Strategic Plan

Our "Dead" Strategic Plan

What you describe is probably the norm in organizations that

do strategic planning. It is rare that plans of any sort are

made to "come alive". To understand why this occurs is to take

a step to altering the situation. Strategic planning can be one

of the backbones of organizational functioning, serving to: ·

inform decision-making (eg. what we do, what we don't), · help

staff determine both work unit and employee objectives · inform

the staff development and personnel functions · form a basis for

continuous improvement

One major reason for its failure is that it is often seen as an event,

unlinked to anything else. One of the keys is to link it to the many

other organizational functions through action, not just talk. If we

consider strategic planning as long range planning, work units need

to use it as a basis for their own shorter-term operational planning.

If the larger department does it's strategic plan once a year, each

work unit should be using that plan as the foundation for setting it's

own goals and objectives for the upcoming fiscal year.

We use the term cascading to refer to the effects that a meaningful

strategic plan can have. The departmental plan informs the divisional

or work unit plan, which, in turn affects directly the allocation of

resources and objectives for individuals.

The advantage of cascading lies in the use of the unit/individual

objective setting process to focus on why the department is

there, and to link, through concrete action planning, the

departmental plan to the everyday activities of each staff

member. Individual managers need to be held accountable for

the integration of their own plans with the overall departmental

plan. So that is often the best place to start; with those managers.

Many managers have inadequate experience in integrating

strategic plans into everyday work. It may be a good idea, prior

to the strategic planning process, for all participants to get

together to plan out how they will make the plan come alive.

While we often think of strategic plans in terms of formal

release and distribution, the place where real success takes

place is the everyday world. If each manager, in any

decision-making conversations with staff, refers to the strategic

plan as a guidepost for action, then staff begin to realize that

it is not a "dead" document, but one that has practical and

real relevance to their everyday worklife.