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Strategic Business Planning Tips from Nike

shannon — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:14:11 +0000

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.

Nine years ago, he recalls, “Phil wanted us to work on a new missions statement.” The previous one — “To be the No. 1 sports-and-fitness company in the world” — was old news. Parker’s choice: “To bring inno-vation and inspiration to every athlete in the world. (And if you have a body, you’re an athlete.)” He also put together nine maxims, quirky guiding principles for Nike. The one he thinks bout most is No. 6, “Be a sponge. Curiosity is life. Assumption is death. Look around.”

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

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Innovation and Commercialization

shannon — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:26:47 +0000

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.

After Coping with the global economic crisis, companies are beginning to aim for growth again. But their approach to managing innovation and the challenges they face haven’t changed. The survey results suggest a few ways to improve.

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

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Attention California Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Applicants

shannon — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:14:25 +0000

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.

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Why Excel falls short in executing Strategic Planning

shannon — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:36:20 +0000

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.

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The Top 10 Strategic Planning Best Practices

shannon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:17:52 +0000

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:

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.
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).
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.
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.
Think about execution before you start. It doesn’t matter how good the plan is if it isn’t executed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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Lessons Learned from International Training

shannon — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:11:38 +0000

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.

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Using Scenario Planning From BP’s Experience

shannon — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:16:19 +0000

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.

BP is responsible for the most catastrophic, man-made environmental event in our history. Eleven members of the Deepwater Horizon rig were killed and 14 injured in the explosion that rocked the Gulf Coast and began spewing upwards to 40,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf waters.

So what can we learn from BP and their actions after this catastrophic event? What should BP have done to prevent it?

Looking back, BP participated in a number of learning activities that were intended to prevent accidents and improve safety conditions aboard the Deepwater Horizon and other rigs. Known as “scenario planning,” many organizations may benefit, but few attend to the insights; the warning signs of “what if?”

Scenario planning, with its origins in gaming, strategic planning and systems thinking, is a method used by many organizations to strategically plan for worst-case scenarios and the development of subsequent preventative action as a means to mitigate negative impact. In simpler terms, what’s the worst thing that can happen and how can we plan to prevent it?

We know BP received a safety citation in 2002 regarding the faulty blowout preventer that caused the explosion on April 20th. We also know that BP received six safety notifications between 2002 and 2007. But what’s the worst that can happen? Effective scenario planning may have contributed to the prevention of the accident.

Organizations can learn a lesson from BP. Scenario planning is an effective tool to strategically manage the unknown. What’s an unknown? Answer this simple question: “What happens if…?”

When you can plug in every possible unknown (the economy takes a header; our IT facilities in St. Louis get flooded; a hurricane hits our building just east of New Orleans; our shareholder identities get hacked), then you’re on your way to effectively dealing with the critical incidents that may possibly shape your organization’s future.

Let’s be realistic. Organizations can’t plan for everything that’s coming at them out of left field. However, instilling reactionary speed, no matter how fast, isn’t as effective as the effective use of scenario planning. Call it what you will: “just in time,” contingency, or even succession planning. You’ve heard the cliché, “an ounce of prevention…”

From a strategic management perspective, organizations should invest in scenario planning as an insurance against catastrophic events and threats to their business and employees. Many already have done so employing Risk Analysts or Risk Managers. Several organizations exist to guide risk management including the International Organization for Standardization.

Have we asked the right questions? Have we learned the right lessons?

Strategic management, rather than tactical reaction, creates a delineated competitive advantage for those organizations that successfully learn how to handle critical incidents. Learning is often a product of experience. In this case, what BP is learning the hard way can be a good lesson for us all.

Mike Freel, Ph.D.

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Measuring What Counts

shannon — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:29:51 +0000

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.

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Strategy Buzz: Implementing Innovation Strategy

shannon — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:31:28 +0000

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.

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Is Your Strategic Plan Fit?

shannon — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:11:16 +0000

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.

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