Strategic Innovations, Inc.

Do you know where your organization is going? Can you clearly articulate your goals? How you are going to get there? What steps need to be taken, what investments need to be made, even who will manage this? All of these questions and many more can be answered through strategic planning. And even if you can answer these questions, perhaps the more important question is whether everyone else in your organization can answer these questions and are they working toward the same goals.

Strategic Innovations is able to provide a variety of services related to your strategic planning needs. Whether you need a short term action plan of say one year or a comprehensive long-term plan, we can assist with a variety of techniques and methodologies. Likewise, you may feel a “top-level” plan is sufficient with only high level information or you may want a more in-depth plan that provides action plans, assignments, and timeliness.

Does your organization really need a strategic plan? Consider some of these benefits of the strategic planning process:

• Clarify the organization's purpose/mission and tie these to realistic goals, objectives, time frames and resources for implementation;
• Identify activities or efforts that are not in alignment with the organization's mission;
• Communicate the mission and goals to the organization's stakeholders and other constituents;
• Develop a better sense of ownership of the plan with greater involvement;
• Improve the use of organization resources to focus on the highest priorities;
• Establish a baseline to measure progress against as well as targets to help identify “success”;
• Build consensus about where the organization is heading;
• Establish a clearer focus for the organization, which in turn produces improved efficiency and effectiveness;
• Provide a “bridge” between staff and boards;
• Build strong teams;
• Create a “glue” to help keep a board together and aligned.

As you may note, the process itself is the key to success of the strategic plan, probably more important than the actual document that is produced.

If you are ready to start working on a strategic plan, we invite you to consider using Strategic Innovations as your facilitator if:

• Your organization has not been through the strategic planning process before;
• You have been through the strategic planning process in the past, but you were unhappy with the results or felt it was ineffective;
• There are several ideas/concerns surrounding the strategic planning process;
• There are organizational issues that need to be addressed as part of the strategic planning process;
• You do not feel there is anyone in the organization with sufficient facilitation skills for strategic planning;
• No one is committed to facilitating the strategic planning process;
• No one has the time to commit to facilitating the strategic planning process;
• There may be a fear that using an “inside” facilitator will inhibit others from participating or in may frustrate the ability of the facilitator to participate themselves;
• There is a perceived or real need for an objective, third-party voice to facilitate the strategic planning process.

The Strategy Continuum

In addition to facilitating the planning process, Strategic Innovations can help with implementation of the strategy and making sure alignment exists with your strategies. As can be seen in the “Strategy Continuum” above, there are many stages to implementing and successfully executing the organization's strategy. The planning process provides you with a solid starting point and lays the groundwork for following actions. Once implementation starts, your organization will likely discover the need to build capacity, create new systems and processes, and a feedback mechanism will be needed.