How to make strategic planning implementation work?

Keys to Strategic Planning Implementation Success These are the keys to effective strategic planning implementation for your business.
Full and active executive support, Effective communication, Employee involvement, Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis, and Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning.

Strategic planning is all about scheduling and prioritize work, it can be summarized as the following: • Specify your goals and objectives and your target • Have a good team with expertise in the field of the business that can help you to achieve your target • Make a market study to see the local market act and see how you can make better • Create a good environment with your team, be open with them in order to give more • Distribute the tasks on the team as per their specialties • Make sure that everyone is aware about his / her work and committed to it (commitment is so important to implement your plan) • Value and analyze your situation and try to see the weakness points and work on it, that comes by the feedback from the team and have regular meetings to evaluate the work)

Strategy implementation is defined as the process of manipulating (directly or indirectly) the pattern of interactions that an organisation has with its environment, in order to achieve its mission.
First, to acheive company mission, you need to analyze the external and internal environment to capitaize on the enablers and to work around barriers.
There are different tools to do this icluding PEST, Porter5 forces, scenario planning, SWOT and many others.
Second, strategy development which in its simplest form defines how the company proposes to overcome barriers and to make use of enablers in the environment to acheive its overall goal.
Third, identify citical success factors "the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure the competitive performance for the organisation".
Fourth, identify critical activities that must be completed to acheive the critical success factors.
Fifth, Organisational Designs, Processes and Systems: divide the activities between the various functions and allocate sufficient resources against each of the activities to ensure they can be delivered.
The above is a complete process and it is dynamic, which means that you should keep tracking Key Environmental Indicators (KEI), KPI for success factors and Key activities indicators (KAI) for critical activities and adjust the strategy accordingly ..

How to Make Strategic Planning Implementation Work It is most essential that a Simple, clear to understand and attainable strategic plan is drawn up The Bigger a company grows and the faster it is growing , the harder it is to get everybody on the same page.
But there is not a single page around which to align.
There is a possibility that there are a dozen pages, actual and imaginary, along with emails and memos, each purporting to describe the company’s vision, mission and strategy.
Many of these messages may be further riddled with unclear and even contradictory statements about who is your company, what it does and how.
As such it is imperative that a concise and comprehensive document called Strategic plan that clearly identifies and supports a company’s corporate strategy needs to be drawn up.
Further this strategic plan must be implemented in right earnest to achieve success.
Strategic planning is only a waste of time if once developed the plan is ignored.
Strategic planning is often done under duress because it is required.
Strategic planning is important yet many such plans are found on bookcases, not on the desktops being used.
It is observed that nine out of ten organizations fail to implement their strategic plan for many reasons: •60% of organizations don’t link strategy to budgeting •75% of organizations don’t link employee incentives to strategy •86% of business owners and managers spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy •95% of a typical workforce doesn’t understand their organization’s strategy.
A strategic plan provides a business with the roadmap it needs to pursue a specific strategic direction and set of performance goals, deliver customer value, and be successful.
However, this is just a plan; it doesn’t guarantee that the desired performance is reached any more than having a roadmap guarantees the traveler arrives at the desired destination It is of paramount importance to constitute a competent team for this strategic exercise which can make or break the company.
A leader intending to embark upon the designing of a strategic plan must decide who should be part of this team.
A Good to great leader “ first decides who should be on the bus ” Given that strategic planning and its implementation in the right earnest are vital for the survival of an organization in today’s competitive environment, we must thoroughly understand the following concepts.
In this direction let us first understand • STRATEGY Strategies are the broadly defined four or five key approaches the organization will use to accomplish its mission and drive toward the vision.
Goals and action plans usually flow from each strategy.
• GOALS & SMART GOALS After you have developed the key strategies, turn your attention to developing several goals that will enable you to accomplish each of your strategies.
Goals should be SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based.
• STRATEGIC PLAN a strategic plan provides a useful focus that energizes and moves the organization toward its mission goals, plus it provides a document to recruit others to the mission.
In short, a strategic plan is a valuable guide to focus time, talent, and resources in running a successful enterprise.
• STRATEGIC PLANNING when key stakeholders are invited to a creative thinking step, it engages and energizes all participants.
This is where new ideas are generated, where innovative possibilities are visualized, and where the stage is set for implementation success.
The more stakeholders are involved in the thinking and exploration, the more emotional and intellectual energy they have invested, and the higher the probability that implementation will occur successfully.
• STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals.
Implementing the strategic plan is as important, or even more important, than the strategy.
The critical actions move a strategic plan from a document that sits on the shelf to actions that drive business growth.
In order to build a good strategic plan the strategy planning team must ponder on pertinent questions like : Where is the industry or business heading? What do customers want or need next year and beyond? What are the trends in the industry or business sector? Given the trends, what are three new ideas you can add to your best product/services? Given the trends, what products or services should you change or eliminate? Given the trends, what new products or services should you consider? Both people and organizations need to establish a strategic framework for significant success.
This framework consists of: • a vision for your future, • a mission that defines what you are doing, • values that shape your actions, • strategies that zero in on your key success approaches, and • goals and action plans to guide your daily, weekly and monthly actions.
Organization's success and personal success depend on how well one is able to define and live by each of these important concepts.
In fact: • Watson Wyatt Work Study found out that Companies whose employees understand the mission and goals enjoy a29% greater return than other firms • Workplace2000 Employee Insight Survey reveals that Workers want their work to make a difference, but75% do not think their company's mission statement has become the way they do business What Is a Vision and a Vision Statement? A vision is a statement about what an aspiring organization wants to become.
It should resonate with all members of the organization and help them feel proud, excited, motivated, and part of something much bigger than themselves.
A vision should stretch the organization’s capabilities and image of itself.
The vision gives shape and direction to the organization’s future.
The vision is translated into actions via the development of a vision statement that expresses the overall vision.
Create a shorter vision statement because employees will remember their shorter organizational vision statement better than they will remember a long vision statement.
When employees internalize the vision statement, they take action to make the vision statement come true.
Strategic planning implementation is at the heart of how to make change of any kind happen in an organization.
Start by answering why your organization might want to embark on a strategic planning process and implementation.
It is a good enough reason to be one of the organizations, in which employees understand the mission and goals and enjoy a29 percent greater return than other firms.
Keys to Strategic Planning Implementation Success These are the keys to effective strategic planning implementation for a given business.
• Full and active executive support, • Effective communication, • Employee involvement, • Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis, and • Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning.
If one is implementing a strategic plan in an organizational environment that is already employee-oriented, with a high level of trust, one has begun the strategic planning implementation with a huge plus.
An additional plus is an organization that already thinks strategically.
Unfortunately, the implementation of strategic planning most frequently occurs as an organization moves from being traditionally reactionary to strategic.
So, often, learning to think strategically is part of the strategic planning implementation learning curve.
Full and Active Executive Support for Successful Strategic Planning Successful strategic planning implementation requires a large commitment from executives and senior managers, whether the strategic planning is occurring in a department or in a complete organization.
Executives must lead, support, follow-up, and live the results of the strategic planning implementation process.
Or, the strategic planning implementation process will fail.
It’s as simple as that.
Without the full commitment of the organization’s senior executives, don’t even start strategic planning.
Participants will feel fooled and misled.
A vision statement and a mission statement, along with this year’s goals, filed, unimplemented in a cabinet or computer, is a serious source of negativity and poor employee morale Keeping the strategic plan simple and clear with not too many strategies and goals : A Strategic Plan should not be an overwhelming plan : if the goals and actions generated in the strategic planning session are too numerous because the team failed to make tough choices to eliminate non-critical actions.
Employees don’t know where to begin.
Senior leaders can do the following to create a successful strategic planning implementation process.
The planning document should not be seen as an end in itself.
Establish a clear vision for the strategic planning implementation process.
Paint a picture of where the organization will end up and the anticipated outcomes.
Make certain the picture is one of reality and not what people “wish” would occur.
Make sure key employees know “why” the organization is changing.
Effective communication: The strategic plan must get communicated to employees, so that they are willing to contribute to the effort.
Appoint an executive champion or leader who “owns” the strategic planning implementation process and makes certain other senior managers, as well as other appropriate people in the organization, are involved.
The most common reason a plan fails is lack of ownership.
If people don’t have a stake and responsibility in the plan, it’ll be business as usual for all but a frustrated few.
Appoint a competent person to lead the effort to achieve each Goal It is further required that a competent person (who reports to the executive champion who owns the responsibility for the entire strategic plan implementation0 ) is duly is identified and entrusted with the responsibility for implementing each goal of the plan.
Accountability and high visibility help drive change.
This means that each measure, objective, data source, and initiative must have an owner.
Often One gets to notice the word “All” in the “responsibility” column of many strategic plans, it is a sure sign that no one owns the responsibility.
It may be that everyone should contribute to a goal in their own way, but one person (or a cross-sectoral team) must have the overall responsibility for implementation.
When no one owns the responsibility the implementation utterly fails.
Not only is everyone then clear of the chain of responsibility, it makes monitoring and evaluation much easier too.
It is essential to Make sure the strategies allocated to each person are related / meaningful to their job description.
It not uncommon to see the tasks given to people that are not a fit for their daily responsibilities.
Often organisations are observed to allocate responsibilities inappropriately because the right person for the job is “already too busy.” This is a signal for management to revisit resources or prioritise goals.
Integrate the Strategic Plan into your annual work plan The worst thing an organization can do is treat the strategic plan as separate to the core business.
If people feel they need to find extra time to work on implementing the plan, it just won’t get done.
This is a really useful way to assess if the plan’s goals are specific and measurable.
If one can’t list practical steps to achieve the goals, one is not in a position to implement the plan.
monitor / discuss strategic implementation plan regularly to measure progress and addition of goals to meeting agenda.
It is important to meet regularly to discuss the strategy implementation plan to see if the strategies are implemented as per the envisaged plan.
May be changes to the plan are needed! Having the strategic plan’s goals integrated into the meeting agenda gives a head start on monitoring and evaluation as you’ll soon see where progress is being made…or not.
Allocate requisite budget and resources It is of paramount importance not to forget to allocate a budget, or other necessary resources (including time!) to the team.
Last but not the least Celebrating accomplishments is a motivating stimulus! Acknowledge, Publicize and celebrate all team success.
It also pays to Celebrate the small steps along the way.
If a goal of the strategic plan has been attained, it is important to ensure that you let the team know this is a strategic plan outcome and it will motivate everyone to keep going.
Include the strategic planning responsibilities/objectives in job descriptions and therefore performance reviews.
That way more formal feedback and/or bonuses can be provided.
The above is a compilation of information on the subjects taught by respected Growth Gurus Verne Harnish and Susan Heathfield.
Thank you for providing me an opportunity to revisit this all important subject.
I seek your feedback if any.
best regards - Amrut Desai (people.bayt.com/amrut-desai-

These are the keys to effective strategic planning implementation for a business.
Full and active executive support, Effective communication, Employee involvement, Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis, and Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning.

I would suggest the following steps:1.
Scheduler - This will help you to plan on your target dates, organize your work and a reference for you to follow.2.
Initialize meeting with the team, department and other people involve.
Make sure that each person know their role and each person should give feedback on either daily or weekly basis.3.
Communication is a must, you must have constant information about the flow of the implementation and note down both negative and positive data.
Because this will help you analyze how the process is going properly and smoothly.
A daily Pep talk (a usually brief, intense, and emotional talk designed to influence or encourage people), would help both you and your team4.
Prepare a weekly and monthly report on the achievements and issues.
The reports helps as a record for future reference.

I concur with the answer added by Rana.
I'd like to add one thing - Commitment.
Any plan, once it is decided to implement it - should be executed right through its execution cycle.
Although it is important to monitor and tweak it during it's course to ensure all stakeholders benefit from it.

Strategic planning implementation is at the heart of how to make change of any kind happen in your organization. Start by answering why your organization might want to embark on a strategic planning process and implementation. Want to be one of the organizations, in which employees understand the mission and goals? They enjoy a29 percent greater return than other firms. This seems like a good reason to start strategic planning implementation to me. How about you?

Keys to Strategic Planning Implementation Success

These are the keys to effective strategic planning implementation for your business.

• Full and active executive support,
• Effective communication,
• Employee involvement,
• Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis, and
• Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning.

If you are implementing your strategic planning in an organizational environment that is already employee-oriented, with a high level of trust, you start the strategic planning implementation with a huge plus. An additional plus is an organization that already thinks strategically.

Unfortunately, the implementation of strategic planning most frequently occurs as an organization moves from being traditionally reactionary to strategic. So, often, learning to think strategically is part of the strategic planning implementation learning curve.

Full and Active Executive Support for Successful Strategic Planning

Successful strategic planning implementation requires a large commitment from executives and senior managers, whether the strategic planning is occurring in a department or in a complete organization. Executives must lead, support, follow-up, and live the results of the strategic planning implementation process. Or, the strategic planning implementation process will fail. It’s as simple as that.

Without the full commitment of the organization’s senior executives, don’t even start strategic planning. Participants will feel fooled and misled. A vision statement and a mission statement, along with this year’s goals, filed, unimplemented in a cabinet or computer, is a serious source of negativity and poor employee morale.

Senior leaders can do the following to create a successful strategic planning implementation process.

• • Establish a clear vision for the strategic planning implementation process. Paint a picture of where the organization will end up and the anticipated outcomes. Make certain the picture is one of reality and not what people “wish” would occur. Make sure key employees know “why” the organization is changing.

• Appoint an executive champion or leader who “owns” the strategic planning implementation process and makes certain other senior managers, as well as other appropriate people in the organization, are involved.

The main thing in successfull implementation of the strategic planning is countiniously measuring of the results and feed back control in order to take corective actions if achievments of the goals and objectives are not on a right way to be realized.

1. Most Important: Get Management concurrence and approvals on the strategy & make it formal across the organization or departments whichever is relevant

2. Ensure right ownership is assigned to the department heads along with timelines

3. Gives heads up to the department heads to figure out Risk Mitigations and Budgets

4. Create a Steering Committee and have frequent checkpoint calls to get status update

5. Post implementation have specific reviews on the tactical items developed or implemented

Ensure there is a project plan on any strategy to be executed so that timelines and ownership is clear.

In my opinion people of the company are responsible to make strategies work. For this strong Retention Strategy must be in place. Many good products and companies fail because of high man power turn over, as before strategic plan of the company takes off people who had been trained leave their job. My experience has been that strategic planning implementation is possible through committed employees only and for that backing of a strong retention strategy is foremost important.