Planning tells you what is going to happen, post-mortem tells you what has happened Both planning and post-mortem are essential management tools needed to achieve corporate objectives, as well as to prevent the recurrence of the same mistakes. Planning for change must be the ever-present concern of every executive. At the same time, if events do not happen as planned, a post mortem is to be conducted so as not to repeat the same planning errors.

General Dwight D Eisenhower’s famous quote, “Planning is nothing and planning is everything” was a response to his cynical colleagues, who believed that, because plans never survive first contact with the enemy, planning was a waste of time. In the corporate world, quite often, strategic planning gets thrown out of the window because of mounting short-term pressures to perform and deliver the bottom line.

Those who fail to plan are ultimately planning for a post-mortem. It is not that postmortem is unimportant but companies should always plan to succeed and minimize the occasions to do post-mortem on failed projects. Planning companies outperform those non-planning ones.

Crises and the unexpected changes are no longer a rare, random or abnormal part of our lives. They are built into the very fabric of society and modern-day corporations. While not all crises can be foreseen or even prevented, all of them can be managed if we plan strategically and tactically for what is humanly possible. The impacts of the crises can be minimised if one has a thorough understanding of the basics of crisis planning and management.

Tactical is short term planning whereas strategic is considered long term. Strategic plan looks at the forces in the external environment and responses to them. Tactical planning usually covers one year and is the stepping stone of the strategic plan, which normally covers three to five years.

Having post-implementation analysis or post-mortem is also critical. Just as a postmortem reveals the cause of death, a corporate post-mortem can be extremely revealing. You learn from your past mistakes and get all the feedback. It functions much like a resurrection experience, enabling you to have a new lease of life or second chance. In physical term it is reflection. Without this, the same mistakes may be made all over again and lessons learnt earlier will come to waste. This is why there is a saying that history repeats itself. Two world wars were fought within a short span of less than 30 years. Empires and dynasties fall and rise because of a lack of reflection and committing the very same mistakes that ushered them into power in the first place.

Post-mortem job is dull and boring particularly when it is preceded by overwhelming success. But it is also from reflecting upon your successes that one can avoid the pitfalls of failures in the future. Good managers always find out what has gone awry not so much to apportion blame, but to ensure that the same problems do not surface again. This is why some companies conduct exit interviews with departing staff to ascertain if there are more issues than meet the eye. Even chaos has its patterns. The post-mortem is the process to ascertain the patterns of things that have gone wrong so that these mistakes will not be repeated in the future. In the past, three strikes and you are out.

Today, one strike and you are history. This is because today’s world is highly competitive and you may not have a second chance. Through one mistake, miscalculation or strategic error, your competitors can steal away your customers very quickly. Your margins for errors are very thin as resources are scarce. This amplifies the importance of post-mortem to minimise repeating the mistakes

Dr Mike Teng (DBA, MBA, BEng) is the author of best-selling book, “Corporate Turnaround: Nursing a Sick Company back to Health.” He is known as the “Turnaround CEO in Asia” by the media.
http://corporateturnaroundexpert.com

Strategic planning of course it’s something that you should be doing for the good of your company, but actually taking the time and dedicating the resources to make it happen is often difficult. It’s like daily exercise – you know you would feel better if you fit it into your schedule and you know that it’s good for you, but somehow you just don’t get around to it.

However, you really should get around to conducting strategic planning and you can use a business-to-business peer group to help you get there.

How do you use a peer group to help you and what is a peer group? More on that in a minute, but first, let’s focus on strategic planning. Strategic planning, whether it’s long term such as a 5-year or 10-year plan or shorter term such as a 1-to-3 year plan, accomplishes several results for you:

It forces you to create or rework company goals and objectives, based on current and near-future business and industry trends.

Many business owners fail to undertake strategic planning because to do so effectively forces them to face the way things really are, instead of the way they wish they were. A group of peers who are sincerely interested in each other’s well being will help then with this challenge.

It engages you in the process of reviewing budgets and company financial forecasts to predict future earnings. When a group of peers are involved with the business owner, in an atmosphere of confidentially, instead of stakeholders and advisors, honest appraisals are more likely – since their peers will make them justify their projections based on their own experiences.

It helps you to estimate current and future human resources needs as well as capital investment needs for buildings, equipment and other resources.

Honest strategic planning will help the business owner identify skills not present in their core managers and supervisors and, based on the experiences of their peers, offer solutions and options for addressing these shortcomings. Each member of the group is likely to have faced and addressed similar challenges and each person will learn from the successes and mistakes of their peers.

It assists you in conceptually imagining branding and image opportunities as you plan the overall objectives of marketing and public relations campaigns and activities. Every business, no matter how small or unsophisticated, has products or services that are going out of phase and others still in development.

Often it is these soon to be extinct products that are generating the greatest sales and maybe even profits. When strategic planning is done honestly with the help of peers the experiences of each member are brought to bear on the future and the need to focus on the future so product and other decisions are made before they become mandatory for survival.

Best of all, the theory that you’ve heard before regarding the exercise of documenting something on paper resulting in you following through with it holds true with strategic planning.

Once you’ve put a plan into writing, you will find, even if you don’t take that plan out of your file for six months or a year, that the very act of writing the information down and committing it to a document file, results in you following it, at least to some extent – guaranteed.

Now, what is a peer group and how can you use it for strategic planning? Business to business peer groups provide circular mentoring or reciprocal coaching opportunities (to use the trendy terms), allow you to brainstorm regarding issues, ideas and solutions with people who have dealt with similar problems and situations.

A peer group can function efficiently and effectively via regular telephone conference sessions, creating an advisory council of peers that will become a trusted source of advice, add a measure of accountability to your initiatives and provide a sounding board for the ideas of others and yourself.

When strategic planning becomes a focus of a peer group, planning becomes an accountable activity with periodic goals set to complete tasks and report back to the entire group. The members of the group hold each other accountable to move the planning process along, breaking it into manageable tasks with timeframes set in order to achieve them.

And when you are continually collaborating with your peers, you are developing your strategic vision over a longer period of time – hopefully forever, than you would ever do if you were paying some expert for every hour they spent with you and the member of your business.

Your strategic business plan is more or less based around two fundamental things. The first one is your necessity to be in business and the next is your ability to do business. No home based business person can deny this, and in addition to acknowledging this most of them will also acknowledge that they don’t know much about planning. Good strategic planning needs a thorough understanding of the reasons for your being in business in the first place.

Why Are You In Business?

Many people have their own reasons to start home based businesses. Reasons range from additional income generation, to stay home moms to those who can’t afford office space. The reasons define the outlook of your needs fairly well and thus your strategic plan should adjust itself to meet your goals.

Strategic Planning

Whatever the reason could be for your getting into business, it is fairly certain that you have chosen a line of business you are comfortable with. Strategic planning as applicable to work at home businesses should focus on three fundamental points. The first one being the lowest investment and fixed cost, the next is the potential for continuous revenue generation. The last is the potential for expanding the home based business into a small or larger business at some point in the future.

1. Choose A Business In Which You Have Core Strength: This means you can enjoy certain advantages by starting a business in which you have your basic strength. For example, if you spent half of your career as a dancer, you’ve already got a head start if you start a dance class or a dance costume designing business. Your strength lies here because you have already established relationships in the circle that comprises your customer base.

2. The Investment Factor: If yours is a start up business, you can’t possibly invest all your savings or retirement benefits into the business. You will want to minimize recurring costs like telephone bills and stationery. Your fixed costs will also come down by reducing or eliminating commuting. Today, you can’t think of a business without a home computer. This saves a lot of time and money by handling your bookkeeping and communication needs electronically (email and Internet). If necessary, you can try using your home equity for a secured business loan.

3. Choose A Business That Has Potential For Logical Diversification: Every business reaches critical mass after a certain point. Then you will need to critically evaluate the need for diversification. If you started off as an online editing and proof reading service provider, the next logical step for you is to diversify into copywriting jobs or data entry. Diversification is not expansion but adding another line of business without discarding your core strength.

4. Keeping The Revenue Cycle Continuous: This is crucial for the sustenance of the business. Most start-ups face this crisis for a reasonable length of time before becoming stable. But this can’t be achieved just by good planning or being good at producing merchandise. It requires a sense of urgency and the desire for selling more. It takes a lot of maturity to turn away from avoidable expenses.

About the Author:
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Many businesses are still focusing on yesterday’s problems at the expense of forgoing future opportunities. The best chess players always have a strategy in place. But in businesses, future planning seems to play second fiddle to analyzing of past performance. Architects would not build a house without the architectural plans because selecting the wrong layout or laying the wrong foundation or using the wrong building materials could result in disaster. The house can collapse on you after you move in. A strategic plan is the architectural blueprint for your business.

Executives always have the excuse for not doing strategic planning. They reckon that things are changing so rapidly. It does not make sense to do ten or even five year planning as events will change and it is not possible to preempt changes any more. It is true that nowadays environment changes are very rapid and that makes long-term planning even more difficult. Non-strategic planning companies give the excuse that planning results in paralysis through too much analysis. It is also true that some companies cover their backs with expensive market research and spreadsheet analyses.

However, one should not throw out the baby with the bath water. As a matter of fact, it is even more critical to have strategic planning during turbulent and rapidly changing environment. It is like the Titanic, which had the most modern technology in her times but did not plan for eventuality and disaster when it hit the iceberg. We are living in difficult times today and tomorrow things may be worse. With the possible threats such as terrorist attacks, infectious diseases like SARS, bird flu, mad-cow diseases etc, it will be naive for any CEOs to think that they are immune or protected.

One must not be fooled into thinking that a company is successful because it has a good strategic planning system in place. Your success may be coincidentally due to a buoyant market or weak competition. Also, one must not be mistaken that the use of processes such as the annual budget is tantamount to application of strategic planning. If the data is purely internal that is sales figures and product costs, it is not strategic planning. You need to factor in the external factors such as customer data, competition, economic trends, etc.

Also, studies of successful companies such as IBM, Procter and Gamble, 3M found that new innovations and great ideas do not originate from the centralized strategic planning department at the headquarters. Most of the good ideas and innovations were generated from outside the industry or the people who regularly interact with the customers. Strategic planning must not remain in its ivory tower but should incorporate the realities of the ground.

The former chairman of General Electric (US), Jack Welch drew on the strategies of the Prussian general and military writer Clausewitz, Karl von (1780 -1831). One of Clausewitz’s theories included an explanation of why a military leader could not devise a complete battle plan and then stick blindly to it: “Man could not reduce strategy to a formula. Detailed planning necessarily failed, due to the inevitable frictions encountered. Strategy was not a lengthy action plan. It was the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.”

His own strategic thinking matched that of the general. He constantly reinvented GE over the years as circumstances and the competitive environment shifted. There was an evolution to Welch’s strategic thinking and each major initiative built on the one that preceded it. He would wage one ‘battle’ and then wait to see how the results panned out. In tracing the evolution of GE during his tenure, Welch has drawn a stair-step-like chart that depicts the stages of GE’s culture change. Work-Out laid the foundation for Best Practices, which created a platform for Process Improvement such as Six Sigma, etc. Preparation of a strategic plan may not guarantee success but failure to do so is certainly a recipe for disaster.

Yogi Berra once said that “if you don’t know where you are going, you will likely end up somewhere else.” The same is true in business. Unless you have a carefully crafted business strategy, you are essentially flying blind.

Former U.S. President and military commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, remarked that “a finished plan is generally worthless, but careful planning is absolutely essential.” In other words, while a given plan may change based on what happens with your business, taking the time to thoroughly examine where your firm is now and where it is headed gives you the information to make course changes intelligently, against the backdrop of a clear business strategy.

Kmart, a leader in the discount retailing industry in the late 70’s, had close to 1900 stores and average revenues of well over $7 million per store. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, was a much smaller retailer with just over 200 stores and average revenues per store only half those of Kmart. But just ten years later, Wal-Mart had become the largest and highest profit retailer in the country with an annual growth rate at 25% per year with a 32% return on equity.

What happened? Kmart’s response to business challenges was to try to seal off and defend its markets, a common tactic years ago when the industry was characterized by defined markets, stable customer needs and clearly defined competitors. Wal-Mart found competitive advantage by realizing that success would not come from capturing and holding a market but by being nimble and responsive to changing market conditions. It built business processes and core competencies in such areas as transportation and information sharing which allowed it to respond to rapidly changing conditions and move inventory quickly to serve store-by-store customer demand.

Kmart’s inability to respond to changing market conditions and to continue to ride a dead strategy eventually led to its reorganization under Chapter 11. It’s a fact that those organizations that adapt to changing conditions thrive and grow. Those that remain unaware or misjudge these challenges and opportunities and fail to develop a new business strategy eventually die.

Why Build a Strategic Plan? In a word, the answer to this question is focus. Strategy creates context for operating decisions. It establishes the playing field and provides guidance for decision-making about the types of experience and skills needed by employees, how marketing and advertising should be positioned, the priority of initiatives, how to structure the organization, and a host of other issues. A plan is necessary to guide decision-making, channel resources and define direction. Because of that, building a strategic plan should be well worth the time it will take to develop it, debate it and secure agreement on its direction.

Strategy is the way in which an organization meets the challenges and opportunities of its environment. It is often an overused and misunderstood concept. Strategic thinking does not necessarily imply long term. In some industries, long term is less than one year. It is not tactics, though strategy needs to be supported through tactics. It doesn’t necessarily imply something big. The decision to move across town may have more human impact than the decision to do business in another city.

Strategy is a set of choices that defines the nature, direction and value system of an organization. It is not a document. It is a mindset which should be understood by every person in the organization and used to guide all decision-making within the organization. In developing strategy, leaders make conscious and informed choices about who they are and what they stand for:

* What are our core values and beliefs?
* What markets and customer groups will we serve?
* What products or services will, or will we not, deliver?
* What competitive advantages will cause us to succeed?
* What core competencies must we have to fuel our growth?
* What infrastructure, core processes and resources must we have to succeed?
* What financial results will we achieve?
* What should be our planning horizon?
* What is the quality-of-life contribution we want to make to our customers, our employees or the places in which we operate?

Next, and the hardest part, is plan implementation. In the United States, the average firm only achieves about 63% of its strategic plan. Studies also show that 90% of strategies that fail do so because of lack of execution. Research in the last several years has pinpointed many reasons why business plans fail, including the following:

1. Poorly understood strategy — most organizations have a strategy but, according to one study, fewer than 5% of their employees know what the strategy is.
2. Weak strategy execution — Studies show that up to 90% of strategies fail due to execution.
3. Inability to adapt to change — Once a business makes plans, the chaos of everything changing around it may gradually erodes those plans unless the organization can adapt. Many cannot.
4. Lack of a systematic approach – When an organization reaches a certain size, lack of alignment between different people or departments who handle different functions may hamper success.
5. People are not engaged – An engaged worker is one who is personally committed to the goals of the company. Unfortunately, 90% of the time what passes for commitment is compliance. If you cannot get people engaged, no improvement will last.
6. A gap between knowing what to do, and doing it. Many things can get in the way including substituting talk for action, employee fear or mistrust of management, using the firm’s history instead of sound judgment to dictate action, and badly designed or complex measures.

In the end, a solid business strategy and implementation plan may not solve all of your problems but those firms that do plan enjoy a much brighter track record. Plan well and beware of the pitfalls in implementation and you can enjoy your best year yet.

Strategic planning and strategic leadership styles vary just as the employees and owners of companies involved in the planning process differ. Visit local bookstores or check on line to see hundreds of books claiming to have the secrets to a successful business and easy strategic planning. Technology and the Internet has forced companies to make changes. Has the ability to get along with and manage others changed? Many businesses today are international. Constant news reports keep everyone updated on issues affecting the business world. The skills needed to effectively manage others have not changed that much. Rather employees today are not as willing to put up with poor leadership or bullies in the manager’s office, anymore. Employees have more choices and they expect leaders to be authentic.

Strategic leadership is defined as determining where an organization is going and how to get there. Years ago this was called long-range planning. Decisions then were made by upper management behind closed doors. Today strategic planning is likely to involve individuals from all levels of management and staff. Companies are learning the best way to achieve excellent plans and full company support is to involve individuals from all levels of the business.

Strategic leadership usually involves planning. Companies do not achieve their goals accidentally or by luck but rather by setting goals. Companies use different methods for strategic planning. They are based on the type of business, the mission statement or the marketing strategy. Basically the steps are the same with each model, some models are more complex and detailed. Small business owners and companies alike should adapt strategic planning to fit their situation. It’s helpful to review how other leaders determine business strategies. It’s critical to know leadership of a company is not one size fits all.

Thinking about where a company is going leads to discussions on what they do their product or service. Without this knowledge strategic planning will not work. Sometimes companies write their mission statements during this stage of planning. Mission statements range from one simple sentence to numerous detailed paragraphs. Regardless of length the intent is to state the core purpose of the corporation what’s at the heart of the business. Companies then elaborate on their mission statements by adding vision and value statements.

Value statements usually deal with customer type, target markets, business activities or things they will not do. Moral values and public sentiment sometimes play a role. Companies that misjudge this often lose customers and market position. Vision and value statements, just like mission statements, are unique to the business. Truett Cathy, the owner of Chick-fil-A, is a good example. They will never open their restaurants on Sunday. This planning stage is sometimes referred to as strategic analysis.

Howard Behar, author of “It’s not about the Coffee/Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks” defines his leadership philosophy as people are more important than the coffee. He believes when companies take care of their people employees and customers the business is profitable. Sometimes companies struggle to define their product. In the above situation many individuals define coffee as the product. Yet their strategic leaders define it as people. It helps to go beyond the physical product to see what need the product fills. Companies can’t engage in strategic planning until there is clarity and agreement on what needs the company fulfills.

When determining the purpose of a company it is critical to analyze the environment they operate in. What’s the competition? What are they doing to generate sales? What future trends might affect the business? If they market to a certain segment do they need to change or update their services? Are they using the most up to date technology available? How does the Internet apply to their business? Should they shift from a local to an international focus? Questions such as these help strategic leaders decide what major issues the company faces as well as potential opportunities available.

Once a company completes strategic analysis it’s time to add the details. What actions are needed to fulfill their mission statement while balancing their values and vision? At this point the process becomes very detailed and specific. Usually there are multiple goals or objectives. It’s helpful to divide these by product, task, location, customer, or some way unique to the business. Each of the divisions has a different manager with different tasks/goals specific to that aspect of the business. It’s not enough to say the company wants to increase business. It’s better to be very specific. How does the company want to increase their business? How do they plan to do this? Add dates, amounts and numbers.

The company has determined their mission and what’s needed for this to happen. At this point the strategic leader usually releases details to the employees. The managers of each division usually report back to their managers with a trickling down effect. Team leads/managers explain the strategic plans during team meetings. Sometimes this announcement is kicked off with much promotion – lots of bells and whistles. Employees sometimes walk away thinking it’s just another year. Strategic plans do not affect me. Employee acceptance of mission and vision statements is largely determined by their involvement in the planning process and their attitude toward management.
Employees can struggle with the goals attached to mission/vision statements. To insure companies meet their goals, strategic planners include responsibilities, timelines and accountability in the mission statement. Sometimes this involves change which employees do not always embrace. If negative consequences result from unmet goals, employees usually have negative attitudes. Management doesn’t always recognize the feelings or issues of their employees. It’s essential that all employees understand what’s expected of them. Take time to answer their questions. Encourage teamwork. Listen.

Strategic plans usually involve budgets. Everybody likes money especially in their paycheck. If a company is doing well financially, and the new strategic plan does not include cutbacks, this is good news. But on the other hand, if money is tight, and the employees will not receive money as expected, this is bad news. Usually employees think of themselves first. When presenting a new mission statement to employees they typically think what’s in it for me. If the company needs to cut corners or eliminate positions, this causes stress for everyone involved. Part of strategic planning includes how to deliver strategic plans to the staff. A good leader makes sure this is done in a positive way with consideration for the feelings of everyone involved.

Strategic planning isn’t just for corporations. Small businesses, even a sole proprietor, benefit from making strategic plans on an annual basis. Usually the small business owner

starts a company because they are good at one thing, but many times they don’t have the skills needed to develop a successful company. They provide a product or service but don’t know how to analyze the market, set goals, promote their business, or manage money. Writing a mission statement – determining where the company is going and how to get there – puts the business owner closer to the road of success.

What ever success you are looking to achieve you need to have a strategy to get there. Once you have your strategy on how you are going to attract and get new clients you need to implement at least portions of your plan. Many businesses have failed for lack of commitment to their overall strategy.

For an example let’s say that you have a local business and you have decided one of your strategies will be to put up flyers, in public places that may cater to your clientele. Now let’s say that you have a business that does custom drapery. Knowing who your clients are and how much a person will pay for your custom drapery will determine where you will post your flyers. Where are the most effective spots to get specific clients for your business? Probably home shows, or expos, home stores like home depot, or Pier One (if they allow you too), upholstery shops, or dry cleaners etc.

When you have a strategy to put up flyers, it has to be week after week, and month after month. You don’t just put up a flyer one time and then wait to see what happens. I have discovered that it takes about three months of flyers to get a customer. Now let’s say that you also have a strategy to contact interior designers, specialty craft people, and furniture builders, house or condo builders, showroom designers and other related service providers. Again you need to commit to sending, following up, and making sure that they have enough of your flyers or information. It is not their job to make sure that you are restocked.

Another possible strategy that you may have is to advertise on the internet. Where will you have the best results? Probably on sites that also offer similar custom services, or home sites, or commercial real estate sites that offer living solutions to their traveling clients. You could make partnerships with such companies that every time someone is looking for custom drapery they refer clients to you.

These are good strategies to build business but you have to be consistent and follow through. You will have to keep updating your ads on the internet or in magazines or targeted niche newsletters. Like Custom House or Design on a Dime. You will have to keep replacing your flyers, you will keep faxing your information to prospects, and you will have to keep getting new names of new house buyers and so on.

That is working your strategic plan. On your plan you
could have 10 or more steps of how you are going to grow your business and then you need to take consistent action towards that overall plan. Testing is very important as well. When you test you then know what actions are working and what is not.

Most times you have to trust your instinct as to whether your steps and plan will get you to where you want. For an example: I want an online business that is bringing in clients and that is making money for me whether I get up in the morning or not. The steps of my plan is creating articles for an e-zine, to plan an year long e-mail campaign of information that I will send out, to set up an auto-responder to send out the newsletter, and to create a membership driven website with tons of content that has audio and video features, and to advertise the newsletter and website once I’m finished. So right now I’m not making money for this project. But I believe in the plan. I have written nearly sixty articles and I’m submitting them to the web. I have already reserved a domain name and I have the web host in place for that final moment when it all comes together. The e-zine is nearly done for a year out, and I will now start loading the contents into my auto responder and working on creating audio content for the membership side of the website. Even though the website is not even built yet if I follow up on all the steps of my strategic plan I feel that I will get my goal of an online business that can thrive on automatic pilot.

If you work your plan too you will achieve your over all goal of where you would like to take your business. Don’t give up. You have worthy goals and they deserve to be completed. Break it down into steps and work the steps and you will build an empire.

Strategic plans only help organizations when they are kept active and implemented. The strategic plan defines the business direction. That direction is based on the future, the vision of the company. Before an effective strategic plan can be developed a clear and compelling vision is needed. Visions are optimistic, the ideal picture of the future. The strategic plan is the map to the vision and then only effective if it is implemented.

Strategic plans can sound intimidating and overwhelming to many small business owners. The most effective strategic plans are those that are simple, completed with the leadership team and key people in the company. Complex documents that consume excessive amounts of time to create don’t guarantee success. In fact, the large and cumbersome strategic plan can be so overwhelming that it just doesn’t work.

Start with vision. Write down what you envision for the future. What does the future of your business look like? What do you want for the future? Vision stories are inspiring, it’s your dream. Once you have created your vision you can begin building strategies.

The vision is the destination, where you are going. The strategies are the map that gets you to the vision. Company values are the guide or the “compass” in our map metaphor for making decisions along the way. Values keep you oriented and in alignment. When values are out of alignment the company is off track; not moving in the direction of the vision.

Strategic goals can be limited to the top 6-10. By having fewer goals the plan is able to stay alive and in front of you. By alive, it means that the plan is always where you can see it, use it and keep working on it.

To set strategies for your business first look at the vision, the different aspects of the vision. Brainstorm all of the goals, all of the strategies for each aspect of the vision. With brainstorming it is important to get all of the ideas out and write them down without judging them or editing them. Often the best idea comes from an idea that at first look seems too wild or crazy. Ideas jump off of other ideas.

Once you have brainstormed all of the ideas, prioritize them. Often ideas can be grouped with similar ideas. This can help in the prioritization process. The goal is to narrow the list down to the top 6-10 strategies. What are the goals or strategies that will give your business the future you envision, that will create a breakthrough that will produce the results that you want? Those are the goals that you should be selecting as top priorities.

Creating a powerful strategic plan is just one of the first steps. Many organizations have strategic plans that are well thought out and crafted. Where they fall short is in the implementation of that plan. Implementation is the key. If you fail to implement, the results will not be what you set out to achieve.

Implementation is the result of focused and continuous action. Strategic plans don’t just happen on their own: they require your attention. By keeping the plan in front of you and the team responsible for the plan, focus is maintained. Regular meetings about the plan also keep the plan moving in the right direction. Check-in meetings hold people accountable. When teams don’t meet and don’t keep their eye on the plan, the day to day interferes and the status quo remains. In order to make changes in the results that you achieve there has to be intention and commitment on the part of the team. The check-in meeting gives the team the opportunity to review what is happening, what is interfering with the results they want and need and make the changes necessary to change the outcomes. Through the intention of the leadership, the plan and the team, the culture of the workplace can shift from one of non-performance to one of performance

focused.

Performance focused companies are companies that are thriving. The energy performing teams shifts the energy of the whole organization. It becomes more positive and contagious. People become excited about the vision, the plan and their implementation of the plan. Results create energy and excitement that keeps the plan moving, it propels the plan.

Organizations that produce results have a clear vision of the future; have a plan that is simple and strategic; and they work on the plan all the time. Their actions are designed to move that plan forward. They don’t let themselves or others get in the way. By implementing the strategic plan organizations achieve results.

Six Sigma has been basically used either for improvement of existing processes or in designing a new product or process.

The basic concept of Strategic Six Sigma is to analyze likely variations and risks in a system under consideration for a strategy and apply DMAIC philosophy-based tools for process improvement.

Planning

Strategic planning as applied to Six Sigma involves detailed and systematic planning in areas of concern that have far-reaching and tactical implications at the project selection stage. The purpose of strategic planning is to develop relevant decisions and actions that guide successful Six Sigma implementation.

A major constituent that helps combine the vision of the leader with the working of the organization is strategic programming. It helps give an entirely new direction to organizational growth. Uncertainty about the future is reduced to some extent with the linking of visions of the action plans that result in tangible results. Six Sigma takes strategic planning to different heights by achieving these results.

Adequate planning is the key for success. Planning is the detailed statement of vision of the leader of the company and that holds true for large corporations as well as smaller organizations. The employees have to overcome many hurdles to achieve the transformation of vision into tangible gains.

Customer satisfaction is the success of Six Sigma.

Sharing Of the Vision

For the transformation of vision to gains, it is important that all know this vision. It has to be shared with all stakeholders and everyone should relate to it. The employees should be made aware to the fact that their actions relate to customer reactions directly.

Another important concept is connecting with the customer. Customers should participate and be involved in defining their needs. The tools of Six Sigma make it easy and simple to create this link in between the key elements, activities, strategies and the vision, which leads to smooth sharing of ideas.

The Six Sigma methodology allows effective communication of the vision to all concerned in a language understandable to them.

Prioritizing Matters

Six Sigma team leaders may get slowed down if they involve themselves in day-to-day matters and minute details. Two tools of Six Sigma, key requirements and differentiators, ensure that the importance or irrelevance of the data is highlighted and the relevant ones taken care of preferentially.

This ultimately results in helping the leaders to concentrate on important activities, and stay away from trivial mundane matters.

Blunders in Six Sigma Strategic Planning

There are some common mistakes made in Six Sigma strategic planning that you should avoid. Human capital is of high importance; they are the assets of the company. Planning should involve consideration of the core competencies of these people. The leaders should put forth this challenge to give them that competitive edge.

There is no link between the actions and the strategy if the chances of implementation of the plan are zero. The aim should be to provide necessary and sufficient tactics to achieve strategic success and modify the strategy to be realistic. The simple thing to do is develop strategy statements that point toward specific actions, rather than just making a statement. Translate strategy statements into strategic objectives and quantify them. Prioritize and define projects to meet the important objectives.

The last thing in ineffective Six Sigma planning is poor communication. The vision cannot be shared effectively if it is poorly communicated. Make the statement as clear and simple as possible – and to the point.

Six Sigma project deployments are related firmly to strategic planning. It means that the company leadership recognizes the need to complete retooling of the organization. This unique combination allows robustness with flexibility to deal with unique challenges.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for six sigma professionals including, lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

For businesses strategic planning is a concept, a mind set and a process. It is looking down the road at what’s around the bend. When everyone around your place is focusing on what’s coming you will all recognize it in time to take advantage of it.

As things appear on the horizon each of you will be asking the question, what’s important about that from your various perspectives. You will be able to articulate the important elements of foreseeable future possibilities so you can all focus on the possibilities each offer. The goal of the business is, after all, to help each of you make your dreams come true.

Strategic planning keeps you focused on the options you now see more clearly, so you can collectively make choices that benefit the company and all of the people involved.

In this brief article I will describe the five key elements of a business strategic plan. It has been my experience that when these three elements are combined into a simple straightforward do it yourself process your company will achieve its goals. This is not rocket science, unless you are building rockets, and will work for companies of as few people as one and as many people as you have on board your company.

Your Strategic Planning Team:
The strategic planning workbooks, textbooks, and how-to books all discuss the importance of the strategic planning team – the implication being that the company must be big enough that there are leaders at every level who can become part of the strategic planning team. Unfortunately that eliminates about 75% of all the companies in existence.

If that includes you do not fear as I am about to show you how you can reach out to the best people possible, individuals with various perspectives whose input will help you create a balanced strategy. In addition these successful people will help you develop and maintain this workable strategy over the long haul. And since they are not going to be charging for their input you will be able to afford an active strategic planning team forever.

I recommend that you connect with members of your industry’s trade association, business owners whose results have been demonstrated over time and whose opinions you trust. The well known power of group dynamics suggests that you limit the size of your strategic planning group to 6-8 people including yourself.

Each of you should also be located outside each other’s traditional marketing areas. If some of you are nearing retirement with vast experience, others in the midst of their careers growing their companies and some who are successors in successful businesses in your industry you will have an important range of diversity. Those who have been around a while can see things coming that are invisible to those just starting out and vice versa.

The Strategic Planning Process:
The strategic planning process should be simple, just three questions to focus on, so you will keep them at the top of your mind. Naturally there are multiple components of these three questions that will become second nature as the process of discussion moves along.

What are you going to sell in the future and how? Each member of your strategic planning team will offer different ideas based on what’s working for them now, what they have already considered for the future and their perspective (such as their Internet savvy or lack of same).

Who are your target customers and why? Every successful business owner focuses on their market share inside their traditional market. With different perspectives you will be able to expand that traditional marketing area AND focus on increasing your share of each customer. Members of your strategic planning team will open your mind to tactics they are using to sell more products of one kind or another to your existing core customers.

How can you differentiate your company vs your competitors? This often means discontinuing lines no longer profitable that you’re still carrying because you’ve always carried them. It may mean focusing on fewer products and services where your specific capabilities excel. And it most assuredly will mean introducing new products and services recommended by your strategic planning team based on their experiences and perspectives.

Once you and your team have these three questions at the forefront – the qualifiers become automatic. What’s important? What is it now? What exactly do you want it to be? And what’s possible to achieve at the intersection of your goals and your resources?

A Commitment To Action:
With the continual input from your strategic planning peer group you will be able to more easily target strategic opportunities all around you. Opportunities that would have continued to be invisible to you without their well considered input. These actions will, in and of themselves help you choose those capabilities important for your future growth and enhance your capacities for making the most of them.

As you and the other members of your strategic planning peer group put your plans on paper and keep them in front of each other you will develop an environment for continually review and modify your evolving mission statements.

Continually articulating your goals for the future as they are continually refined by your strategic planning peer group will keep the important next steps always in view. Taking action yourself or delegating it to the individuals or teams within your organization who have the power, authority, and accountability for their completion is all that now stands between where things are today and where you want them to be in the future.

If you are seriously interested in your organization’s future you’ll find that there’s really no better way to create and manage your strategic planning process.