Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies

✍ Scribed by Erica Olsen

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 387
• Edition: 3
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Create a roadmap for your company’s future success―the For Dummies way

Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies not only teaches you how to build a solid business strategy, but it gives you the tools to do it. Checklists, worksheets, and real-life examples guide you through answering your most pressing questions. Plus, all-new online resources make creating a lasting strategy easier than ever. Build a company vision statement, assess your strategic position, engage your team, and execute your plan―with easy-to-understand instructions and explanations that anyone can follow. This revised edition shows you how to adapt your strategy, plan for the unknown, and stay resilient through all the changes facing today’s businesses. Advice from For Dummies experts will make any business leader’s strategic dreams a reality.

• Learn the basics of how to create a long-term business strategy
• Create your mission and vision statements and a strategic framework
• Get organized, engage your team, and deploy your strategy through objectives and key results
• Access resources, worksheets, checklists and more―in the book and online

This is the For Dummies guide for business owners and C-suite executives who are building or rethinking their company’s strategy and planning a path for growth. It’s a big job, but you don’t have to do it alone. Dummies has your back.

✦ Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
What You’re Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Part 1: Kicking Off Your Strategic Planning Process
Part 2: Sizing Up Your Current Situation
Part 3: Defining Your Core Purpose and Envisioned Future
Part 4: Mapping Your Organization’s Path to the Future
Part 5: Living and Breathing Your Plan
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1 Kicking Off Your Strategic Planning Process
Chapter 1 What Is Strategic Planning Really?
Clearing Up the Confusion about Strategic Planning
Defining strategy
Understanding the importance of a strategic plan
Implementing the strategic management process
Identifying the components of a solid strategic plan
Answering the most frequently asked strategic planning questions
Who uses strategic plans?
Does every strategic plan include the same elements?
Just exactly what is strategic planning?
What’s the difference between strategic planning and long-range planning?
Does every organization need a strategic plan?
We’re highly successful already, so why should we plan?
Can a smaller company afford the time for strategic planning?
Why plan in a world that’s highly uncertain?
How can we be confident that our planning will be successful?
What is strategic thinking?
Identifying the Levels of Strategic Management
Getting Acquainted with the Strategic Plan’s Key Elements
Vision: Bringing things into focus
Strategy: Explaining the value you deliver
Goals and objectives: Empowering employees
Execution and evaluation: Ensuring success
Seeing the Signs: Why You Need This Book
Chapter 2 Why Strategic Planning Works
Strategic Planning Is the Most Used Tool by Executives
Not Having a Plan Is Too Risky
A Plan Is Required to Be a High Performer
What makes great companies great
What successful CEOs are spending their time on
Everyday Decisions Drive Long-Term Results
The day-to-day impact
The bottom-line result
Agility Is a Competitive Advantage
Everyone Wants to Be Part of Something Bigger
Tribal Knowledge Is Passed on to the Next Generation
You Can Clearly Explain (and Remember) Your Strategy
A Strategic Plan Eliminates Wasted Time and Money
Chapter 3 Getting Set Up for Successful Planning
Previewing the Elements of a Strategic Plan
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
How will we get there?
How will we measure our progress?
Before You Begin: Assessing Your Planning Readiness
Are we ready?
Is the climate right?
Taking a Look at the Strategic Planning Process and Timeframe
Phase 1: Determining your core purpose and envisioned future
Phase 2: Assessing your strategic position
Phase 3: Developing your strategies and priorities
Phase 4: Deploying your strategies to operations
Phase 5: Aligning your people and financial resources
Phase 6: Executing your plan
Selecting Your Planning Team
Getting everyone involved
The role of the CEO
The planning team members
Everyone else, regardless of position
Non-employees
The strategic plan manager
Determining who’s involved when
Going It Alone or Hiring a Facilitator
Running planning sessions yourself
Using a facilitator
Deciding whether a facilitator is a good idea
Finding a good facilitator
Smoothing Out Your Process
Chapter 4 Identifying Your Strategic Issues
Reviewing What Happened Last Year
Recognizing what you achieved
Understanding why you failed
Evaluating Your Products and Services
Picking the winners
Dumping the losers
Putting Your Portfolio Together (In the Market Attractiveness Framework)
Evaluating market attractiveness and business strength
Factors that affect market attractiveness
Factors that affect business strength
Creating your own matrix
Looking at Your Financial Performance
Understanding the financial dynamics of your business
Checking your liquidity
Gauging your risk levels
Monitoring your profitability
Measuring your productivity
Sorting out three-year trends
Trailing your numbers over 12 months
Evaluating your numbers
Seeing the Underlying Forces of Your Industry
Creating Your Short List of Strategic Issues
Part 2 Sizing Up Your Current Situation
Chapter 5 Assessing Your Business and Its Capabilities
Indentifying Your Organization’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Evaluating Your Organization’s Capabilities
Human capital: Having the right people in the right positions
Organizational capital: Getting a feeling for your corporate culture
Knowledge capital: Knowing what you already know
Examining Your Resources
Analyzing Your Processes
Operational processes
Customer management processes
Relationship management processes
Innovation processes
Other important process areas
Technology
Communication
Productivity
Checking Your Profit Margins
Identifying cash creators
Detecting cash drains
Chapter 6 Seeing Your Business through Your Customers’ Eyes
Getting to Know Your Most Valuable Customers
Identifying the 80/20 customer
Figuring out the lifetime value of your customers
Determining Why Your Customers Are Your Customers
Measuring satisfaction by the numbers
Obtaining feedback without using a survey
Spending time talking to your customers
Focusing on How You Deliver Value to Your Customers
Considering different business models
Using a business model to create value
Framing out your business model
Chapter 7 Researching the Market to Find New Customers
Gathering Information about New Markets
Identifying your information needs
Locating information sources
Internal company information
Secondary data
Primary data
Creating Your Target Markets
Dividing your market into groups
Benefits
Descriptors
Visualizing your target customer
Focusing on the Most Attractive Markets
Defining an attractive segment
Evaluating your target customer groups
Standing Out from the Crowd: Your Positioning Statement
Writing your positioning statements
Perusing examples of positioning statements
Reaching Your New Target Markets
The Four Ps: Neither a soul band nor a legume
The cycle of (product) life
Staying Market-Focused
Gathering relevant information
Sharing what you know
Responding to what you’ve discovered
Putting It All Together: Organizing Customer Information
Chapter 8 Identifying Your Opportunities and Threats
Starting Your SWOT Analysis
Seeing the Future
Finding Opportunities in Your Operating Environment
Identifying your economic indicators
Watching important social shifts
Staying on top of technology trends
Monitoring political winds
Flexing with demographic movements
Tracking Your Industry
Looming new competitors
Threatening substitute products
Bargaining power of suppliers
Bargaining power of buyers
Duking it out with your competitors
Analyzing Your Competition
Identifying your competitors
Direct competitors
Indirect competitors
Substitutes or new entrants
Gathering competitive intelligence
Isolating what you really need to know
Seeing the competitive field
Evaluating Your Market
Summarizing Your Opportunities and Threats
Finishing Your SWOT Analysis
Part 3 Defining Your Core Purpose and Envisioned Future
Chapter 9 Focusing on What You Do Best
Appreciating Your Competitive Advantage
Taking the 30-second competitive advantage challenge
Knowing what competitive advantage isn’t
Realizing what competitive advantage is
Discovering why having a competitive advantage is so important
Uncovering Your Advantages
What’s your distinct purpose?
How do you make money?
Why do customers buy from you?
Pinpointing Your Competitive Advantage
Perusing a few examples
Stating your competitive advantage succinctly
Putting your advantage to the test
Breaking away from the pack
Using Your Advantages Now
Implementing your advantages
Measuring your advantages
Putting your advantages in your plan
Chapter 10 Developing Your Mission and Values
Building Your Strategic Foundation
Assessing Your Mission
Elements of an effective mission statement
Evaluating your current mission statement
Writing a new mission statement
Evaluating Your Mission Statement
Fine-tuning Your Organizational Values
Elements of effective organizational values
Creating or updating your organizational values
Acting on your organizational values
World-Class Values Statements
Starting Your Strategic Foundation
Chapter 11 Envisioning Your North Star
Continuing Your Strategic Foundation
Visioning: Focusing in on Your North Star
Elements of an effective vision statement
Imagining your future — vividly
Creating or updating your vision statement and vision description
Futurecasting: Looking to the Future
Getting into the right frame of mind for futurecasting
Leaving your assumptions at the door
Working a strategic thinking exercise
Finalizing Your Strategic Foundation
Part 4 Mapping Your Organization’s Path to the Future
Chapter 12 Strategizing for Growth and Sustainability
Understanding the Difference between Strategy and Tactics
Strategy versus tactics
The levels of strategies
Business Unit-Level Strategies: Choosing Your Leading Strategic Focus
Applying your strengths to a business unit-level strategy
Leading with lowest total cost
Leading with product/service leadership
Leading with customer intimacy
Discovering why you don’t want to be stuck in the middle
Choosing the right business unit-level strategy for you
Market-Level Strategies: Strategizing How to Grow
Concentrating on market penetration
Delivering with product development
Extending scope with market development
Expanding geographically
Reaching into new market segments
Stepping out with diversification
Related diversification
Unrelated diversification
Deciding how to execute your growth strategy
Summarizing Your Selected Strategies
Chapter 13 Establishing Your Strategic Goals and Roadmap
Firming Up Your List of Strategic Alternatives
Paring down your SWOT
Identifying strategic alternatives
Sorting through your other alternatives
Evolving Alternatives into Priorities
Sorting out internal and external alternatives
Creating a short list of external priorities
Compiling a short list of internal priorities
Gut checking your priorities
Balancing Your Strategic Priorities
Financial priorities: If we succeed, how will we look to our shareholders?
Customer priorities: How do we provide value to our customers?
Internal priorities: What processes must we excel in to satisfy our customers?
Employee priorities: How must our organization grow and improve?
Turning Strategic Priorities into a Roadmap for Your Vision
Finalizing your strategies
Writing your long-term strategic goals
Making your short-term objectives SMART
Mapping your strategy
Building your roadmap
Assembling Your Strategic Plan
Evaluating Your Strategic Plan
Chapter 14 Putting Your Plan into Action with Objectives and Key Results
Using Objectives & Key Results to Deploy Your Strategic Plan
What are OKRs?
What do OKRs do?
Writing Great OKRs
Great objectives
Great key results
How OKRs Cascade Through the Organization
Getting Down to the Business of Deploying
Tips for deploying one level
Tips for deploying multiple levels
Stepping into an OKR process
Understanding How OKRs and KPIs Work Together
OKR/KPI structure
An example of how to build KPIs into OKRs
Tips to Streamline Large OKR Deployments
Chapter 15 Making Your Plan Measurable
What Are KPIs?
Identifying Meaningful Measures
Types of measures
Leading versus lagging measures
Aiming at Your Targets
Building Your Scorecard
Ensuring That Your Plan Makes Cents
Estimating revenue and expenses
Revenue
Expenses
Assumptions
Contributing to the bottom line
Projecting your financial future
Forecasting with indicators
Part 5 Living and Breathing Your Plan
Chapter 16 Execute, Execute, Execute: Putting Your Plan to Work
So You Have a Plan — Now What?
Avoiding the pitfalls
Covering all your bases
Making sure that you have the support
All hands on deck: People
Show me the money: Resources
If you build it, they will come: Structure
Plug it in, turn it on: Systems
Make yourself at home: Culture
Determining your plan of attack
Holding People (Including Yourself) Accountable to the Process
Appointing a strategic plan manager
Syncing individual action plans with compensation
Coaching for achievement
Making Your Plan a Living Document
Piecing out your plan by audience
Using a strategy execution system
Mastering the Art of Communicating Strategy
Making sure that everyone buys in
Rolling out the plan
Continuing communication
Chapter 17 Keeping Your Plan Alive with Reviews and Refreshes
A Standard Management Rhythm
Heartbeat of Your Management Process: Quarterly Strategy Reviews
Understanding the difference between strategy and operational reviews
Holding effective strategy review meetings
Using a scorecard to measure progress
Keeping a quarterly rhythm
Keeping Your Plan Working for You
Accepting change — the only constant
Adapting your plan as necessary
How to refresh your plan
Chapter 18 Scenario Planning: Answering the What Ifs
Grasping the Concept: What Is Scenario Planning?
Tackling Your Short-Term Uncertainties
Identifying immediate risks
Constructing possible alternative outcomes
Confronting Your Longer-Term Futures
Thinking about the big what ifs
Building alternative futures
Connecting scenarios to strategy
Considering Example Scenarios
Shell energy transformation scenarios to 2100
Four plausible futures from Arup
Part 6 The Part of Tens
Chapter 19 Ten Tips to Keep Your Strategic Plan from Hitting the Shelf
Getting Everyone Involved from the Start
Deleting the Fluff
Appointing a Strategy Leader
Creating a One-Page Strategic Plan
Hooking Achievement into Incentives
Using a KISS
Holding a Monthly Strategy Review Meeting
Using a Scorecard
Leading by Example
Celebrating Your Success — Whenever You Feel Like It
Chapter 20 Ten Tips to Holding Great Strategic Retreats
Use a Facilitator
Pull Together Key Research Before the Meeting
Invite All Voices
Hold Annuals and Quarterlies
Focus on the Meeting Outcomes, not the Agenda
Connect Everyone to the Strategic Planning Process
Build a Retreat for All Thinking Styles
Proactively Address the Elephant in the Room
Ending on a High Note
Pre-think About Life after the Meeting
Chapter 21 Ten Ways to Maintain Momentum in Your Planning Process
Create Your Picture of Success and Make It a Reality
Pick a BHAG
Eliminate Your Energy Drains and Recharge Yourself
Conquer Your Fears — Concentrate and Be Brave
Take Control of Your Finances
Create a Brain Trust
Find the Time
Highlight Small Wins
Let the Process Evolve
Chunk the Work into 90-Day Increments
Index
EULA