Strategic Business Planning Tips from Nike

September 1, 2010

The latest article from Fast Company, How Nike’s CEO Shook Up the Shoe Industry, can lend every company some essential strategic planning tips.

Mark Parker is more than just Nike’s CEO.  He has been an essential part of Nike’s success and continued reign at the top of the athletic shoe pyramid.  Parker provides a glimpse into how Nike’s strategic plan and mission statement embodies the heart and soul of the company.

To read the full version of this article, click here.

Innovation and Commercialization

August 27, 2010

This past Wednesday, we had a great Strategy Huddle topic focused on Innovation Strategies.  A timely newsletter arrived (today) from McKinsey & Company that is entitled Innovation and commercialization, 2010: McKinsey Global Survey Results.

Watch the Strategy Huddle videos to learn more about Innovation Strategy

Part 1- Technology and Business Innovation

Part 2- Product and Service Innovation

Part 3- Business Model and Behavioral Innovations

Attention California Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Applicants

August 12, 2010

If your organization is applying for the California Sustainable Communities Planning Grant, then you must know that a well-structured plan and execution management system can help you compete.  Don’t let your application get lost in the pile!

Writing a winning government grant proposal requires strategic thinking and planning beforehand.  We have a created a guide to help you through the planning process and follow through with execution and implementation.

MyStrategicPlan is here to help you with executing the project, maintaining accountability with target and measures, providing regular reporting to the funding agency with the click of a mouse and by reducing valuable staff time for project management.

Strengthen your sustainable communities planning grant application here.

Why Excel falls short in executing Strategic Planning

August 11, 2010

This past weekend I decided it was time to finally fix my leaky faucet. So, the first thing I did was head out to the shed and grab my sledge hammer…

Not smart, you say? But you can’t possibly be telling me that a sledge hammer isn’t useful- nearly everyone I know has one. They’re simple and easy to use: lift over your head and bring it down on whatever you need to “fix.” You really can’t get much simpler- and in today’s fast-paced world who has time to learn how to use another tool?

Unfortunately, this is how many businesses today approach strategic planning.

Search for “strategic planning spreadsheet excel” in Google and you’ll get 88,000 results at the time of this writing- and the first result will be an essay extolling the virtues of Excel as a strategic planning tool.

What Excel can’t do for your strategic planning process

• Excel won’t teach you the strategic planning process
• Excel won’t show you how your strategy filters down throughout your company
• Excel doesn’t create outlines
• Excel can not manage your progress
• Excel will not remind you where you’re at
• Excel will not allow you to set user permissions
• Excel isn’t available via the web for you to access night and day from anywhere (at least not the version your company uses)

In his post titled “the Spreadsheet Love Affair,” Dennis Howlett at ZDNet sums up some of the dangers of using Excel for uses it was not intended for:

I’ve always held the view that the spreadsheet was never designed for the sophisticated uses to which companies continue to put it. At best it is a development environment that is rarely documented because users are not trained as developers. The net result is that when things go wrong, errors are notoriously difficult to find.

If you are crafting a strategic plan, research the correct tools you should use. Excel works great in the many uses for which it was intended, but it’s no better for strategic planning than a sledgehammer is for your leaky sink.

Incidentally, a search for “sledgehammer leaky faucet” only grabs about 1,500 results; most of them jokes.

The Top 10 Strategic Planning Best Practices

August 3, 2010

In order to make sure your strategic planning process is a success, it’s best to check out some tips from folks who’ve done it before. In fact, even if you have done it before, it’s still a good idea to review best practices from time to time just to identify areas where you could improve.

Before you get too far into your strategic planning process, check out our top 10 tips below — your quick guide to getting the most out of your strategic planning process:

1. Pull together a diverse, yet appropriate, group of people to make up your planning team. Diversity leads to a better strategy. Bring together a small core team — between six and ten people — of leaders and managers who represent every area of the company.
2. Allow time for big picture, strategic thinking. We tend to try to squeeze strategic planning discussions in between putting out fires and going on a much needed vacation. But to create a strategic plan, your team needs time to think big. Do whatever it takes to allow that time for big-picture thinking (including taking your team off-site).
3. Get full commitment from key people in your organization. You can’t do it alone. If your team doesn’t buy into the planning process and the resulting strategic plan, you’re dead in the water.
4. Allow for open and free discussion regardless of each person’s position within the organization. (This tip includes you — the CEO.) Don’t lead the planning sessions. Hire an outside facilitator, someone who doesn’t have any stake in your success. When you do, people wonder whether you’re trying to lead them down the path you wanted all along.  Encourage active participation, but don’t let any one person dominate the session.
5. Think about execution before you start. It doesn’t matter how good the plan is if it isn’t executed.
6. Use a facilitator, if your budget allows. Hire a trained professional who has no emotional investment in the outcome of the plan. An impartial third party can concentrate on the process instead of the end result and can ask the tough questions that others may fear to ask.
7. Make your plan actionable. To have any chance at implementation, the plan must clearly articulate goals, action steps, responsibilities, accountability, and specific deadlines. And everyone must understand the plan and their role in it.
8. Don’t write your plan in stone. Good strategic plans are fluid, not rigid and unbending. They allow you to adapt to changes in the marketplace.  Don’t be afraid to change your plan as necessary.
9. Clearly articulate next steps after every session. Before closing the strategic planning session, clearly explain what comes next and who’s responsible for what. When you walk out of the room, everyone must fully understand what they’re responsible for and when to meet deadlines.
10. Make strategy a habit, not just a retreat. Review the strategic plan for performance achievement no less than quarterly and as often as monthly or weekly. Focus on accountability for results and have clear and compelling consequences for unapproved missed deadlines.

Lessons Learned from International Training

July 21, 2010

On a recent business trip to Baharain, strategic planning expert Erica Olsen brought back some very interesting lessons she learned.  Even with all of her experience in strategic planning training in the US, cultural differences caused her to have to adjust her presentation in another country.   Here are just a few of the lessons learned from this recent trip:

• Hierarchy can stifle innovation
• Economic realities in different countries effect business models
• New emerging markets have massive amounts of holding companies
• Shyness can be overpowering when asking questions and some cultures rather not raise unknowns
• Overly brazen confidence can feel confrontational
• Some cultures love to debate
• Force of economic downturn was felt and forced people to think about differentiation
• The idea of a retreat where everyone is equal can be a crazy idea
• No matter what country you are in people are still thirsty to learn and apply best practices

Erica Olsen is COO and Co-Founder for M3 Planning, Inc. Her work focuses on strategic planning services such as facilitating and developing strategic plans for her clients through internal and external assessments, strategic planning facilitations, and implementing strategies.  She is the author of the book Strategic Plan for Dummies and is a certified strategic planning facilitator.

Using Scenario Planning From BP’s Experience

July 9, 2010

What Can BP Teach Us

From the Human Capital Lab Blog

The BP oil spill has been an experience that the whole world has had to endure.  Could effective scenario planning prevented this catastrophe?  The Human Capital’s post, What Can BP Teach Us, sheds some light on this discussion.  Give it a read and let us know what you think.

Measuring What Counts

July 7, 2010

Using Your Strategy Tools to Manage More Than Your Measure

Is Einstein wrong when he says, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Chip Conley’s TED Talk puts a whole new spin on number crunching.  He challenges economists and Einstein to measure happiness over the mundane GDP.  Find out how to measure Gross National Happiness in Conley’s TED Talk and apply it to your business or next strategy session.

Strategy Buzz: Implementing Innovation Strategy

June 29, 2010

Implementing Innovation Strategy- James Bond Style

This week on Twitter there is a buzz going around Kamal Hassan’s post titled, Time to Retire Strategic Planning and Adopt Innovation Strategy. If you thought that James Bond and strategic planning had nothing in common, well think again!

It’s almost that time of year again. Strategic planning teams all over the world will gather behind closed doors in a vain attempt to predict the future – except for the visionary ones who are saying “Enough!” They have realized that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is, well, simply crazy.

Remember the first James Bond movie you ever saw? Regardless of who was playing 007, you couldn’t help but be swept up as he outgunned and outsmarted the bad guys and saved the day. Now think of the last James Bond movie you saw. Did it give you the same thrill? Or did you almost fall asleep? It’s not the actor, or the mind-numbing car chases and explosions to blame. It’s the fact that we’ve seen it all before, year after year, we know how it ends. We’re left feeling vaguely unsatisfied, hoping for something more substantial.

To read the complete post on Blogging Innovation, click here.

Is Your Strategic Plan Fit?

June 22, 2010

How much time does you company spend in the gym?

Keeping your company’s strategy fit and thin is essential in strategic business planning.  If your company could put on some track clothes and step on a scale, would it look fit and healthy, or frail and flabby? If a company has been taking care of itself it shows with healthy bones and muscles. If not- well, it’s always a great time to hit the GYM.

Healthy Bones Your company’s strategic plan is more than just some business tool- it’s the skeleton of your organization. Just like your bones give you structure, you plan keeps everything attached at the right places and moving in unison. Imagine if you were missing any one of your bones (or all of them) – you’d be a mess!

If the members of your organization don’t have a great plan structuring their activities, then you may have mis-alignment of priorities. A foot attached to a chin here, an arm sticking out of your forehead- you get the picture. Anyone who wants to be able to get their organization moving in unison with strong supports needs to spend time planning.

Strong Muscles Sure, you need your structure, but your muscles actually get you places. Think of the muscles of your organization as your action plan- execution of your strategic plan actually moves your company forward towards your goals.

So how can you give your company a work out? If you have a great strategy giving your processes and priorities structure, then the simple answer is do what the plan says. A large percentage of companies who take the time to make sure they have a plan in place never actually use it- that’s like taking a bunch of calcium to strengthen your bones and then sitting on the couch with a bag of chips instead of hitting the weights.

If you want to work out, you need to manage performance. Don’t just set goals, make sure that you follow up regularly with status meetings and performance reviews. A good rule of thumb would be look at your status (your company’s scorecard) at least monthly- otherwise you may start building a gut! At least quarterly, management should also review your plan and objectives. Think of your managers as personal trainers for your company.

It may feel awkward getting back in the gym, but give it time. Fitness is as important to your company as it is for your own body.

The 11 Signs That You Need A Strategic Plan

June 17, 2010

Do you know how to write a strategic plan? Most people don’t. Scores of business school students are produced each year who don’t know how to actually produce a viable plan. As consultants, we constantly encounter businesses- from Mom & Pops to even (yes, I’m serious) $2 Billion dollar-a-year businesses that either don’t know how or don’t have the resources to develop a plan.  We’ve included some tips to help you know whether or not you are in need of a strategic plan.

If Any of These Statements are True, You Need a Strategic Plan

1. You don’t know where you’ll be in a year Are you stuck in the trenches? Do you feel that you can’t even imagine the next year because you have to first focus on how to survive the next couple months? You need a plan.
2. You have no idea how to get to where you want to be in a year Sure you want to be the best, but you can’t see how you’ll possibly become that. Unless you get real, you never will get there.
3. You have no idea how you will grow your top line If you’re not hitting your revenue goals and you’re not sure what to change to get there, you need a plan.
4. There are inconsistencies in your messaging Do people have trouble understanding your brochure? If you ask people, do they say that your messaging is confusing? Get a plan together.
5. You’re ignoring your competition Who are your competition? What are they doing? Who are their clients? If you don’t know this, you obviously need a strategic plan. Don’t even argue.
6. Everything is a priority If you have three dozen tasks, they all can’t be the most important. Only about 3-5 can, in actuality. Get a plan together so you know what to focus on.
7. You don’t know how to evaluate opportunities We always run into opportunities. If they’re passing you by because you don’t know whether they’re right, or you’re picking opportunities that don’t fit, make a plan- quick!
8. You don’t know why your customers buy from you What should you change in order to sell more? If you don’t know, then make a plan- STAT.
9. You determine your pricing by looking at your competitor and discounting slightly You should know how to price your product or service. If you’re just looking at the guy next to you, how do you know he knows what he’s doing? Make a plan, Stan.
10. You have no idea what your company does best If someone asks you what you’re best at, you should be able to answer immediately. If you don’t kn0w why you’re best, then your potential customers won’t either.
11. When asked why you’re in business, you answer “profit.” If that’s the only reason you’re in business, you need another reason. Your employees aren’t motivated by profit. Your customers won’t be inspired by your profits. Find a reason that inspires passion and put it in your plan.

Ten Tips to Creating Momentum in Your Life

June 3, 2010

Creating momentum in your life takes increasing the things that move you forward and decreasing those that hold you back. Personal planning sounds like a snap, but I know, just like you do, that living a life that we desire is not always easy to achieve. We have habits and repeat cycles to overcome. But by creating momentum, we can move past those and move toward the life we want.

Momentum, by its nature, requires a lot of upfront push to get the ball rolling. Here are ten tips to jumpstart the momentum in your life:

Create your picture of success and make it a reality. It’s true – if you can’t see your vision of success, you’ll never get there. So what does success look like for you day to day? How do you want to spend your time? How do you want to define success for yourself this year. Write your vision down and post it somewhere you will see it everyday.

Know what you love and do what you love. You know what they say, either fix the problem or quite complaining about it. If you hate your job, get a new one. Go to school and learn a new profession. Start that business you’ve always dreamed of. Pick up that crazy hobby you’ve been thinking about. Sound too scary? Facing too many roadblocks (time, money, naysayers)? Why not tackle one of them. Explore your options, and then take action. There is no time like the present!

Pick a BHAG. What is that big, hairy, audacious goal you want to achieve this year that will help you step into your vision of success? Write it down along with the one thing you can do today to make it happen. Here is an example of the power of a written goal: A study was conducted among a graduating class at Harvard to see how many had concrete goals around how much money they wanted to make. Only 3% had written their goals down. Ten years later, that 3% were making more than the other 97% combined! Now that is power!

Eliminate your energy drains and recharge yourself. Energy drains are those things that drag you down. Things that recharge your energy can be anything that inspires you and puts you in a good mood, like a room in your house, a place to relax, an activity, or a person. Spend more time doing the things that give you energy and stick a post-it next to each drain with an idea for getting rid of it.

Remove your fears. The greatest source of procrastination is often a deep-seeded fear – fear of success, change, failure, ridicule, the unknown. Take a daily step to remove your fears by asking yourself every day, “What would I do today, if I were not afraid?”

Take control of your finances. Do you feel like you are on a treadmill, working more to pay for ever increasing bills? It seems like the more we work, the more we spend to do the things we don’t have time to do while we are working (housekeeper, take-out food, dry cleaner, etc.). Spend a little less here and a little less there and stop hemorrhaging money. Make sure what you purchase is in line with your values. Run a QuickBooks report to see exactly what you are spending your money on. What if you decreased every category (except maybe your mortgage and other loan payments) by 10%? Use your money to fuel your dreams instead of feeding the treadmill.

Create a braintrust. Identify a handful of people in your life who can help you move your life forward. Consider pulling from a wide range of backgrounds, ages, experience and opinions. Sometimes those who are most critical provide the best insights. Call on them together or individually to help you move past any roadblocks and keep the momentum going.

Find the time. One of the biggest challenges to having the life we want is finding the time to do all we want to do. Track how you spend your time for a week. At the end, tally up the time spent on each thing – such as sleeping, eating, shopping, checking email, etc. Look at each category. What things can you do to cut time in each area? Be creative and find the time to do what you love to do, instead of what you have to do.

Let things evolve. When the flywheel of momentum starts to turn, pay attention to clues, connections, and opportunities that are presented to you. Allow your future to unfold and change in ways you might not have been able to imagine when you started dreaming.

Commit to your dreams. Creating momentum starts with commitment. Commit to doing one of the ideas above that will move you closer to your dreams.

We all know that life is short. So, shouldn’t we all live the best life we possibly can? Absolutely! Because remember – how we spend our days, is how we spend our lives.

Strategy Buzz: “Moving From Strategic Planning to Story Telling”

June 1, 2010

This week on Twitter all the talk is about the Harvard Business Review article entitled, Moving From Strategic Planning to Story Telling.  This is a great article that anyone involved in the strategic planning process should read.  The author, Roger Martin, puts a “fun” spin to looking at strategic options and the whole process of planning.

Give this article a read and let us know what you think.

What is the Difference Between a Business Plan and a Strategic Plan

May 21, 2010

While a strategic plan is a type of business plan, there are several important distinctions between the two types that are worth noting.

A strategic plan is primarily used for implementing and managing the strategic direction of an existing organization. A business plan is used to initially start a business, obtain funding, or direct operations.  The two plans cover different timeframes as well. A strategic plan generally covers a period of 3 to 5+ years, whereas a business plan is normally no more than one year.

A strategic plan is for established businesses, organizations and business owners that are serious about growing their organization. Whereas a business plan could be for new businesses and entrepreneurs who are startups.

A strategic plan is used to provide focus, direction and action in order to move the organization from where they are now to where they want to go.  Whereas a business plan is used to provide a structure for ideas in order to initially define the business.

A strategic plan is critical to prioritizing resources (time, money and people) to grow the revenue and increase the return on investment.  Whereas a business plan is critical if the business is seeking funding.

A strategic plan focuses on building a sustainable competitive advantage and is futuristic in nature. Whereas a business plan is used to assess the viability of a business opportunity, and is more tactical in nature.

A strategic plan is used to communicate the direction of the organization to the staff and stakeholders.  However, a business plan is used to present the entrepreneur’s ideas to a bank.

Another way to grasp the difference is by understanding the difference in ’scale’ between a strategic plan and a business plan. Larger organizations with multiple business units and a wide variety of products frequently start their annual planning process with a corporate-driven strategic plan.  It is often followed by departmental plans and marketing plans that work down from the Strategic Plan.  Smaller companies and startup companies typically use only a business plan to develop all aspects of the business on paper, obtain funding and then start the business.  Many smaller companies – including startups never develop a Strategic Plan.

Dilbert Comic Strip

Get beyond teamwork for Strategy Execution

April 12, 2010

In honor of March Madness and this week’s exciting culmination, let’s review the concept of Teamwork in a strategic planning sense.  Teamwork is a powerful thing, but for strategy execution requires more than basic goal fulfillment (a Win). In “Harnessing Your Staff’s Informal Networks,” this month’s Harvard Business Review (April 2010), we are given great insight into why teams are different from communities, and how the concept of communities provide the collective presence necessary to make a difference with strategy execution.  We read into the article this way:  Strategy’s full-court press requires leaders to check their authoritative roles at the door in order to collaboratively network (internally and externally) for solutions to their strategic execution issues.  Key difference between communities and teams, according to the article’s authors (Richard McDermott and Douglas Archibald) are:  1) The incorporation of the long-view.  2) Require peer collaboration and collective responsibility. 3)Intentional network expansion. 4) Stewardship of knowledge that exists in their domain toward solving problems yet discovered for the group.   Then your efforts, as a community, may result in strategic brackets are filled with success stories, not records of defeat.  Now that’s a big win.

Strategy Buzz: Strategic Planning Is For The Birds

March 26, 2010

If you are still struggling with the idea of your very own personal strategic plan, then maybe this article can help guide you.  The Blog Post Strategic planning is for the birds, by Pamela Slim, is all the buzz this week on Twitter.  Give it a quick read and see if it will help you in your path to finding your personal plan.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/2010/03/25/strategic-planning-is-for-the-birds/

How to Choose a Market Development Strategy

March 14, 2010

You can grow by leveraging your product knowledge to reach new customers.  More than likely, you have spent time and money developing your product and service offering. Assuming you’re happy with your current offering, extending it into new markets is a logical next step. This is aptly called a market development strategy. If you have identified potential new markets as opportunities, use these strategies to reach them.  Here are some quick considerations to make before executing a market development strategy:

• Is the market attractive? (To really answer this question, I recommend some form of market research to validate your gut feeling.)
• Are you willing to commit the required time and resources to reach this new market?
• Can your business be adapted to the new market?
• Will you maintain your current competitive advantage in this new market?

Expanding Geographically

When you’re thinking about expanding, first think about where you want to cultivate new business. You have options: other regions, nationally, or internationally.  Geographical expansion works well for a company that wants to expand its service territory because it needs a physical location to serve its customers. Clearly your ability to expand is subject to your ability to finance such as expansion. See “Executing Your Growth Strategy” later in this chapter.  Many of the big boys of business, including McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot, have exported their operations to other countries. On a smaller scale, many microbreweries have opened up new locations in various metro areas and airports in the United States as a way to expand their geographical reach.

Reaching into new market segments

You can also grow by reaching a completely new set of customers or market segments. This area is such a popular growth strategy because you leverage the products and services you already have developed. (Flip to Chapter 11 for the entire story on new market segments.)

Examples of this strategy abound, such as Bayer aspirin now being sold not just for aches and pains, but also for heart attack prevention if taken daily.

Strategy Dollars and Sense

March 11, 2010

The main focus of MyStrategicPlan is to make strategy planning an accessible process with management tools to increase the success of proper implementation and strategy execution.  The big challenge for so many organizations however is identifying how to budget for the accomplishment of goals, objectives and actions.  In “Linking Strategy and Planning to Budgets” (HBR, Balanced Scorecard Report #B0605A), David Norton cites the defining issues as 1) the need for cross-business integration; and 2) the linkage of a long-term process (strategy) and a short term process (budgeting). After breaking into a half-dozen principles, we learn about developing a useful accounting approach along side of traditional conventions of OPEX (Operating Expenses) and CAPEX (Capital Expenses).  Enter in STRATEX to finance initiatives associated with strategy (first coined by Eloteq, a high-tech manufacturer in Finland). We will look into this and other approaches for budgeting in our upcoming newsletters, but we do find inspiration in approaches such as STRATEX, as it addresses a major hesitation (proper funding) in organizational buy-in and strategy execution.

Strategy Buzz: Some Great Thoughts

March 5, 2010

Here are some great thoughts from this last week on Twitter.  Look at them next time you’re stuck in a hard place in your strategic business plan.  They can shed a new light on a tough subject.  If you have any other inspiring quotes, we would love to hear them.

• Strategic planning & mindset revitalization is chicken soup for the entrepreneurial soul.  It fills you up when you’re feeling empty.
• Strategic planning doesn’t deal with future decisions.  It deals with the futurity of present decisions.
• Your clients are your best teachers.  Their input must be an integral part of you strategic planning.
• Strategic planning is often approached like an egg & spoon race.  Competitors line up, race from part A to B, drop the egg (ball), and pandemonium ensues.
• Strategic planning is worthless, unless you have a strategic vision.