It can sometimes feel impossible to balance strategic and operational plans, all while keeping up with change. Strategy management can tip the odds in your favour.
By Kris Cummings & Suhanya Ketheeswaran
Why do so many strategic plans lose fuel so quickly?
The answer often boils down to a couple of things. The plan might not have taken into account the day-to-day realities – i.e. the operations – of running the organization. (And so the time and resources required to put it all in place simply don’t exist.) Or the strategy gets paired with a highly detailed work plan that becomes obsolete in the face of change.
We’ve all experienced the shortcomings of planning. And in a changing or chaotic environment, it can seem impossible. Yet we know how important it is to have strategic priorities and well thought out objectives and strategies. Without a clear sense of either, we get stuck trying to do everything. Or we lose sight of what’s needed now, even as we’re running faster and faster to react to our environment. In both the short- and long-term, we can end up missing the mark for our stakeholders, and falling very short on our vision and mission.
But what if there was a way to tip the odds in our favour? Strategy management offers an approach for setting, implementing, and adapting our strategic priorities and our operations in an ongoing process.
In this article we’ll look at two key reasons why strategy management can become our go-to planning method:
- It sets organizations up for success by integrating our strategic priorities with new and existing operations; and
- It allows us to continually evaluate and adapt our strategies based on what the environment demands from us.
Using strategy management to integrate strategic priorities with operations
The first benefit of strategy management is that it takes our day-to-day operations into account right from the get-go. Initially, we start off the same way we would with traditional strategic planning: scanning the environment, considering impacts on our organization, and setting strategic priorities based upon what seems most important.
Where strategy management takes a turn is in the way we decide which objectives or strategies we’ll use to implement our priorities moving forward. We start by taking stock of all of our strategies – both new and existing, strategic and operational – and we decide what we’ll do with each one.
For each strategy or objective, we assess how well it will help us to achieve a strategic priority. We determine which ones we’ll:
- stop, because they’re no longer relevant;
- adapt, to make them current;
- keep status quo, because they’re working well; and/or
- develop as new, because we need to close a gap.
Once we’ve determined a course with each strategy, we can define success and project anticipated milestones (results and steps along the way) for each. The aim, however, is not to create a detailed, prescriptive implementation plan, but rather to chart an intended course that can easily be adjusted on the go. Which brings us to the next key feature of strategy management.
Using strategy management to adapt our strategies, and even our priorities, on the go.
A second main feature of strategy management is that it assumes that adaptation is a given, and bakes it right into the process. Strategy management allows us to continually evaluate and adapt our priorities and strategies based on what the environment currently demands.
Strategy management offers a three-step process to calibrate our priorities and implementation to date in 3-6 month increments. This includes assessing progress on 3 different things: milestones, larger strategies and objectives, and then the strategic priorities themselves.
We start by checking in on how our milestones are turning out (or not) in practice. Are they roughly on time, within scope, and producing results? If not, what modifications do they need?
Next we look at our larger strategies or objectives. Based on the current progress of our milestones, do we need to add any new actions or even adapt the strategies or objectives themselves?
Lastly, we check in on our strategic priorities. Based on the insights we’ve gathered thus far, emerging trends in the environment, and progress to date, do the priorities themselves need to be modified?
Organizations can build this 3-step process into leadership and board meetings, and organize them as quarterly or semi-annual check-ins. This creates the opportunity to make adjustments to priorities and operations, based on the environment and implementation to date.
A dual approach for planning and navigating change
Strategy management makes it possible for organizations to integrate strategic and operational planning – and discard, adjust, or develop strategies based on what the environment demands. It avoids a split between strategic and operational planning. It makes it possible to change priorities, strategies, and objectives – with focus and intention. And together, this means avoiding a growing chasm between aspirational planning and implemented reality. It also means we can change as needed, without feeling like we’ve failed to implement our plan. In this way, strategy management allows organizations to respond to a changing environment in a way that is intentional, feasible, and geared to results.
Get in touch with DO/ABLE!
Organizations today are operating against a backdrop of constant change. And our past planning methods no longer feel up to task. Strategy management allows organizations to remain responsive without sacrificing their strategic priorities. This kind of approach is particularly helpful in times of change. If you’d like to chat about how you can put strategy management in place at your organization, we’d love to connect! Click here to contact DO/ABLE today!
