The Annual Strategic Plan is Dead

A good deal of the corporate planning I have observed is like a ritual rain dance; it has no effect on the weather that follows, but those who engage in it think it does. Moreover, it seems to me that much of the advice and instruction related to corporate planning is directed at improving the dancing, not the weather.

~ J. Brian Quinn

If you read this column on a regular basis, you know that I have always been a strong proponent of strategic planning. In fact, over the last seven years I’ve probably devoted more column inches to strategic planning than to any other topic. So why have I suddenly changed my mind about the very process I’ve promoted as a key to business success?

I still believe strongly in strategic planning, but not the old-fashioned way of doing it. The annual strategic planning process is a laborious, time consuming exercise. It consumes weeks — and sometimes months – of valuable management time. Business executives cringe at the mere thought of developing the annual strategic plan.

Worst of all, the old planning model no longer works. After investing hours and hours in the process, the senior management team has an impressive tome to show for their efforts. But when it comes to the day-to-day challenges of running the business, they find little guidance or inspiration in the plan. And when a crisis arises, the annual strategic plan is often useless. Those old-fashioned plans usually end up in the bottom desk draw or tucked away on a shelf, never to be opened again.

It’s no wonder that many business leaders have become disenchanted with strategic planning and abandoned it altogether. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Trying to manage your business without concrete, measurable objectives and strategies to achieve them is like trying to steer a boat without a rudder and with no destination in mind. Rather than abandon strategic planning, abandon the outmoded process and adopt a model suited to today’s business environment.

Dynamic strategic planning

Let’s face facts. The world, the economy and the marketplace are changing constantly. Even the smartest business leaders can’t foresee all the opportunities and threats they will encounter over the next 12 months. The best strategy today may be the wrong direction six months from now. Businesses need a fluid strategic planning model, one that lets management review progress quickly and modify strategies as market conditions change.

The One Page Business Plan™ is a dynamic strategic planning model that works. It’s easy to use, so managers spend less time planning and more time implementing. It aligns the entire organization around the same objectives. It provides a scorecard for each objective, as well as regular progress reports and at-a-glance status checks. And it’s simple to update as business conditions or competitive strategies change. We’ve used the One Page Business Plan with a large number of local businesses and found it to be an effective tool for positive change.  So do our clients, who use it year after year and find the plans get better and better.

Case Study

Jones & Company is a regional company with a thirty year history of growth and good profitability.  However, the owner, getting older and wanting the company to succeed through a succession process, implemented a dynamic business planning model after understanding the benefits over the yearly planning cycle.  The first step was for him to write his One Page Plan with our help.  He crafted a Vision, Mission, one year objectives with metrics, strategies to achieve the objectives and action plans with dates to get the work done.  My job, as his guide, was to get his best thinking on paper—one piece of paper.  When we got it done he shared it with his team, got their input and suggestions and then assigned his team the same planning process for their specific area of responsibility.  Each person wrote their own plans, using the same process and methodology. When their plans met the criteria of “best thinking” all the plans were shared with the team (think team building).  Plans were reviewed, modified based on input.  Each month over the past three years, the team meets to review the plans and progress and talks about what was achieved in the previous month and what needs to be completed in the next month.  Plans are changed monthly if need be to reflect external or internal changes.  Plans get better, planners get better, accountabilities become clearer and the entire team has gotten more candid and more execution oriented.  Well, we did lose one member when it became clear that she simply could not think and act with enough clarity and purposefulness.  The rest of the team continues to utilize this very dynamic process, shares the results quarterly with the company, and the owner feels increasingly confident in the ability of these leaders to grow the.  As he said to me recently, “I have the right people in the right spots and we are going in the right direction.  We all know where we are going and are flexible in our approach to getting there. The process thoroughly engaged all of our management staff, and helped us build a strong team that is united behind our mission and vision.”

The annual strategic planning process is dead. Long live the new, dynamic strategic planning model.