Strategic Planning & Leadership & Growth Kamran on 18 Dec 2007 07:03 am
What’s Strategic Planning?
Strategic Planning is a long-term comprehensive plan laying out where a business should be headed to and which major goals it should achieve. It’s a travel plan that gives more weight to the definition of the destination point than the make and model of the vehicle to be used to get there.
If the business organization were a biological organism, Strategic Planning document would be its DNA. It’s that crucial to the growth and survival of the organization. It’s the blueprint according to which all the future processes of the business are built.
Strategic Planning defines such high-level management parameters like to which resources the organization should commit itself and why; or whether a change in direction is needed.
If the organization decides to go after a totally different segment of the market, that also belongs in the Strategic Planning document.
Here are some other framework items that Strategic Planning should cover:
- What will be the core values and mission of the organization?
- What will be the chief goals of the organization?
- How will success be measured?
- What will be the core decision-making mechanism and process?
- How will the budget decisions be made?
- How will the leaders be trained?