competitive advantage challenge

Knowing what competitive advantage isn’t

Realizing what competitive advantage is

Discovering why having a competitive advantage is so important

Uncovering Your Advantages

What’s your distinct purpose?

How do you make money?

Why do customers buy from you?

Pinpointing Your Competitive Advantage

Perusing a few examples

Stating your competitive advantage succinctly

Putting your advantage to the test

Breaking away from the pack

Using Your Advantages Now

Implementing your advantages

Measuring your advantages

Putting your advantages in your plan

Chapter 6: Developing Your Mission, Values, and Vision

Building Your Strategic Foundation

Assessing Your Mission

Elements of an effective mission statement

Evaluating your current mission statement

Writing a new mission statement

Fine-tuning Your Organizational Values

Elements of effective organizational values

Creating or updating your organizational values

Acting on your organizational values

Visioning: Focusing in on Your North Star

Elements of an effective vision statement

Imagining your future — vividly

Creating or updating your vision statement and vivid description

Futurecasting: Looking to the Future

Getting into the right frame of mind for futurecasting

Leaving your assumptions at the door

Working a strategic thinking exercise

Finalizing Your Strategic Foundation

Part III: Sizing Up Your Current Situation

Chapter 7: Assessing Your Business and Its Capabilities

Establishing a Starting Point: Identifying Your Business’s Strategic Position

Evaluating Your Company’s Capabilities

Human capital: Having the right people in the right positions

Organizational capital: Getting a feeling for your corporate culture

Knowledge capital: Knowing what you already know

Examining Your Resources

Processes: Connecting Your Capabilities and Resources

Operational processes

Customer management processes

Relationship management processes

Innovation processes

Other important process areas

Checking Your Profit Margins

Identifying cash creators

Detecting cash drains

Chapter 8: Seeing Your Business through Your Customers’ Eyes

Getting to Know Your Most Valuable Customers

Identifying the 80/20 customer

Figuring out the lifetime value of your customers

Determining Why Your Customers Are Your Customers

Measuring satisfaction by the numbers

Obtaining feedback without using a survey

Spending time talking to your customers

Focusing on How You Deliver Value to Your Customers

Considering different business models

Using a business model to create value

Framing out your business model

Chapter 9: Researching the Market to Find New Customers

Gathering Information about New Markets

Identifying your information needs

Locating information sources

Creating Your Target Markets

Dividing your market into groups

Visualizing your target customer

Focusing on the Most Attractive Markets

Defining an attractive segment

Evaluating your target customer groups

Standing Out from the Crowd: Your Positioning Statement

Writing your positioning statements

Perusing examples of positioning statements

Reaching Your New Target Markets

The Four Ps: Neither a soul band nor a legume

The cycle of (product) life

Staying Market-Focused

Gathering relevant information

Sharing what you know

Responding to what you’ve discovered

Putting It All Together: Organizing Customer Information

Chapter 10: Identifying Your Opportunities and Threats

Starting Your SWOT Analysis

Seeing the Future

Finding Opportunities in Your Operating Environment

Identifying your economic indicators

Watching important social shifts

Staying on top of technology trends

Monitoring political winds

Flexing with demographic movements

Tracking Your Industry

Looming new competitors

Threatening substitute products

Bargaining power of suppliers

Bargaining power of buyers

Duking it out with your competitors

Analyzing Your Competition

Identifying your competitors

Gathering competitive intelligence

Isolating what you really need to know

Seeing the competitive field

Evaluating Your Market

Summarizing Your Opportunities and Threats

Finishing Your SWOT Analysis

Part IV: Mapping Your Organization’s Path to the Future

Chapter 11: Strategizing for Growth and Sustainability

Understanding the Difference between Strategy and Tactics

Strategy versus tactics

The levels of strategies

Business Unit Level Strategies: Choosing Your Leading Strategic Focus

Applying your strengths to a business unit level strategy

Discovering why you don’t want to be stuck in the middle

Choosing the right business unit level strategy for you

Market Level Strategies: Strategizing How to Grow

Concentrating on market penetration

Delivering with product development

Extending scope with market development

Stepping out with diversification

Deciding how to execute your growth strategy

Summarizing Your Selected Strategies

Chapter 12: Establishing Your Strategic Objectives, Goals, and Actions

Firming Up Your List of Strategic Alternatives

Paring down your SWOT

Identifying strategic alternatives

Sorting through your other alternatives

Evolving Alternatives into Priorities

Sorting out internal and external alternatives

Creating a short list of external priorities

Compiling a short list of internal priorities

Gut checking your priorities

Balancing Your Strategic Priorities

Financial priorities: If we succeed, how will we look to our shareholders?

Customer priorities: How do we provide value to our customers?

Internal priorities: What processes must we excel in to satisfy our customers?

Employee priorities: How must our organization grow and improve?

Turning Strategic Priorities into a Road Map for Your Vision

Finalizing your strategies

Writing your long-term strategic objectives

Making your short-term goals SMART

Mapping your strategy

Building your road map

Assembling Your Strategic Plan

Evaluating Your Strategic Plan

Chapter 13: Putting Your Plan into Action

Managing Performance with a Scorecard

Pegging your measures

Aiming at your targets

Building your scorecard

Cascading Goals to Annual Action Plans

Tips for cascading one level

Tips for cascading multiple levels

Getting down to cascading business

Avoiding land mines in cascading

Ensuring Your Plan Makes Cents

Estimating revenue and expenses

Contributing to the bottom line

Projecting your financial future

Forecasting with indicators

Making Your Plan a Living Document

Piecing out your plan by audience

Using a performance management system

Part V: Living and Breathing Your Plan

Chapter 14: Execute, Execute, Execute: Putting Your Plan to Work

So You Have a Plan — Now What?

Avoiding the pitfalls

Covering all your bases

Making sure you have the support

Determining your plan of attack

Holding People (Including Yourself) Accountable to the Process

Appointing a strategic plan manager

Syncing individual action plans with compensation

Coaching for achievement

Heartbeat of Your Management Process: Strategy Reviews

Understanding the difference between strategy and operational reviews

Holding effective strategy review meetings

Using a scorecard to measure progress

Mastering the Art of Communicating Strategy

Making sure everyone buys in

Rolling out the plan

Continuing communication

Keeping Your Plan Working for You

Accepting change — the only constant

Adapting your plan as necessary

Chapter 15: Scenario Planning: Answering the What Ifs

Grasping the Concept: What Is Scenario Planning?

Tackling Your Short-Term Uncertainties

Identifying immediate risks

Constructing possible alternative outcomes

Confronting Your Longer-Term Futures

Thinking about the big what ifs

Building alternative futures

Connecting scenarios to strategy

Considering Example Scenarios

Shell energy scenarios to 2050

Cisco’s Internet scenarios to 2025

Chatham House’s food futures scenarios

Chapter 16: Value-Creating Strategies for Entrepreneurial Organizations

Establishing an Owner’s Vision

Knowing your true endgame

Deciding whether to publish your endgame

Creating a Sellable Business

Understanding what creates value

Valuing your business

Ensuring Your Business Continues after You Leave

Planning for transition

Considering how you want to exit your business

Preparing for a smooth exit

Gathering additional resources

Chapter 17: Sustainability for the Social Sectors

Moving from Profit to Sustainability

Getting Your Board on Board the Planning Effort

Defining the role of the policy board

Being tight on the ends and loose on the means

Planning for Government Entities

Recognizing how government planning works

Getting set up for government planning

Determining what sustainability means for government entities

Planning for Nonprofit Organizations

Redefining competition with the MacMillan Matrix

Mapping out nonprofit strategies

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 18: Ten Tips to Keep Your Strategic Plan from Hitting the Shelf

Getting Everyone Involved from the Start

Deleting the Fluff

Appointing a Strategy Manager

Creating a Strategic Plan Poster (Real and Virtual)

Hooking Achievement into Incentives

Using a KISS

Holding a Monthly Strategy Meeting

Using a Scorecard

Leading by Example

Celebrating Your Success — Whenever You Feel Like It

Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Ruin Your Strategy Meetings and How to Avoid Them

Refusing to Use a Facilitator

Neglecting to Conduct Any Research Before the Meeting

Inviting Everyone

Holding an Annual Retreat

Getting through the Agenda No Matter What

Forgetting to Explain the Process

Assuming Everyone Thinks Like You

Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

Ending on a Low Note

Overlooking Life after the Meeting

Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Maintain Momentum in Your Planning Process (And Life)

Create Your Picture of Success and Make It a Reality

Pick a BHAG

Eliminate Your Energy Drains and Recharge Yourself

Conquer Your Fears — Concentrate and Be Brave

Take Control of Your Finances

Create a Brain Trust

Find the Time

Highlight Small Wins

Let the Process Evolve

Be Committed

Appendix: About the CD

Cheat Sheet

Download CD/DVD Content

Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

by Erica Olsen

Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011938574

ISBN 978-1-118-07777-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-17848-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-17849-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-17850-8 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Erica Olsen holds a BA in Communications and an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management. She’s frequently tapped to lecture at the University of Nevada in Reno and the University of Phoenix in Reno on management and planning topics. She hosts workshops and has spoken at conferences nationwide.

As one of the developers of MyStrategicPlan, Erica has stripped strategic planning of its fate as a static document. With her online strategic planning system, any organization, regardless of size and budget, can build a plan in a matter of weeks (or even days). After completing the plan, the online system actually helps organizations execute the plan instead of just shoving it on a shelf. Her team developed MyStrategicPlan because they believe in inspiring big ideas and creating the laser-like focus to achieve them.

MyStrategicPlan is just one of several services offered by Erica’s company, M3 Planning. M3 also does on-site strategic planning facilitation and retreats, as well as market research consulting. Over the last several years, M3 has developed and reviewed thousands of strategic plans for organizations across the country.

In addition to authoring Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies, 2nd Edition, Erica has coauthored Strategic Planning Made Easy: A Practical Guide to Growth and Profitability (M3 Planning, Inc.) and contributes regular columns to local, regional, and national business publications.

When Erica isn’t lecturing, writing, or planning, she’s alternately kayaking, backcountry skiing, rock climbing, biking, running, or bagging peaks around the Western Hemisphere with her husband, Gregor.

Erica always enjoys hearing from her readers. If you have questions about your strategic planning or if you have a success story to share, please contact her through any of the following methods:

E-mail: [email protected]: www.mystrategicplan.comBlog: Strategically Speaking, www.mystrategicplan.com/blog

Dedication

To all the business owners, executive directors, and managers in this world who have a big vision: May you successfully reach that big, hairy, audacious goal.

Author’s Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks and appreciation goes out to everyone who had a hand in putting this book together. The journey was an amazingly wonderful and enlightening experience, and I’m grateful for the remarkable opportunity to author this book. I must recognize a few specific people.

To my book brain trust, who provided ideas, recommendations, and suggestions at every turn — thank you for making this book as good as it could be. I want to specifically thank Alissa Schwipps, Michael Lewis, and technical editor Clint Burdett, for all your help. I would also like to thank the graphics and layout teams at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., who made this book come to life and the marketing teams who brought this book to business owners and managers everywhere. And a special thanks to Howard Putnam, author of The Winds of Turbulence (Howard D. Putnam Enterprises), for his kind words.

To our strategic planning clients who’ve all contributed to this book through their examples, questions, suggestions, and experiences — thank you for the opportunity to work with your organizations. Working with you is a pleasure and gift to everyone at my company.

Thank you to my great friends for sticking by my side even when I was buried in my writing. You’re a continual source of encouragement. Special thanks go out to my friends and colleagues who made this edition fabulous, specifically Milan Sperka and Connie Armstrong, and to the rest of my team, Russell Persson, Vanessa Lindeberg, Cammy LoRe, Kim Perkins, Kristin Larsen, Shannon Forster, and Elsa Ozuna-Richards.

To my family, who’s the best family in the world, thank you for supporting me in everything I do. My brothers Ryan and Brett, you provided needed distractions in between my deadlines and kept me focused on what mattered. Grandma and Grandpa Olsen (aka G & G), you instilled the entrepreneurial spirit in our family; to you I’m eternally grateful. Aunt Marlene, you’re an amazing mentor; thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with me. Mom, you’re a one-of-a-kind business partner and mentor; thank you for taking care of the business and our clients when I was facing looming deadlines. Dad, you added needed clarifications, answers, and content ideas whenever I needed them; thank you for dropping everything to help me. You’re as much the author of this book as I am. You’re the best.

Most importantly, I want to thank my husband, Gregor. Your unfailing support for everything I do doesn’t go unnoticed. I couldn’t accomplish any of what I do without you.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Vertical Websites

Senior Project Editors: Alissa Schwipps, Christina Guthrie

(Previous Edition: Tim Gallan)

Acquisitions Editor: Michael Lewis

Copy Editor: Jennette ElNaggar

Assistant Editor: David Lutton

Editorial Program Coordinator: Joe Niesen

Technical Editor: Clint Burdett, CMC

Vertical Websites: Jenny Swisher, Marilyn Hummel

Editorial Manager: Christine Meloy Beck

Editorial Assistants: Rachelle S. Amick, Alexa Koschier

Cover Photos: © iStockphoto.com / Mark Stay

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Sheree Montgomery

Layout and Graphics: Laura Westhuis

Proofreader: Toni Settle

Indexer: Cheryl Duksta

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher

Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director

Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

You have two choices when it comes to running your organization: (1) Be intentional about the path your organization follows or (2) turn on autopilot. Turning on autopilot is kind of like hopping into your Hummer, turning on the satellite navigation system, and following the directions from your home to Las Vegas. Computers aren’t the best at making decisions, so you may get to Las Vegas eventually, but are you going to Las Vegas, New Mexico, or Las Vegas, Nevada? If you plot your course before you set off, you’re more likely to get to the correct destination.

If you’re running your organization without a plan, you’re just using the navigation system and not paying attention to how you’re getting there. An astonishing 90 percent of businesses are running without a plan. That 90 percent is hoping that the navigation system doesn’t fail and that it correctly assumes the end destination. But because you’re reading this book, you’re ready to run the show, and you’re close to joining the elite 10 percent that know a strategic plan is important.

About This Book

This book is about getting from Point A to Point B more effectively and efficiently and having more fun along the way. Part of that journey is the strategy and part of it is the planning, development, and execution.

Strategic planning isn’t about taking on additional work; it’s about taking all those numerous daily decisions and making them part of an integrated process. Whether you want to be more effective and efficient or you want to make more money, have a bigger community impact, or move your company from good to great, this book is for you! No more thinking that strategic planning is daunting. This book, and the accompanying CD, makes the process easy, straightforward, rewarding, and fun.