Strategic Planning Foundations: by Mike Figliuolo
Why have a strategic plan?
★Focus
★Enthusiasm
★Risks and
opportunities
Chap 1: Before you begin planning
Principles of strategic planning
★Set a clear direction
and stay in your lane
★Say no to distractions
★Making sure you
diversify your bets
Avoiding major strat plan risks
Warning signs if strat plan is flawed
★Initiative
Proliferation
★Thinking too small
★Thinking too big
★Random initiative
generator
Strat plan process (Overview)
★Vision, Mission, Goals
of company & Core competencies
★Defining strategic
filters
★Tools – 2 by 2 matrix
(Growth rate, profitability)
★Initiatives
prioritization & resources
★Check for diversity of
portfolio
★Execute the plan
Strat plan process (Tactical) – balance
process between individual and team
★Pre-work (individual)
★Vision mission
principles (team)
★Evaluate initiatives
(individual)
★Prioritization (team)
★Deep analysis
(individual)
★Final planning &
resource allocation (team)
Strat plan contents
★Core competencies
★Prioritized initiative
list
★Implementation and
sequencing planning
Chap 2: Defining the strategic environment
Assessing the market (Threats &
Opportunities)
The 5 forces that shape industry
competition
★Rivalry among
competitors
★Threat of new entry
★Threat of substitution
★Buyer power
★Supplier power
Conducting a SWOT Analysis
Strengths – typical within own organization (e.g. Brands, supply
chain, sales force, plan safety, recruiting IT, financials)
Weaknesses – typical within own organization (e.g. Expense
reporting, IT desktop support, digital marketing, intern program, integration)
Opportunities – internal or external market (e.g. social media
growth, competitor bankruptcy, 3rd party sales, couponing product at
retail)
Threats - internal or external market (e.g. customer pricing, talent poaching,
weather, acquisition, economy)
★Extracting insights
from a SWOT analysis
★Eliminate things that
aren’t going to be major strategic themes
★Synthesize the major
themes
Chap 3: Setting your strategic direction
Defining the direction
★4 Elements
★Articulating vision,
mission, guiding principles and goals (SMART) (aggressive, but pragmatic)
Creating a mission statement (why the
organization exist/purpose) – tips
★Clear and brief
★Accessible
★Defines your industry
★Rallies employees
Defining the organizational vision
(provide a clear picture of where you want to be as an organization in 3 to 5
years)
★States value
proposition
★Ambitious and
realistic
★Excites employees
★Market differentiation
★Concise
Refining the mission and vision statement
★Recruit stakeholders
for brainstorming
★Pass out to everyone
what exists today - Current mission and vision, SWOT analysis and Porter’s 5
forces
★Get teams to generate
ideas/focus group - Refining the statement – clarify and eliminate buzzwords,
remove redundant words, reduce to one or two sentences, share and get feedback)
★Capture all the ideas,
step back, look for synthesis and common themes, and hammer it out into a
clear, crisp, compelling vision and mission statement
Guiding principles (behavior) and goals
(SMART)
★What’s the vision
★What goals help you to
get there
Chap 4: Determine How You’ll Compete
Core competencies (something your
organisation is great at) – identify two primary core competencies, what our
best strengths, and can form the type of opportunities that you’re going to
pursue
E.g.
★Product quality
★Innovation ability
★Supply chain
efficiency
★Brand strength
★Technology
infrastructure
★Focusing on core
competencies – plot on the grid (high low)
★What initiatives
should you pursue
★Example potential
initiatives – new markets, products or services, capabilities to build)
Chap 5: Evaluating and Prioritising Opportunities
Understanding strategic filters (common
set of criteria that everyone across the organization uses to evaluate
decisions and planning)
Then understand how
much risks they’re going to have you take on (5 things to look at as you
evaluate risk (low/high) – capabilities, channels, cost
structure/infrastructure, customers, competitors)
Creating strategic filters
★Get the right people
in the room (different stakeholders)
★Take a look back at
the organisation mission, vision, guiding principles, goals and core
competencies)
★Generate qualitative
and quantitative filters (6-12 filters), determine hard and soft filters
Applying strategic filters
Homework – evaluate
initiatives with strategic filters (hard filters – pass or no pass, soft
filters – low, medium or high initiatives score) and document the rationale
Comparing and prioritizing initiatives
★Needed input –
completed scores of initiatives against strategic filters
★Calibration process
★Then prioritise
Conducting deep analysis of high priority
ideas
★Assign template to
individuals for further analysis. Fill out multiple aspects of the initiatives.
★Initiative analysis
components – initiative description, value proposition, target customer, point
of differentiation, owner, opportunity type, detailed financial analysis – net
present value, return on investment, internal rate of return and executive
considerations – teams, campaigns, core operations, technology, risks)
★Identify milestones
★Identify resources
needed
Initiative prioritization (Initiative,
Cost, Resources): Drawing the Line
★List the initiatives
based on highest priority to lowest priority (driven by strategic and financial
goals) – which give highest financial return
★What resources
required
★Go through an exercise
– Draw the Line (top priorities are properly resourced) “Finite pool of
resources that I can use” – sort from highest to lowest
Chap 6: Assessing your Initiative Portfolio
Applying the 2x2 matrix (Low-High Profit)
& (Low-High Growth)
★Take the initiatives,
think about the objectives that are most important to the business, plot the
initiatives, and that should help confirm what is your priority list is
Creating multiple diversification views
★Look at the portfolio
and create multiple looks through 2x2 matrix and see where the highest priority
initiatives showing up on that matrix
★If unbalanced, spend
some time rebalancing that list of initiatives
Assessing initiatives over time (so you
can see how small initiatives today contribute in the future)
★Look beyond this
year’s financial impact
★The smaller
initiatives may play a bigger role in the future
★Able to prioritize ad
allocate resources for that initiative portfolio to achieve overall vision
Chap 7: Organising for Success
Planning resources
★Common mistake –
Strategy by default (a plan determined by existing resources and structures)
★Right way to allocate
resources – state your strategy, describe your strategic filters, determine the
best organizational structure to purse your initiatives)
★Then identify your
human resource needs to fill the boxes on that correct organization chart (swap
talent, move people from one team to another, hiring gaps that need to fill)
★Align big corporate
goals all the way down to individual goals
Accountability
★Every single
initiative – have a very clear initiative owner (hold accountable for
delivering results on that project)
★Need appropriate
reporting and metrics for tracking
★Able to balance
initiatives across portfolio and get the results that you’re promising back to
the organization
The ongoing prioritization process
★Put in place ongoing
evaluation process (people generating new ideas, definition and positioning,
strategic filters, deep analysis, prioritisation, launch, monitor, and iterate
as needed-document and reprioritizes any fixes)
★Define an owner for
the process (new ideas, run prioritization meeting (quarterly)
Running the strategic planning process
★Announce planning
process
★Identify resources
needed (project charter)
★Initial group meeting
★Individual initiative
evaluation
★Initial group
prioritization
★Individual deep
analysis
★Group resource
planning
★Ongoing execution
Chap 8: Conclusion
Strategic planning pitfalls
★Clear direction
★Saying no
★Failure to prioritize
★Lacking diversification
★Starving the kids (all
resources going to the one big core business that generates most profits all great
new ideas are never getting funded)
★Not revising strategic
plan on regular basis (at least once a year)
Next steps
★Assemble team and
dedicate resources to the planning effort
★Conduct planning
efforts and then assign resources to run this process going forward
★Set regular strategy
reviews, check at least quarterly to make sure strategy is on track and no
major shifts in the market
★Conduct this process
every year (market move too fast)
Strategic planning is
a critical element of success. If you do it well, you can thrive, not just
survive.
For more may refer to Thoughtleadersllc.com
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