5 Tips for a Better It Strategic Plan

If you are reading this article, I’m willing to bet that you have just read your organizations previous strategic plan and are looking for some tips. Many of us have been through strategic planning processes that felt good in the beginning but became just another document that sits on the shelf. I’m a firm believer that in order for a strategic plan to be meaningful, it must also be relevant and have a direct tie to daily operations. Most importantly It must be executed not just created. My favorite quote on execution that applies to strategic planning comes from the Harvard Business Review

“ Execution is the result of thousands of decisions made every day by employees acting according to the information they have and their own self-interest¹

In other words, if the daily decisions of your employees do not align with the strategic plan it will never be successful. This article contains a few suggestions for making sure your strategic plan is a useful tool that guides your operations.

Consider a Strategic Direction

What is the difference between a Strategic Plan and a Strategic Direction? The answer is, decision making. Strategy by its very definition involves an overall picture of the situation. It is general guidance and should not be prescriptive. If your strategic plan has a list of goals you hope to achieve and then a defined list of projects that align with those goals from the very beginning, you haven’t put together a strategic plan. You have put together a project portfolio. Many organizations confuse strategic plan with project/portfolio plan. To get past this mental barrier, consider using the term strategic direction. This helps senior leaders conceptualize what you are trying to accomplish. It also encourages the team writing the strategic direction to stay “out of the weeds.” The responsibility of developing “plans” then falls to the lower levels of the organization. Not only does this provide room for innovation, it lets the departmental managers feel like they are a part of the overall organizational goals.

Be Strategic, but Operational

So many strategic plans out there are incredibly generic. Things like “increase shareholder value” or “invest more in research” seem to be included as a goal in every strategic plan. While we certainly strive to achieve these goals, they are very obscure. They don’t guide decision making. A strategic plan should be a tool that can be used to help the organization. A tool that doesn’t get used is a waste of time and resources. If you want your strategic plan to make a difference in your organization, it needs to be usable. Consider these example strategic plan goals:

Example 1:

Increase student enrollment by 10% by increasing the number of distance education programs offered by our institution.

Why it Works:

It tells everyone in the institution that they need to be spending time building online programs. It guides professional development activities. It guides IT purchases. It guides facility decisions. It also guides faculty who are developing courses. It lets department chairs create plans for which programs should be converted to an online format.

Example 2:

Decrease time to market by 10% through a 20% expansion of research and development.

Why it Works:

Everyone knows that decreasing time to market is a goal. They also have a target for how much they need to reduce time to market. The research team knows they are getting a 20% expansion. More importantly they know it’s ONLY 20%. HR knows they need to process more transactions, and what the reason for the increase is.

These two goals share a common theme: They allow people to make decisions in alignment with the goal without making decisions for them