So you think you can plan?

So you think you can plan?

Strategic Planning: what it is and how to do it

Webinar: 17 September 2010Maree Conway

….using futures approaches to integrate strategic thinking into strategy development and planning

Today…

• Planning in a strategy context• Understanding your plan’s context• Elements of a good strategic plan• Implementing the plan

Checkpoints

• Throughout the webinar are a series of checkpoints.

• Questions to help your review your current strategy and planning processes.

• Won’t spend time on them today, but I’ll send you a document with them when I email you about the webinar download.

Today…


Strategy: Why Bother?

• Many organisations can't consistently describe their strategy – strategy needs to be translated into operational terms.

• 60% of typical organisations do not link their strategic priorities to their budget (how do key strategic initiatives get funded?)

• Two-thirds of HR and IT units develop plans that are not linked to the organisation's strategy. This is extraordinary.

• 70% of middle managers and more than 90% of front-line employees have compensation that is not linked to the strategy.

• 95% of employees in most organisations do not understand their organisation's strategy.

Robert Kaplan and David Norton, The Office of Strategy Management, Harvard Business Review, October 2005

• Strategy is developed to move an organisation into the future while…

• …planning is about agreeing on action to be taken now to implement that strategy.

So…

• Planning is one step in the broader process of strategy development and implementation.

What is “Strategy”?

an entity confronting its

environment so as to ensure its

continuing development

Adapted from: several sources

Adapted from K. van der Heijden

IndustryEnvironment

Social Environment

Suppliers

Clients

Competitors

Organisation

Driving Forces

Driving Forces

Factors / Trends Issues / ForcesSocial

Technological

Economic

Ecological

Political

…

Stakeholders

Customers

Members of Wider Society

Organisation and Environment

Foresight and Strategy

Recall that…

• Strategy includes “confronting” the environment with both cognitive and active processes.

Well …

• Foresight is part of the cognitive aspect of “confronting” the environment.

• Planning is the “acting” part.

So…

• An organisational foresight capacity is required to build robust strategy.

Foresight is the capacity to understand future uncertainty and use that understanding in organisationally useful

ways today

Checkpoint 1

• How future focused is your strategy?

• Do you use futures approaches to develop alternative futures for your organisation?

• Does your current strategy assume that the future will be business-as-usual?

Today…


• Current strategy processes tend to focus on the plan as the major outcome, rather than a shared understanding of your organisation’s preferred future to inform action today.

Improvement action identified/changes to

plans identified

Making VU 2016: A Statement of

PurposeStrategic vision and objectives

University Priorities2008-2010

Outcomes & Strategies to implement

Unit Strategic Plans2008-2010

Faculties, Schools& Service areas

Implementation of University Priority strategies

Internal & External Planning Inputs

Ongoing environmental scanning

•Educational & societal trends•Government policy drivers•Legislation•University cross-sectoral strategies•Other University Plans (eg OHS, Disability, Staff Equity etc)

SPDP: individual Staff Plans

Quality Improvement Reviews (QIRs)

Approval of operational plansReview of current year’s

performance

Reviewed each year in first half

of year

Reviewed and updated in

August/September; finalised following QIRs in November

Held in November each year

University Budget ProcessIterative process to align

budgets and plansBudget sign-off at end

SeptemberQuarterly Budget Reviews

Department Plans

Current until 2016

QIR Inputs Organisational Unit QIR

PortfoliosFaculty Review OutcomesAnnual Course Reporting

Course ReviewSubject Evaluation Outcomes

AQTF outcomesAUQA Follow up

Think tomorrow is going to be more of today

Can’t cope with the unexpected

Usually don’t explorelong term alternative futures

Prefer quantitative over qualitative information

Don’t challenge assumptions

Downplay or dismiss staff beliefs, hopes and fears about the future

When you are involved in a strategic planning exercise…

• Do you jump for joy?• Sigh?• Groan?• Wipe the dust of last year’s plan and

read it for the first time?• Just do it…as quickly as possible?

What is a strategic plan?

• A strategic plan is a document that records the action you have agreed to take to implement a strategy.

• It allows you to clarify, assign accountabilities, monitor implementation and report on the achievement of that action.

• Writing and implementing the plan comes at the end of the strategy development process, not the beginning.

• You can’t write a strategic plan unless you have first explored the shape and form of your future operating environment.

• Because…decisions about your strategic direction must be based on an assessment of plausible future alternative strategies for your organisation…

• …not strategies based on an assumed linear extrapolation of the present and past.

• If you assume that tomorrow’s business environment is going to be more of today, then you are ‘betting the farm’.

Checkpoint 2

• Think about the way you write your strategic plans – what’s good, what could improve?

• Are the plans informed by an agreed view of the future, or by what you know today?

Today…


Before you pick up the pen…what informs your plan?

Scanning

ES is the art of systematically exploring and interpreting the external environment to better understand the nature of trends and drivers of change and their likely future impact on your organisation.

• What will be the shape of the future?

• What will be important?

• What will be peripheral?

• What does it mean for us?

• Beyond the short-term• Beyond busy

• “We want to be proactive…”• But how can you be proactive if you

have little idea about what’s coming?

Why scan?

• Unless you scan, you WILL always be reacting/in crisis management modes/putting out bushfires.

• The aim of scanning work is to provide robust information (trends and emerging issues) to inform your strategic thinking,

• to enable you to build a long term context for your strategic planning today.

Aim of ES

So how do we get started with environmental scanning?

Our assumptions encase us in the past.

Your Worldview

• The network of ideas, beliefs, biases, prejudices, social and cultural embedded-ness, and taken-for-granted assumptions through which you interpret and interact with the world, other people and yourself.– Constrains what you see in the world, and the

way the world is organised and operates.– Shapes the way in which you see the world and

what you notice, and the way the world is organised and operates.

Erhard and Jenson, Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership,Harvard Business School, Research Paper 09-022, April 2010.

Today FutureTIME

UNCERTAINTY

Linear Future

Low

High

The linear future is the one we believe to be true, usually based on untested assumptions

Usual Planning Timeframe(3-5 years)

Trend

Today FutureTIME

UNCERTAINTY

Linear Future

Low

High

Possible Futures

Usual Planning Timeframe(3-5 years)

Trend

Shaping Tomorrow

• Store your scanning hits• Develop trend reports• Scan the database being build daily

by people around the globe

• Test your organisation’s future readiness

http://www.shapingtomorrow.com

http://www.shapingtomorrow.com/

Checkpoint 3: Looking Out

• What trends are relevant to your organisation? Why?

• Think about some alternative outcomes for those trends – in 3, 5, 10 years.

• What do you need to know to be able to respond to those possible outcomes?

• Scan for that.

Checkpoint 3: Looking Out

• Spend time thinking about what you are finding means for your strategy – how would you respond?

• This is what goes into your plan.

Before you pick up the pen…what informs your plan?

Crowdsourcing Stakeholders

• Empower• Ownership

• Buy-in

• Meaningful• Useful

Activity Stakeholders How

Possible FuturesTHINKING

Wide range of stakeholders within & external to organisation

Workshops, discussion, conversations, resource material

Strategic OptionsANALYSING

Board, CEO and senior managers

Workshops to review and assess possible strategy and associated risks

DecisionsSETTING GOALS

Board and CEO Board meetings

PlanningVISION & MISSION

All staff Opportunity to have input into drafting of the vision & mission

PlanningACTION

All staff Unit level activities to set actions to respond to goals

Questions to Ask

• Who will be involved – staff and stakeholders?

• How will you involve them?

• How will you manage expectations?

• How will you report on how their input has been used?

• Who will add value to the process?

• Who has open minds?

• Who will bring new perspectives to the process?

• Who is our biggest critic?

• Opening the planning process to your staff and stakeholders requires:

– CEOs who are comfortable with listening to a diversity of alternative views to inform their thinking – before they decide,

– the absence of a command and control management approach,

– resources to commit to the process, and– time to commit to the process.

Staff as Stakeholders

• Staff ultimately implement your strategy on the ground.

• They can do this successfully if they are involved in the process from the beginning…

• …or they can resist implementation – either consciously or unconsciously.

Gathering Views

• Workshops • Focus Groups• Online networks and social media• Surveys• Delphi • …

Checkpoint 4: Open and Inclusive

• What stakeholder groups do you need to involve in your planning? Why?

• At what stage?• How will you involve them?• What will you do with their input

(manage expectations)?

Writing the Plan 2…okay pick up the pen now

• Basic rule is to keep it simple -don’t over-complicate it.

• It’s a myth that strategy needs to be ‘big’.

• Focus on the 3-5 things that will help you achieve your preferred future.

Types of Planning Documents

• Organisational strategy – short and sweet, sets the future direction, 10-15 years out.

• Functional plans – organisational wide approaches to core business, 5 years out.

• Unit plans – how individual units will contribute to achievement of goals – annual, within 5 year cycle.

• Staff plans – how individual staff will contribute to achievement of goals – annual.

Planning and the Budget

• The budget follows the plan?• In reality, the plan needs to

recognise budgetary limitations.

• Planning and budgeting are a connected, interdependent, iterative process.

• Published plans should be funded plans.

Vision

• Vision – what do we want to be?– A coherent description of a preferred

future.

Mission

• Mission– What do we do today?– Defines the organisational role – Describes the activities it takes to

achieve your vision

Values

• What drives our behaviour?

Goals

• What 3-5 changes will make a difference?

• Link the present with the future, and establish desired outcomes.

Actions

• Who will do what, by when?• Limit the number of actions

associated with a goal.

Measures and KPIs

• Measures: how we will know when the action has been completed.

• The organisation has a vision and mission.

• The organisation defines the values.• The goals and KPIs apply across the

organisation.

• Actions and measures are set by units.

• Not everything that is done goes into a strategic plan.

• Operational plans can be developed to help plan and manage day-to-day activities.

Plan Element Example

Strategy To move to the top 10% of research universities

Goal Increase publications by 10% by 2020

Actions 1. Implement a publications reward scheme2. Develop workshops for new researchers

Measure Publication Rate

Target 1% increase in publications each year to 2020

Checkpoint 5: Review your Plan

• Think about your current strategic plans.– Are they too complex or just right?– Do you have too many levels (ie more

than goals and actions)?– Are your vision, mission, values and

goals clearly articulated? How do you know?

– Are actions in your unit plans linked to the organisational strategic plan?

– Do you have the right measures?

Today…


It’s only a plan…

• Avoid investing too much in the written document.

• If it’s a ‘living document’ then it can be changed, tossed out, and re-written.

• Unplanning…

Trust your staff…

• Nordstrom– Trust your own best judgement

• Trust your staff to add value to the strategy by deciding how they can implement it – each unit will be different.

Implementation

• Communicating the plan and accountabilities

• Aligning action – and the budget• Reviewing and reporting• Adapting the plan

• …and give it time.

Communicating

• A single message• A common resource package• Translate the strategy into

operational terms for staff so they can answer the question – how do I contribute?

• Role of CEO and senior managers is critical to ensure consistent message.

Aligning

• Actions at unit level all respond to organisational strategy – an external focus.– Not all units will have actions for every

strategy.

• Action from each unit can then be consolidated under each organisational goal.

Review and Report

• Regular reviews – at board meetings, staff meetings…

• Use the review to identify changes needed.

• Make it regular.

• Feed reviews into annual reporting process.

Review and Report: The Annual Report

• Measures• Success stories

• What did we do this year to contribute to the achievement of organisational goals?

• Needs ability to synthesise and connect the reports at the organisational level.– Not as easy as it sounds.

Adapting

• Plans are actions an organisation has agreed to take to respond to the external environment.

• The external environment changes often, so the plan may need to change often as well.

Adapting

• Strategic agility: – the capacity to be flexible in the face of

ever changing conditions and to respond to those conditions in a resilient and productive manner when change is required.

Adapting

• Testing of ideas early (design thinking)

• Accepting failure• Learning from experience

• Remember unplanning…

Implementation Challenges

• Implementation can mean change, and change is hard – expect resistance.

• Internal focus – silo operations.• Lack of awareness of external

environment and how to respond.• Urgent versus important work.• Mismatch between strategy and

organisational capability.

Checkpoint 6: Execution

• Think about how you communicate, align, review and adapt your plans now.

• Can you improve anything?• Does your plan drive decision

making?• Are you afraid to change your plan

when the environment changes?

Back at Work

• Scan often, scan well

• Invest more time in doing this…

• …before you do this.

Think long term, act today

…and act often

Need Help?

• Training can be tailored to meet your needs: scanning, planning, strategic thinking.

• Workshops, presentations, mentoring.

• Download Building Strategic Futures Guides:– Getting Started with Futures– Environmental Scanning

http://www.thinkingfutures.net/guides1

http://www.thinkingfutures.net/guides1

Contact Details

Maree Conwayhttp://www.thinkingfutures.net

[email protected]

Tel: 03 9016 9506Mobile: 0425 770 181

Skype: mkconway1

http://www.thinkingfutures.net/

mailto:[email protected]

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So you think you can plan?

Business

Transcript of So you think you can plan?