How to Keep Going the Same Way: For Organizations and Other Planning Groups
Posted: April 4, 2011
Maybe this seems like a trite anecdote, but something very similar can happen in an organization! How do you keep your group on the same page, heading in the same direction, going the same route?
The answer: Strategic planning
Strategy: a careful plan or method : a clever stratagem b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal
Strategic: necessary to or important in the initiation, conduct, or completion of a strategic plan (Merriam Webster Online)
You have to have a plan if you are going to go the same way. Start asking Where are we going and what are we doing and how are we doing it?
Step 1: Make "The Plan"
• Consider what the overall goals and direction the organization is going.
• Ask: "What do we want and why?"
• Establish the overall goal: Make The Plan.
Step 2: Execute the Plan
• Make action steps: a short term plan of tasks that will start meeting The Plan. What steps can you be taking to make the plan happen?
• Be specific. Who is making these action steps happen? Who is keeping that person accountable? How is that person going to go about that task? What kind of financial funds do we have for this?
• Timeline! When does it need to happen? Let's do it! Or even more casual. Saying it is necessary. Can't assume these things.
• Keep it real. This is not the time for abstract plans in the vague future.
• Be manageable. What can be accomplished in a reasonable time with a reasonable amount of effort?
• Be specific. It's worth repeating.
Step 3: Utilize the Plan
• Make the strategic plan the lens by which to see everything else. The scales by which you judge the value of a decision. The Measuring stick. (Or whatever metaphor works better for you.)
• "Utilize": make decisions based on whether or not the proposed project will meet the Plan's goals
• If the decision would not fit The Plan but there are strong reasons to move forward with those new plans, consider whether or not The Plan itself needs to alter.
• Only alter The Plan if it becomes absolutely necessary.
Interested in more? Contact Tim Kelsey for bringing the Six Steps Program to your area for greater community training in organization structure.
By Dana Ray
