Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In order to determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current position and the possible avenues through which it can pursue a particular course of action. Generally, strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:[1]
- "What do we
do?"
- "For whom do we
do it?"
- "How do we
excel?"
In
many organizations, this is viewed as a process for determining where an
organization is going over the next year or—more typically—3 to 5 years (long
term), although some extend their vision to 20 years.
The key components of
'strategic planning' include an understanding of the firm's vision, mission, values and strategies. (Often a
"Vision Statement" and a "Mission
Statement" may encapsulate the vision and mission).
Strategic planning process
There are many approaches to strategic planning
but typically one of the following approaches is used:
|
Situation-Target-Proposal Situation - evaluate the current situation and how it came
about. Target - define goals and/or objectives (sometimes called
ideal state) Path
/ Proposal - map a possible route
to the goals/objectives |
Draw-See-Think-Plan Draw - what is the ideal image or the desired end state? See - what is today's situation? What is the gap from
ideal and why? Think - what specific actions must be taken to close the
gap between today's situation and the ideal state? Plan - what resources are required to execute the
'plan'? |