Lining Up The Pillars Of Your Strategy: Syncing Strategy With Operations
Is your organization’s strategy embodied in your business operations? How confident are you, as the champion of your strategy, that it is on track within the layers of your business operations? Strategy alignment is the synchronization of strategic goals with operations and execution tactics. Strategy “misalignment” occurs when operational initiatives are not in sync with the defined strategic goals of the organization. Most organizations inherently suffer from some amount of immaturity and unsophistication in their planning process, and this directly leads the the misalignment issue you want to avoid. Goals can be ambiguous; tactical operations may not be synchronized; the strategic plan may not be supported by overarching governance or underlying linkages to execution. When that happens, and it does, it must be remedied or it will compound quickly and lead to serious issues within the organization that will exact costly damage.
5 Secrets to Successful Corporate Strategy Implementation
Corporations around the globe understand and value the importance of strategic planning. A well crafted strategy provides essential vision, direction, and goals for the organization. Yet what happens when many organizations attempt to realize the outcomes of those meaningful strategies? Strategy implementation is seriously lacking in most organizations. The skills, knowledge, experience and discipline to succeed are simply not there.
Your Strategic Plan in 7 Days
Is it possible to create a corporate strategic plan in a week? The answer depends from where you are starting. Are you starting from the most current plan? What results are wanted out of the process this time around? What are the definitions you want to attach to “strategic plan”, and to “done”?
8 Steps to Boost the ROI of Your Strategic Planning Efforts
Studies suggest that 90% of all corporate strategic planning efforts fail to deliver the intended result. In fact, the average ROI on most strategic planning initiatives is 34% or less. What’s more, one-third of companies that are now at the top of their fields will no longer hold that position three years from now.
Is Your Strategic Plan Getting a Bad Rap? Consider the Execution
Have you noticed that strategy often gets the blame for corporate failure? How many times have you gone into a planning session to address the ill-fated strategy from the previous year? If your strategic plan fails to deliver its intended results, perhaps it’s time to look more closely at the operational execution that was used to put the strategy in motion. Perhaps it wasn’t the strategy, but the execution that is to blame.
In fact, in most cases, it’s NOT the quality of the strategic plan that determines an organization’s success – it’s the execution!
The 2010 Twelve-step Checklist to Help You Evaluate Your Strategic Business Planning Process
Have you given much consideration to the possibility that your strategic and operational plans may be far less effective than they could be? How would you begin to measure the effectiveness of your current plan? This article should help you to objectively evaluate your own process and self-diagnosis potential issues that may exist in your organization’s current planning world. As you read this article, answer along as we ask the questions to help you honestly evaluate your current business planning process.
Getting your operational plans to deliver on their promises: A Series Review, Part 3
In the first article of this series, we asked the question “When’s the last time your operational plans delivered everything that was promised?” and explored as a first step towards more productive planning the need to confront the necessity of change in the process itself. We then went on to explore one very common reason that operational strategic plans fail. In the second segment of the series, we developed that topic and offered some additional tips related to key outcomes and how to define them. In this third and final segment we address a key dimension that most corporate planning processes overlook. Additionally, a new tip will be provided in this article revealing yet another valuable technique to incorporate into your business planning process.
Getting your operational plans to deliver on their promises: A Series Review - Part 2
In the first article of this series, we asked the question “When’s the last time your operational plans delivered everything that was promised?” and explored as a first step towards more productive planning the need to confront the necessity of change as a beginning. We then went on to explore one very common reason for operational strategic plans to fail. In this segment of the series, we’ll build upon that topic and offer some additional tips that are certain to be of value to anyone responsible for strategic and operational planning.
The Second Critical Step to an Effective Planning Process: Current-state Analysis & Review
How can you get there if you don’t know where you are? Obviously it makes sense that you need to know your point of origin to determine the optimal route to your desired destination. If that is the case in our day-to-day lives, then why do so many forget to apply that simple concept in business – and in this case – in our business planning? This article focuses on a second major step to consider in your planning process – a review and analysis of your organization’s current-state.
Getting your operational plans to deliver on their promises: A Series Review - Part 1
When's the last time your operational plans delivered everything that was promised? The odds are, it has never happened. Be honest with yourself and really think about it.
Admitting you have a problem...
Confronting the business truth is "Step-1" along the road to business planning recovery. After all, you can't fix your planning problem unless you are willing to admit that you have one.
