Strategic Planning Facilitation

Step One - Articulating Mission and Vision

An organization's ability to articulate its mission indicates its focus and purposefulness. A mission statement typically describes an organization in terms of its:

Purpose - why the organization exists, and what it seeks to accomplish
Business - the activities through which the organization fulfills this purpose
Values - the principles or beliefs that guide an organization's staff as they pursue the organization's purpose

Whereas the mission statement summarizes the what, how, and why of an organization s work, a vision statement presents an image of what success will look like.

Step Two - Assessing the Situation

Once management has committed to why it exists and what it does, it must take a clear-eyed look at its current situation. Part of strategic planning, thinking, and management is an awareness of resources and an eye to the future environment, so that an organization can successfully respond to changes in the environment. Situation assessment, therefore, means obtaining current information about the organization s strengths, weaknesses, and performance--information that will highlight the critical issues that the organization faces and that its strategic plan must address.

The products of Step Two include 1) a database of quality information that can be used to make decisions, and 2) a rank-ordered list of critical issues which demand a response from the organization.

Step Three - Developing Strategies, Goals, and Objectives

Once the mission has been affirmed and its critical issues identified, it is time to figure out how to address those critical issues. Managers and staff then determine the broad approaches to be taken (strategies), and the general and specific results to be sought (the goals and objectives). Strategies, goals, and objectives may come from individual inspiration, group discussion, formal decision-making techniques, and so on--but the bottom line is that, in the end, the leadership agrees on how to address the critical issues.

The product of Step Three is an outline of the organization's strategic directions--the general strategies, long-range goals, and specific objectives of its response to critical issues.

Strategic planning can help your management staff accomplish the following:

1. Clearly define their purpose and establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that purpose in a defined time frame, and within the organization s capacity for implementation.

2. Develop a sense of ownership of the plan.

3. Ensure the most effective use is made of the organization s resources by focusing the resources on the key priorities as identified in the planning sessions.

4. Provide a base from which progress can be measured, and establish a mechanism for making informed change when needed.

5. Bring together everyone s best and most reasoned efforts in building a consensus about where your organization is going.

6. Produce greater satisfaction among management staff based upon a common vision.