When you read papers, magazines or listen to the news today, do you wonder what happened to Business Strategy or Strategic Planning? Strategic plans deal with reaching your organization’s future goals within a two to five year time frame. It should be the touchstone in making decisions about the allocation of resources necessary to achieve an organization’s vision. The importance of a strategic planning roadmap is well stated in this dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat (Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Chapter 6).
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where–" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"–so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
So, if strategic plans are so important to business success, why is it that completed plans so often only sacrifice trees and collect dust? I believe this disconnect between strategic planning and day-to-day execution (called Project Management) is the direct result of how the strategic plan is built. When project managers are not part of the strategic planning process, there tends to be a lack of grounding in what can be done and how it should be accomplished.
If you are interested in my thoughts on this subject, I have recently written an article on The New Face of Strategic Planning—Bridging it with Project Management is the Key to Success. Two web sites have been kind enough to publish my article.
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-new-face-of-strategic-planning.html
http://www.pmforum.org/library/tips/2009/PDFs/apr/McGraw-New-Face-of-Strategic-Planning.pdf
And the original article is avialble at the Cognitive Library.
As always, I would welcome your thoughts and comments on this post.
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