December 2, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Planning Process

I am convinced that the reason many organizations don’t develop a strategy to move them forward is due to the complicated and expensive process touted by most strategy development practitioners.

Numerous people gather in a room for a Strategic Planning Session, subject matter experts descend of the group and try to impress everyone with their detailed knowledge of the many governing factors that need consideration in the strategy building process, and many days are consumed (yes, I’ll say it: wasted) to get the essence of the strategy ‘perfect’. Notwithstanding the fact that a Plan will never be perfect no matter how much analysis and time is put into it, the all-consuming plan takes so much time and energyof the planning participants there is insufficient tme left to develop how the plan (fallacious perfection) will be executed in the trenches by real people.

Normally the services of a third party firm are used to both facilitate the session and provide expert content to the plan direction and efficacy. This is a clever way of avoiding having the people responsible for the Strategy’s success taking ownership of the direction taken by applying heir own opinions and good judgement. They are presented with material, ask questions about various aspects of it and in the end most of the time agree with it.

Given that eventually any strategy or plan must result in action, the BE DiFFERENT planning process is predicated on the premise: keep it simple, get to the gut issues quickly and ACT. Minimize the strategic essence planning time; maximize the implementation action planning time.

Here’s the process I have used both as an executive for TELUS where I was responsible for leading many different types of businesses of various sizes and competitive maturity. Answer 3 questions and you have your strategy:
    - HOW BIG do you want to be? Define your growth goals first.
    - WHO do you want to SERVE? Select the customer group that has the potential to deliver your growth goals.
    - HOW will you compete and WIN? Declare how will you BE DiFFERENT from you competition.

Cheers, Roy Osing
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Related blogs:
Change Leadership
Roy’s Rule of Three
Strategy Hawk
Plan on the Run
Cut the Crap
The Only Statement
Role of Your Strategy Document 
Line of Sight Execution
Avoid Aspirational Intent

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Posted 12.2.09 at 09:06 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment