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Hit This 3-Pointer for Your Strategic Review

Kristin Larsen — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:12:10 +0000

Oh, sweet sixteen. While the NCAA tourney might cost employers $1.75 million in unproductive wages as fans try to watch games at work during the first two days of action, the tourney also leads up to another milestone—the quarterly review. If you have a strategic plan in place, this is an important month to gather the team, open up your playbook and identify what goals are progressing and which seem to be as realistic as hitting a half-court shot. To get a jump start on your quarterly review, follow this three-step approach:

1. GET IT SCHEDULED. It is a fact that strategic planning needs regular review sessions to stay on track and be relevant. Annual retreats just don’t cut it. So the most important thing all strategic plan managers should be doing right now is getting a management review scheduled.

2. GET TO THE ISSUE. Segment the time during your review so that you are not simply reporting on completed tasks for 90 minutes. Schedule 5-10 minutes to report this detail at most. You’ve got thinkers in the room, so use their time well. What are the issues you must resolve to enhance performance toward your company’s goals? Use this time to focus on one or two critical goals, come to consensus on the best way to move them forward and agree on the critical milestones to get there. Document those as goals in your plan and be SMART about them.

3. STAY COMPETITIVE. Beyond the quarterly strategy review being an important time to check in on the most important plan issues, it is about how strategy addresses threats and opportunities. Since the plan was drafted, what has changed in your environment? One of the major complaints about strategic plans is that they become cumbersome; use your quarterly review to keep your plan in shape.

So while we might be able to ignore the prevalence of tournament brackets hanging on the walls of our offices, its time to check-in and focus on your quarterly strategic review. Advertising for employment openings on NCAA’s website might have its benefits as well.

STRATEGY CHECK:
Can your strategy perform?

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Tell Us What You Think

Kristin Larsen — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:42:50 +0000

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Balanced companies, loyal employees

Cammy Elquist LoRe — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:15:42 +0000

For strategic execution to happen, you have to engage with your employees. Yet for strategic plans to be a success, you have to take this to the next level by making sure you are cultivating loyal employees. This is a foundational principle of the balanced scorecard. To get thinking about this topic more, here’s a thought from American Express’s “Open Forum”:

“There are many reasons why having loyal employees is a must in your business. They are the backbone of the company, and the ones that will ultimately make or break your product or service. They represent your company and will either put your business goals into action or snuff them out before you can even figure out the root of the problem”

There’s never been a better time to obtain and cultivate an exceptional employee base!

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Positioning Your Organization for the Future in an Economic Climate of Uncertainty

Ryan Olsen — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:51:40 +0000

Watch a recorded video of the latest Strategy Huddle (July 27^th, 2011) and then signup to attend the next huddle! The purpose of the huddle is to answer real world questions, handle high-level strategy issues, and share best practices on strategy, execution and planning. The topics of focus were:

Strategy Stat: Downturns are roller coasters for weak firm
Topic: Positioning Your Organization for the Future in an Economic Climate of Uncertainty
- Conduct a simple and comprehensive scenario planning processes
- Leverage existing tools and resources to jump start your effort
- Drive the results into your existing strategic or operational plans

Download PDF (slide deck)

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Tips for Creating a Strategic Plan for Hospitals

shannon — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:00:35 +0000

5 Best Practices for Creating a Hospital Strategic Plan in Uncertain Times

I came across this article the other day on Becker Hospital Review and thought it would be a great one to share for those in the medical field who are in the strategic planning process. James R. Trimarchi, director of strategic planning at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington, explains what he believes are the 5 best practices for creating a hospital strategic plan in uncertain times.

Healthcare reform legislation has increased demands concerning quality, cost and efficiency of hospitals and health systems. One way to manage these expectations is to create a strategic plan that clearly outlines goals for the future and how to reach them. “Strategic planning is more important now than it’s ever been,” says James R. Trimarchi, director of strategic planning at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington.

Although strategic planning can help hospitals manage changes from new rules and regulations, it presents its own challenges. “Strategic planning works best when the marketplace is either in a stable trajectory or a known trajectory. The current healthcare environment is neither,” Mr. Trimarchi says. However, practices like frequent evaluation can help combat the uncertain future. Mr. Trimarchi offers five tips for creating a strategic plan in today’s world.

1. Follow the strategic plan anatomy. The strategic plan establishes several strategies that help focus resources to better achieve mid-range goals that support the organization’s mission and vision. A strategic plan has a cascading anatomy. The mission and vision serve as the touch stone and rarely change. Goals are three- to five-year targets that if achieved would move the organization towards its mission and vision. Strategies are specific actionable approaches. Measures monitor progress towards the goals and are the tool used to determine if particular strategies are working. If a measure indicates a strategy is not effectively moving the organization towards its goals, then the strategy should be discontinued and a different strategy should be launched. Adhering to this cascading anatomy (mission, vision, goals and strategies tracked by measures) helps hospitals avoid drifting away from the core mission and vision in uncertain times yet allows organizations to remain flexible enough to respond to changes in regulations and the marketplace by reallocating resources, Mr. Trimarchi says.

2. Push strategies close to the mission and vision. The larger the separation between strategies and the core mission and vision the more regulatory or marketplace changes can disrupt the relevance of the strategic plan. Choosing strategies closely linked to the mission and vision introduces a level of certainty to an otherwise vague future.

3. Focus on a few goals. Following the “less is more” philosophy is key to forming a successful strategic plan, according to Mr. Trimarchi. If the plan includes too many goals, “not only can you not keep them straight, but you dilute resources,” he says. Instead of a list of 20 goals, Mr. Trimarchi suggests concentrating on the top five to six concerns. Hospitals can then reallocate resources to support and achieve the most important goals.

4. Be realistic. “Identifying the doable” is essential to strategic plans. Keeping goals and strategies realistic will help hospitals make real improvements in the organization, whereas spending time on impractical goals will stifle hospitals’ progress. A common mistake people make when forming a strategic plan is including strategies or goals that are “too grandiose without enough capital or resources to accomplish them” Mr. Trimarchi says. Identifying feasible strategies may be particularly challenging in the current environment. “Ascertaining the doable is somewhat dependent upon your ability to predict the future,” Mr. Trimarchi says. He suggests leaders honestly ask themselves whether they can actually implement a strategy to help ascertain whether a strategy is realistic.

5. Develop really good measures. One of the most important elements of an effective strategic plan is developing measures to monitor progress made towards the goals. Depending on what the measures show, hospitals may have to alter strategies to better reach their goals. “It is so important today to have really good measures to monitor where you’re going because the environment is changing so fast and you may need to change strategies,” Mr. Trimarchi says.

Mr. Trimarchi describes a measure Southwestern Vermont Medical Center used to assess progress in its goal of reducing CT scan utilization. SVMC wanted to lower CT use per patient because of the harmful effects of radiation. Simultaneously, however, the hospital was trying to open a new market. If the hospital measured the overall volume of CT scans, the numbers would show an increase because of additional patients from the new market. Instead, SVMC tracked the number of CT scans for patients from a particular zip code in the original market. This technique more accurately measured progress towards the goal of reducing CT scan utilization because it reflected CT use per person within a defined geography. As the overall use of CT scans increased due to an expanding market, the CT scans per zip code decreased, suggesting lower usage per person. This example demonstrates the complexity of thinking required to develop useful strategic measures.

The rate at which hospitals should measure progress depends in part on how fast hospitals anticipate meeting their goals, according to Mr. Trimarchi. A short-term goal will require more frequent tracking and evaluation of measures, such as monthly, whereas long-term goals can be reviewed quarterly. Regardless of the frequency of review the question that should be answered is ‘Are we making progress or do we need to change the strategies?’ Mr. Trimarchi says.

Adhering to these five basic practices can help hospitals develop a strategic plan that is focused, effective and flexible. By leveraging measures to continually evaluate progress towards the goals the strategic plan becomes a living document that can guide an institution through uncertain times.

To view the article in it’s entirety, click here.

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Get to the Story for Strategic Execution

Cammy Elquist LoRe — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:53:13 +0000

In the past half dozen years, M3 Planning, developers of MyStrategicPlan have been a part of a best practices movement in the field of Customer Loyalty. With our balanced scorecard approach to developing research questions that are actionable at both operational and strategic execution levels, we have uncovered information that well, em, hasn’t always been exactly embraced by clients. The data,while proving statistically strong, usually strikes a nerve because it reveals some inconvenient truths that comes straight from customer’s mouths. We could branch into topics of EQ for managers and leaders here, but much more relevant is the need to make Customer Loyalty programs connect at a visceral level. People connect emotionally before they connect intellectually. Our three second takeaway: Make your Customer Loyalty programs tell a powerful story first, then make these stories relevant with the data that you collect. You’ll be essentially introducing the right side of the brain to the left side….and making them play nice.

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Keeping Your Team Improving (Part 3 of 3)

Vanessa Lindeberg — Sat, 28 May 2011 21:09:05 +0000

This is part 3 of a 3 part series from our MyStrategicPlan Strategy Huddle held on May 25, 2011.

Elsa Ozuna-Richards, Account Executive, is our speaker for this segment of the Strategy Huddle. Elsa brings her expertise in strategy and health care to present examples of how to use Continuous Quality Improvement with strategic planning to motivate your team to keep improving.

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Keeping Your Team Engaged (Part 2 of 3)

Vanessa Lindeberg — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:25:13 +0000

This is part 2 of a 3 part series from our MyStrategicPlan Strategy Huddle held on May 25, 2011.

Erica Olsen, COO and Co-Founder of M3 Planning, is our expert speaker for this topic. She explains why/how organizations want keep their teams engaged in the strategic management process.

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Vanessa Lindeberg — Sat, 28 May 2011 18:44:48 +0000

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How Will Your Strategy Deliver?

Kristin Larsen — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:58:51 +0000

Every organization has its own needs and reasons for wanting to develop a strategic plan. Perhaps you see it as a way to articulate a set of mile-markers three years down the road. Maybe your organization needs a strategy to drive organizational change and accountability. Understanding the spheres served by strategic planning is an orientation that all leaders need to grasp in order to fulfill expectations on strategic deliverables. Otherwise a vital link between planning and integration could find friction and, in the worst case, send plans back to the drawing board.

I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. - Frances Willard

To avoid any pitfalls, it is important to clarify your senior team members’ perceptions of strategic planning. Are they anticipating that the overall strategic direction will result in a change in organizational culture or structure? Do they need a process for resource alignment or better coordination of actions? One way to assess this kind of detail is through an internal analysis that can also be used in the development of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) report.

To this order, educating your team about the strategic planning process itself can create an understanding of how the process culminates into a final plan (i.e. how a SWOT is used for determining potential areas of priority, which are then developed into strategic themes). A simple flow chart may be all that is needed to make sure everyone knows the general development route your strategic plan will take.

In the development and execution of the plan, there will be dialogue. To optimize these exchanges and keep them constructive, the entire team needs to recognize the balance needed between informing, recommending and deciding in order to have a true collective outcome. In the delivery of this dialogue, we can’t stress enough the importance of language symmetry. For example, are your organization milestones considered “objectives” or “goals”? Do these terms change at different stratums, for say a department or an individual? There is no right or wrong answer; the point is that whatever resonates best with your organization should be identified and incorporated. Language must name the key features of your strategy landscape with rigorous consistency so that any adaptations toward a common direction can be achieved without confusion.

After you are finished ironing out any contentions of what a strategic plan is or is not, just remember it is your job as a driver of strategy to continually develop those common nodes of understanding (process, roles, communication) as they relate to the strategic execution cycle that your organization should have in place. Commit to a shared language standard, and find ways to incorporate repetition into the sharing of ideas and concepts. Make it ritualistic throughout your strategic development and execution cycles. Remember, it takes courage and discipline to practice an art that is never fully mastered.

STRATEGY CHECK: Does everyone in your strategy voyage understand the flight plan?

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