Strategic Planning

"I've been through 'umteen' planning exercises. This was the first time I could see it and get my arms around a planning process." "We really did change our focus from nit-picky to strategy-focused management." "Drucker is the best process for us - getting us to focus on customers and results is a big transformation that we haven't been able to make in previous planning processes. It has helped us get out of "stove-pipe" program thinking and into agency-wide, coordinated service to our customers." The best planning design starts with where you are now and integrates the strengths of various planning models into a seamless process that gets you where you want to be. Planning gives you goals for the future that you want to achieve, prioritized by strategic capacity for organizational growth and the associated costs for several strategies toward each goal. Implementation gives you the road map to achieve your strategies and your goals: the multiple pathways that together, will get you where you want to be. Here's an Example of a Dashboard. Here's information on Barriers to Strategy Execution. Appreciative Inquiry™ is the cooperative search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system "life" when it is most effective and alive. A design typically begins with people's stories of their best experiences in the organization, what "life giving factors" were present, and what wishes they would have for the organization. Find out more at http://www.aiconsulting.org The Drucker Self-Assessment focuses work on five simple, profound questions that aim your organization toward results: What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does our customer value? What are our results? What is our plan? Drucker's Self-Assessment Homepage or http://www.leadertoleader.org Future Search Conference™; brings people together to discover common ground, create commitment, and build community. The strengths in this planning methodology result from: The "whole system" in the room Setting a global context for local action Focus on common ground and the future Not focus on problems and conflicts Increase capacity through group skills See the agenda for a typical Future Search at Future Search Methodology http://www.futuresearch.net Balanced Scorecard™focuses on value-added service to customers, internal systems and processes, skills and training, and financial goals, all with outcome measurements. The Balanced Scorecard transposes your strategic planning goals into a cause-and-effect matrix that demonstrates how your goals interact with each other, produce results, and advance your mission. It's a management tool that keeps everyone on the same page and shows your collective progress toward your goals. It's a way of translating your goals from a Drucker customer-focused process into a implementation plan. They're based on a similar orientation toward your customers. It can be used as a common template for action planning that results from a Future Search or other conference- or summit-type planning process. It is a common "map" that allows you to manage the work of diverse action planning teams that may have little interaction while they work independently. A BSC template: Public Sector Strategy Map Template The BSC for an airline ground turn-around plan: Illustrative Example Southwest Airlines BSC Measures of Success in the Public Sector Strategy Mapping Home Projects Strategic Planning Facilitation Work Smarter Fundraising Board Governance Clients Yellow Brick Road˙, PO Box 300, South Strafford VT 05070 USA 802 765-4743 voice ||| 802 765-4436 fax ||| anne@yellowbrickroadconsulting.com