Friday, September 2, 2016

What You Should Know About Strategic Planning

By Joyce Bennett


Every day we make plans. Some of them may involve routine tasks like grocery shopping, while other will dictate the outcome of far bigger projects. As a business person, you should learn how to do strategic planning, especially if you plan to grow your venture. This is an administrative tool that can be used at all organizations, whether big or small. Generally, it involves many small steps, but there are those which are mandatory.

Plan a sit down with all the supervisors, from every department, in order for the decisions made to be fair. Once you have all these people, carefully look over the mission and goals set for the whole company, and for every department. While doing this, you can assess them and see which ones are realistic, and which ones need re-evaluating. Sometimes, you will find that having unrealistic goals will make you think that the company is failing.

Companies have annual or monthly meetings, to set targets and discuss the issues you may be facing. When drawing up your strategic plan, you should look over what you have been discussing. This will show you the pitfalls you have been facing, and will stop you from making the same wrong decision again. It will also save you a lot of time.

At this point, you need to assess the things that may be affecting the general performance. This may be internal factors like laziness, extreme workloads, as well as external factors like insecurity in the area. To get this information, you will need to encourage all of your staff members, to be honest, and forthcoming. You can make this easier for them, by asking them to submit these facts anonymously.

You should also get them to list what they think are the problems facing the company as whole, as well as the strengths. This might shine a light on issues you never thought to look at, and can easily help you assess the situation. Be very careful when collecting this information, and avoid reprimanding or singling out anyone, in relation to the opinions they express.

Remember that when you are gathering suggestions, nothing should be overlooked. However, the implementation process should be gradual. Every department should be assigned its duties, in order not to overwhelm your staff. Delegating these tasks will also make it easy to do many things in a shorter time.

After the planning is done, you should keep in mind that not all the solution you may have may be positive. Where possible, look for alternative options that will minimize damages to the company, and that will not affect the quality of services. However, sometimes to move forward, you might have to make drastic changes, no matter how unpleasant.

After making the plan, set a timeline after which you will come back and evaluate the process. This deadline will prevent people from getting too comfortable, which is one of the biggest problems most businesses face. Avoid coming up with a different plan every few months, as this will confuse your employees and customers.




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