Note: We will reference MyStrategicPlan throughout this post, but in doing so also acknowledge our great customers using MyNonprofitPlan and MyChurchPlan.

Before	After

Let’s dig into what this means.

Much thought and collaboration has been invested in each aspect of the new design. We are confident that MyStrategicPlan is now more efficient and intuitive than it was before, which is what you want from a business process tool. There are several new changes and based on initial response to our new design, we know that you will like it.

Throughout the redesign of MyStrategicPlan.com, we kept four criteria in mind; including:

1. Improving the look and feel of MyStrategicPlan with a new, fresh and very professional facelift.
2. Streamlining the user interface to reduce clutter and complexity.
3. Accessing high priority actions/tasks with fewer clicks thereby improving the efficiency of the system and our users.
4. Increasing our customers’ success rate through the strategic planning activities into the execution stage. The customer feedback from our annual survey helped us understand the need to simplify the strategic planning process. We want you to be successful!

You may experience a very short “re-familiarizing” period with the new design! We assure you that with a little “re-acquaintance” time, you will be more efficient and productive. We encourage you to give yourself some time to acquaint yourself with the new workflow and within a short time, you will also find benefit in the improved and efficient transition to operationalizing strategy.

Later in this post, I will highlight the changes in greater detail. As we move you through the design keep in mind the many resources that are available to you to improve your ease of use and application, provide you with guidance through the process and to keep each of you current with all system updates.

We are very happy to finally have MyStrategicPlan updated in response to requests. This redesign touches every single page. There is still more work to do over the coming months to improve the design and functionality of secondary pages so we aren’t completely done, but we are well on our way. We hope you will fully optimize the new design to fully engage your team and grow your company by converting strategy into action.

Thank you,

Erica Olsen

Learn more about the redesign in the short 5-minute video.

For a complete review of the changes, please read further.

Guided Home Page: The new home page redesign not only offers our users a new, fresh and professional feel, it offers a system by which to implement and execute your strategies. This new landing page does a better job of providing you with both information and next steps. The home page now implements a level of intelligence in two stages:

• Increased guidance through the process. The “tiles” will help guide users through the key “strategic process” steps (intelligence based). This provides more of a “system guide.” As the system monitors your activity, it will propose your next actions. It will also provide direct resources to the respective item.

• Assistance through the performance management phase offers our users constant updates to navigate through their plan. Quicker access to execution tools and reports improves the effectiveness of using a management tool. For example, using the scorecard approach provides quick access to the number of actions/goals you have that are on target vs. off target. This perspective offers the busy executive, as well as all managers and team members, a “60,000 ft.” level view of plan accomplishments. The home page also offers Tips box that provides general strategic planning tips, thought provoking questions, jokes, and more; a view of upcoming free trainings; and best practices from the M3 team.

Before	After

Navigation changes: Besides the design changes, you will find some of the most noticeable changes are in the navigation at the top of each page. These changes provide you with tools that will most noticeably increase efficiency and productivity. Take your time exploring during your “re-acquaintance” period! We have streamlined the process and removed a number of clicks to get to key pages. Please note: Some of the top navigation tabs will have drop down links. Once on a section the secondary navigation will be moved to “side” navigation. This workflow more closely follows a typical strategic planning process and meets the request that many users wanted to see incorporated.

Before
After

Site-wide Appearance: We have taken the new design and incorporated it throughout the rest of the website. The space is better positioned taking advantage of white space to make the system easier on the eyes. It also provides more room for data entry, as well as more information to help you on the specific topic. The changes speak for themselves. Here are a few additional changes applied to many of the “interior pages” that we want to highlight:

• Tips box: Process pages will include a new “Tips” box to provide specific and important information to the task on that page.
• More Info box: Process pages will include a new “More Info” link to dig deeper into information on the section including examples and videos. More details on this below.

Before	After

More Info Link: Many of you will notice the iFrame box is no longer there. We have given our users full control of assessing the information and tips they individually need! This change provides you with greater control of available resources and allows you to decide if you want more details. If you do want more information and assistance, we offer many more examples + direct link to Virtual Strategy Guide via one quick click! You decide. We are also implementing organizational specific resources. To start, the examples provided will be different depending upon whether you have a MyStrategicPlan, MyNonprofitPlan or MyChurchPlan account. We will continue to build this out over the next year, but this is a great start. These “More Info” tabs will also link you directly to the Virtual Strategy Guide if you want to dig deeper. We have built out this resource further so it is a full blown strategic planning process.

Before	After

Reports: We are breaking away from the “highly technical” look and feel! The new reports page allows you to quickly see the listing of available reports and access them more effectively. You have two more clicks but the total time savings should be well worth it. Quick Access drop down menus allow you to navigate through departments to individual team members much more rapidly.

Before	After

Accounts Page: The plan administrator will notice the layout of the account page is more streamlined. The new page offers a department listing in a drop down menu, while team members are also displayed in a drop-down at a level lower than the department listing. Click through this new feature, it helps expedite user management workflow.

Future Development: MyStrategicPlan is not just a web application (or point solution with planned output). It is an end-to-end business process application. We are dedicated to enhancing the system to meet your business needs. Customer feedback drove these changes and if you want to have a voice in the next round, we welcome your feedback. We have a list a mile long. With your continued support and recommendations to friends and colleagues we are committed to making your job easier. As recommendations are submitted, we evaluate them and commit resources to those most mission critical. Here are some items scheduled for the next 6 months:

• API: The first pass at an API has been developed and is ready in write form. We look to connect to an industry leading application for testing. If your organization needs to connect MyStrategicPlan to a 3rd party application, please let us know.
• Mobile application: We know you want a mobile app and we do too!
• Powerpoint Report: Accelerate your strategy reviews by automating the production of a PowerPoint presentation that will pull in the information from your Track Goals and Actions page.

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• Administrative “Super User” Component: Plan administrators now have the choice of logging in as different users from one screen. This will allow for greater ease with switching from user to user and negates the need to sign-in as a different person each time.
• User Interface Enhancements: When setting goals, you’ll see that several new features have been added including: helpful hints that will guide you as you enter/edit new goals; start and end dates are pre-populated on supporting goals based on the parent goal; and cross assignment of goals can be done on similar tier levels across varying departments and teams.
• Plan Setup Options Added: Plans now can reflect a variety of options including currency, date format, fiscal year start and much more.
• Question & Answer Session: An open Q&A forum with Erica about what is coming and any other questions that attendees had about MyStrategicPlan and strategic planning.

We hope you take the time to listen this important webinar and find these recent additions to our system valuable. If you are a plan administrator, we encourage you to follow up on these changes to your plan to maximize benefits.

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The topics of focus from the June 23, 2010 Strategy Huddle were:

1. Strategy Stat: What Matters Most to Strategy Execution
2. Topic/Question: Creating Useful Measures for Execution
3. Topic/Question: Case Study: Creating Strategic Alignment in a Loosely Organized Company
4. Topic/Question: Case Study: How to Change your Business Model

Business Model Canvas

Download Presentation Here

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The need for change is often inherent in a strategic plan, and this can shift the power dynamics in any organization as it represents a re-prioritization of resources and activity.  With this acknowledged, it is a clear role of leadership, and leadership alone, that must embrace the process, implementation and execution of new strategic actions.  Leadership is tasked with viewing strategy execution as their job. Having a keen understanding of the process of change is vital.

Comprehensive communication about the effectiveness of the purpose of a strategic plan is often a big initial hurdle.  Often strategic goals are viewed as an extra expense that raises costs.  To gain acceptance of new directions based on strategic thinking, the actions of any given plan need to be viewed as solutions to challenges or problems that exist or are likely to exist in the near future.  Cost-benefit analysis and cause and effect comparisons to prod strategic action are also effective ways to bring people on board.

Once key leaders see that the strategic plan is not only additive but also vital to future viability, their position should shift if they have the organization’s best interest in mind.  At this point, building alignment for cross-functionality and even organizational structure shifts can be viewed as solid maneuvers that are based on necessity and not a whim.

At an everyday level, leaders must embrace the strategic change in their approach to work.  For example, if a strategic plan calls for less standardization to create an environment for the development of innovations, then leaders must abide by that playbook.  On the other end of the spectrum, if increased efficiencies are part of a strategic goal, then leaders would have to also abide by and enforce increased standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Overall, this process is not easy. Don’t assume robust, passionate discussions are a rejection of the developments you seek.  Instead, try to inject the values that your organization keeps into the process.  These values should help you anchor the discussions against the tides of tangents and emotions, while keeping the dialogue progressive with the organization’s success and longevity in mind.

Strategy Check:  Are your leaders onboard to fundamentally embrace the strategic plan?

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Revelations by management made in the article make you wonder if execution strategies found a way into any of the strategic plans at hand. Some include: the need for monthly instead of quarterly reviews; the need to review a strategic plan to see if it is “as relevant as it was three-years ago”; and a “switch from distant calendars and rigid forecasts of the past.”

The only thing that should be rigid in a strategic plan is an organizational commitment to properly execute it. This includes monthly executive reviews that are fed by weekly staff updates. If problems in the action elements of the plan arise, this prompts corrective adjustment each month.

If something within a plan can’t be executed, the plan needs to be adjusted… and it can’t take three years to have this happen. Regular, cyclical communications from the staff to the managers to the executives are essential. Routine assessments for internal and external feed into this process as well. These can’t be implemented when crisis calls, these need to find their place during the writing of the plan itself.

In this way execution is tied into planning, much like a journey is guided by a compass. Make no mistake; this is a time investment, and one that requires an organizational structure with its influences in check. In fact the “Inability to manage change effectively or to overcome internal resistance to change” is cited as the #1 Obstacle to Strategy Execution in Warton Business School professor Lawrence Hrebiniak’s Making Strategy Work (2005).

Proper strategy execution keeps a plan adaptive. Contrary to what the WSJ article states, being adaptive is not a new approach. It’s just a necessary one that seems to get overlooked or underestimated once strategic plans find final approvals, yet no good plan is so final that it is fireproof to changes inherent around us all.

STRATEGY CHECK:  Is your strategy execution process lined up that will keep your plan current and aligned for your organization?

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In this part of the series expert strategists Erica Olsen and Howard Olsen discuss the answer to a question often received from our clients, “How do you cascade goals and objectives?” Listen in to learn how to align your strategic plan appropriately so that you can cascade your goals and objectives throughout the whole organization.

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Editor’s Note: Our last strategy check included this quote, which generated so much positive feedback, we decided to dedicate a whole newsletter to it.

Processes when performed correctly create a rhythmic routine, and for very large organizations having everyone march to the same beat is a real accomplishment… except when the very road you walk on goes from a cobblestone path to a jet-way tarmac.

In a recent talk, the Boy Scouts of America’s VP of Operations Gary Butler highlighted how easy it is to mistake action for outcomes and in doing so he illustrated Churchill’s point in a real word example. For over 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been perfecting the processes that deliver programs and services to youth worldwide. An overall unintended outcome, however, has been a decline in membership levels. “We did not connect processes to the results, in fact, we valued process over results.” Butler states.

Intensive reviews by this stalwart organization have initiated a fundamental shift in the way BSA sets its strategic direction and processes to solve the issues that have been eroding its membership base. They have created key performance measurements to be monitored in the pursuit of membership retention and growth now fall within six key departments: Marketing, Governance, Programs and Services, Financing, Talent Management (Volunteers), and Administrative Services. Sourcing data reports from these areas, new processes have been designed to be simple to duplicate and repeat, but most importantly flexible to react to each Councils’ real opportunities or threats – and emphasizing what instead of the how.

Old Emphasis – “The How” Fully-engaged Boards Strategic Implementation Fiscally-Sound Councils

New Emphasis – “The What” Fully-Trained Boards Creating a Strategic Plan Fundraising Campaigns

Soon real-time information on the market (inputs) and performance measures (outputs) will be integrated into the “New” BSA strategic management tools. All functional areas and geographic locations will be able to drive their results, from the national to troop level. All the while, the overall goal stays embedded and crystal clear: Grow Membership and Impact Youth’s Lives.

As such, make the mission of the Boy Scouts of America, “To prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law” viable for the next 100 years.

Not to be underestimated, this organizational change is an uphill battle, requiring well-entrenched mindsets to be shifted and re-focused. As the BSA is one of our client’s, we’ll be bringing you periodic updates as this massive change begins to transform an American icon.

STRATEGY CHECK: Take a peek at your 2010 strategy to ensure the outcomes you are seeking are clear and focused on intentional, purposeful results.

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It’s like the scene from the bad dreams you had as a kid; the ones where you show up to take your final exam and don’t remember a thing. You’re at a business function explaining what your company does and someone asks what your strategy is, and you have no answer. You should have one. You want to have one. But nothing comes to mind. While choosing a strategy isn’t impossible, it is a word that’s often misunderstood.

What is strategy?

Your strategic plan will contain many things, including your mission, vision, principles, objectives and tactics, but none of them are your strategy. Your strategy, simply, is the way in which you plan on matching what you do best with the customers you plan to reach.

Your strategy should:

• Establish unique value proposition compared to your competitors
• Be executed through operations that provide different and tailored value to customers
• Identify clear tradeoffs and clarifies what not to do
• Focus on activities that fit together and reinforce each other
• Drive continual improvement within the organization and moves it toward its vision

What isn’t your Strategy?

Knowing what strategy is can also be explained by looking at what strategy is not. Dr. Michael Porter, the leading strategy guru and professor at Harvard, had this to say at the 2006 World Business Forum in Chicago. Strategy is not

• Best practice improvement
• Execution
• Aspirations
• A vision
• Learning
• Agility
• Flexibility
• Innovation
• The Internet (or any technology)
• Downsizing
• Restructuring
• Mergers/Consolidation
• Alliances/Partnering
• Outsourcing

So Which is Yours? A Broad View:

In the 1980 classic Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors, Michael Porter simplifies the scheme by reducing it down to the three best strategies. They are cost leadership, differentiation, and market segmentation (or focus).

Cost Leadership Strategy

Organizations that choose this route aim to produce a product or service that matches a given level of quality, at a lower cost than their competitors. They then either sell their product or service at a normative cost in order to maximize revenue or they sell at a lower cost in order to gain market share. The key to this strategy is efficiency.

If your organization’s strengths include operational excellence, or efficient distribution channels, or any other attribute that allows for cost savings in production, this strategy is an option.

The risk with this strategy is that eventually other companies will also be able to produce at a lower cost, due to the efficiencies brought about by advances in technology.

Differentiation Strategy

Businesses that choose this strategy have a unique quality to their product that customers see as better or at least different from the other options available in that market. This uniqueness gives the producer the chance to sell at a premium price.

If your organization’s core competencies grant you greater skill or creativity in production, and your sales and marketing effectively communicate the advantages of your product or service over your competitors, this may be a good choice.

Focus Strategy

This strategy is also called a segmentation strategy because it involves carving your market in order to focus on a smaller group in which you can implement either a cost leadership or differentiation strategy. One benefit of using a focus strategy is that businesses can build loyalty in their given segment.

While businesses that choose to focus on one smaller segment of an industry may not have the leverage with suppliers that other organizations may, they generally have more intimate knowledge of their target customers and are able to tailor their products or services to them, and therefore charge greater prices or enjoy greater loyalty.

What to do

While your over-arching statements like mission, vision and principles give your long-term direction, there still needs to be something that lives in between those statements and the decisions you make to bring them into fruition. Choosing a strategy means that your company and the employees within have a solid answer for not only where you’re going, but how you’ll get there. With an obvious strategy, you have the structure needed to decide between different objectives and tactics that make up your action plan, and lead your organization to victory.

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What can we learn from his dramatic recovery, and how solidly Apple has turned out successes through four different industries (Music, Movies, Cell Phones and Computing)?

A Dramatic Turn-Around that Speaks to Today’s Climate

For businesses who are currently navigating the global economic crisis, an example like Apple’s last decade of performance offers not only inspiration and hope, but great insight for cash-strapped organizations hoping to not only hold on but eventually thrive. In 2000, Apple was worth only $5 Billion and facing possible bankruptcy. Coming into 2010 they’re worth $170 billion, produce the leading mp3 player, the most popular mobile phone and have transformed all of the industries in which they do business. So, what did Jobs do when he took back the helm?

Steve’s Three Things: How Focusing on the Basics Gave Apple their Foundation

Humility

When Jobs came back on board at Apple, the company was not poised to launch the huge successes that have become so iconic to their brand in the last decade, like the iPod. The company was facing possible bankruptcy and had lost consumer confidence. Steve Jobs shocked many when he decided to turn to competitor Microsoft for help.

Such a move, especially for a personality not known for humility, what a bold move, but displayed Jobs’ fierce dedication to his company’s success, over his image. As leaders, owners and managers, our humility can greatly impact and inspire our organizations.

Simplicity

Next, Jobs dramatically paired down Apple’s product line from a broader range, to just four different computers. Doing this allowed the company to focus on creating four excellent tools for home and business, and also saved the company money by eliminating projects that didn’t contribute to the new vision Jobs had brought when he took back control. With this new focus, Apple created the iMac: an all-in-one solution that generating sales for future investments.

Is your organization possibly wasting resources on projects or initiatives that aren’t in line with achieving your vision? Are there areas in which you could re-align resources towards sources that will better help you reach your goals?

People

As soon as Jobs came back on board, he assembled a stellar management team- many of whom had worked with him at his previous company. As a testament to the quality and fit of this brain-trust, nearly all of them have stayed on board throughout this decade of achievement.

Having the right people in place within your organization is one of the most powerful elements to executing your corporate strategy. When talented, committed personnel are given the authority and ownership to guide initiatives toward success, you can take a great deal of chance out of whether your strategy will succeed.

One More Thing

As driven as Steve Jobs is toward success, and as wealthy as he has become as a result, you may be surprised to learn that his motivations aren’t to make a ton of money. As told by some of his closest comrades, instead of being inspired by monetary success, Jobs is driven by his intense, abiding and passionate love for his company.

Those close to him can truly trust that he would to anything to see Apple succeed, and as those who have weathered the ups and downs and surprises brought by running a business know, sometimes that’s what pulls the company through.

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