The first thing that you would want to plan out when you’re starting a business
is your vision statement. The vision statement is one of the important parts of
a strategic plan because it provides a short summary highlighting what your
business is going to look like in the future. After the vision is important to
develop a mission statement and that kind of goes along with the vision. Next
you would plan out the objectives to work towards your goal. A very important
part after that is your strategy plan. This is where you make the actual plan
on how you will achieve these goals. When you figure out your strategy then
you plan your approach and tactics. Part of this approach is allocating resources
and hiring the right people to help you do that. Hiring people who will help
you start a successful business. Assign your team responsible for implementation.
Make sure that you have review meetings and talk about what needs to get
done and how you will accomplish these things. Watch over everything and
make sure that you are willing and able to adjust things if they need adjusting.
To evaluate an effectiveness of a strategic plan, the manager ensure that they
do proper planning in terms of allocating the right resources, helps Walmart to
avoid misusing resourcing for irrelevant uses. Good leadership leads to proper
execution of the whole project ensuring the resources are well spent and all the
reserves are accounted for. Proper organizing of the project will entail your
project a name, setting a date for the project should be completed, ensure you
create a broad project category. Have a space to make amendments by revising
and add due dates. Walmart can ensure control by the formation of standards,
measurements of actual performance and the comparison of actual performance
with the standard performance. Staffing plan provides for any non-labor resources,
tools, equipment, processes required by the project team to undertake the
assigned tasks. The most important piece of information when determining
effectiveness is the facts or the statistics backed up by bibliography since you
are looking for these facts and the bibliography will enable to study further
obtaining more information. Assuming that the strategic plan was well thought
out before it was implemented, I would first compare it to the company's values
and mission statement. I believe it is important to stay in alignment with core
values while building because it is very easy to veer off of the path if you
don't keep it in mind while making major strategic plans. We can measure
effectiveness by performance and analyse the results. How profitable are we?
How happy are our clients? How happy are our stakeholders? How happy is
our staff? there are so many ways to evaluate success and it is totally
dependent on the company. I think the most important piece of information to
consider when determining effectiveness is what impact are we having on the
world and in our industry and if it aligns with our core intentions for the
company and its output. The four functions of management are planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling. To be a successful manager, you must do
all four while managing your work and team. These are the foundations of any
professional managerial position. On top of this, there are other skills and
specialized knowledge related specifically to the job you manage. The concept
of how management should interact with personnel was first codified by Henri
Fayol, a French mining engineer. He developed a general theory of business
administration and management functions, which developed into the four functions
of management. Without these four pillars of management supporting those other
responsibilities, nothing is going to get done on time and within the budget. If
you’re managing yourself or teams of workers, you need to understand these
fundamentals of management, which are the basis of management skills. Of
course, the four functions of management are theoretical. When you’re ready to
put them into practice, you’ll need hybrid work management tools that let you
connect with your co-workers and teams wherever they might be working. It’s
part of the core responsibilities of a manager, no matter what your
organizational structure is.
1. 1.Tie to strategic objectives. Some metrics will be financial, such as
profit, revenue and cash flow. ...
2. Keep it simple. Don't overload staff with too many KPIs to track. ...
3. Maintain up-to-date data. Be sure your measures include the latest data
and are reported promptly within your company. ...
4. Use dashboards.
A strategy is effective if it uses the resources, you allocate according to your
plan and delivers the expected results. You have to continually evaluate use of
resources and performance to check if your strategy is hitting your targets. I
will evaluate the effectiveness of my strategic plan by first setting goals. For
example, if I want to increase my restaurant’s revenue by 10% in 6 months. I
will determine how I plan to achieve that goal and what changes I need to
make. After six months, I will measure the restaurant’s performance by gathering
all the information. Then I will analyse the results to decide whether the
strategic plan has more advantages than disadvantages. Finally, I can adjust the
strategic plan to achieve better results and help increase the effectiveness of my
strategy.
The most critical information to determine effectiveness is the method used to
measure performance. The results from the six months can be compared to past
data and help make informed future decisions. It can also determine what
strategies have worked and which ones need to be adjusted or eliminated. I
think measuring business performance to compare and make decisions is very
important because technology constantly evolves. Strategic planning expands a
company's vision and mission that acts on meeting goals and achieving success.
It has a significant contribution and maps out a company’s vision to grow an
organization's potential toward maximizing innovation and overall execution. A
company can be impacted (cause and effect) greatly in the event that a
company plans strategically since it helps identify areas of improvement and
growth. Organizations face many changes when setting new priorities that involve
strategic planning. It’s important to assess areas within the plan to understand
current external and internal environments that evaluate performance, culture, and
data performance. It’s important that a company understands the relationship
within each group and set new priorities that demand changes the organization
needs to address. To make corrective actions an organization should investigate
any pitfalls and immediately compensate for errors by revising and updating
goals. If a company develops a new product or expands its operations a well-
designed strategic plan can help the business grow and respond to opportunities
at large. Overall, planning in an ever-changing industry or world and with
advancing, technologies businesses face challenges that require strategic planning
and coordination. It is important that once you create a strategic plan, to
evaluate the progress and effectiveness .I would evaluate my strategic plan by
choosing the metrics I evaluate carefully and then create milestones for each
component. The action plan developed to support your business strategy should
list the metrics you will track and then divided into milestones with a projected
timeframe to complete the task. Milestones can be such tasks as the launch of
a website, purchasing a piece of equipment or a vehicle, hiring key staff or
obtaining a business loan. Your metrics should be clearly tied to your strategic
objectives and move your employees toward the actions you want. The metrics
you choose should not be to many that could complicate tracking as well as
your team should be trained on how to track the metrics. Without training, the
data may not be updated or monitored correctly, which could in turn jeopardize
the implementation of your strategic plan. Maintaining up to date data is also
important to ensure the most accuracy evaluation results as possible and increase
the chances of effectiveness in your company’s strategic plan. To measure the
effectiveness and efficiency in an organization strategy, you have to examine
how it links your objectives to the way you plan to achieve them and the
means you plan to use. A strategy is effective if it uses the resources, you
allocate according to your plan and delivers the expected results. You have to
continually evaluate use of resources and performance to check if your strategy
is hitting your targets. To monitor the effectiveness of your strategy, you have
to establish base values from before strategy implementation and track your
progress. TSI Consulting discusses the importance of evaluating your progress and
pivoting, when necessary. For your measurements to be useful in a continuous
evaluation of strategy effectiveness, the targets have to be achievable and
relevant to the strategy, and the results must be available in a timely fashion,
so your evaluation is current. For example, you can implement a strategy to
increase sales by 1,000 units over three months from a present level of 8,000
units. The sales values are specific and relevant, and you can measure them
rapidly to get up-to-date results. I will evaluate it based on the employees, if
a strategic plan is executed well it will show with the employees. Employees
only know what they are taught or shown, depending on how a company is
being ran. My old job my supervisor would always tell us your performance
when I leave for vacation or not in the office will tell people just how I am
as a supervisor. So if we want to see just how well a strategic plan is going
talk to the employees and watch how they respond to management is there any
respect there. They will let you know, their body language and how they
respond to management. To me the important piece when determining the
effectiveness is looking at the mission statement. I would look at this to
determine the company growth. The mission statement will allow you to see the
plan they have and have they done at least two or three things in the mission
statement. The employees are very important to this, because without the
employees you are not able to perform the mission statement and if the mission
statement is truly being executed it will reflect in the employees, growth of the
company and numbers. The effectiveness of a strategic plan is based on how
well the plan is prepared and executed. The overview of the strategic plan
should have important bullet points that are critical to how a company should
prepare. Where is the company, at present time is a leading factor. Having a
realistic mind frame about where the company stands should be understood. This
will lead the company into a new question of where the company would like
to go. How will this company move forward with what talent, product, ideals
and culture it has. As ambitious as a company can be there are risk and
threats that need to be addressed. Figuring out what those threats are should be
part if the plan. What will get in the way of the company's success is
noteworthy. Being specific about what need to be done to achieve the overall
goal needs to be included in the strategic plan. This all has to be in alignment
within the organization. Alignment with the leadership or leadership team must
exist. Alignment with the mission and vision must be solid. Alignment with the
organization in totality. Employees, management, culture all must be intact.
External analysis or input should be first to be questioned. SWOT is a proper
tool to figure this out. You must have an idea of what is happening inside
the organization. Follow-up with an internal analysis. Gauge where the
stakeholders are, or where management input can come in handy. Survey the
room. See if the vision is the same as where the company wants to be.
Mission and goals are parallel. The tactics need to see the strategy through.
Planning leading, organizing, and controlling will follow. Planning helps the
organization by choosing the most accurate goals and courses of action is best
in planning. It provides a blueprint of how to achieve the goals. Organizing is
simply the assignment of task and authority relations that allow the organization
employees to work together to achieve the goals. Leading will allow managers
or leaders to motivate and coordinate. They will inspire and individuals or teams
to work together and push toward the goals. Lastly is the controlling stage. It
is a measuring tool and monitoring system to ensure the accuracy of how well
the organization is doing be achieving its goals. This is overall highly critical
to the success and wellness of the organization, however, the most important is
the planning. Planning is the first step to building toward success and without
it the leading, organizing and control will not exist. When evaluating the
effectiveness of a strategic plan, you must first understand the definition of
strategic pan; the strategic plan is a way to provide the organization with a
way to define the purpose, vision and future of said organization. To evaluate
the effectiveness of said plan you must record the progress of your company
by determining the future of the company and how the company is heading
now. You have to be able to assess the situation of the organization to see if
the objective has been met or if the plans that you set up have failed and
why it has. It cases such as these the organization has to rely on what we
learn previously the component of strategic planning: SWOT analysis, vision,
mission, core value, goals and objectives. These components are most valuable
to effectiveness of said strategic planning.The most important piece of information
to consider when determining effectiveness are the components that I mentioned
because they help manage the work environment between the employee and the
employer while keeping the vision of the organization as the main goal. Because
strategic planning forces companies to adopt a long-term view, it helps them
better prepare for the future, setting them up to initiate influence instead of just
responding to situations. It also strengthens communication between employers and
employees. In strategic planning, leaders gather data and decide on the path the
organization will take to achieve its goals. With strategic thinking, employees at
all levels and in all functions continually scan for new ways to contribute to
the organization’s success.Strategic planning makes organizational goals and
objectives real, and employees can more readily understand the relationship
between their performance, the company’s success, and compensation. As a result,
both employees and managers tend to become more innovative and creative,
which fosters further growth of the company.The purpose of strategic control is
to steer a business toward its long-term goal by controlling its strategic
direction. The strategic control definition states that the process tracks a strategy
during its implementation period and detects changes or problems that may affect
the outcome. It then makes adjustments to avoid such problems. When evaluating
the effectiveness of a strategic plan, you need to look at all of the different
levels. Starting with making sure that your strategic plan is in-line with your
visions and goals. These may have changed over time, so make sure that it is
the current vision and goals that you are working with and not back tracking.
The next thing that you want to evaluate is SWOT and the balance scorecard.
Making sure that you do not ignore SWOT and find your company failing to
fix the weaknesses and threats as well as capitalizing on the strengths and
opportunities. Make sure you have a strong team working with you on your
plan. Listen to their input and take into consideration that what they bring to
the table could make something even better. Let them play devils advocate, as
this can help work out any kinks in the plan. Pay attention to the actual
structure of your company and if the plan that you are working on fits or will
you need to do some restructuring of the company. Evaluating an effectiveness
to a strategic plan would not overwhelm your business or employees it is
intended to drive results. For example, place measurements on three areas of the
organization objectives. Looking into the internal and external objectives with the
plan on how you can achieve them within the plan. oo It will only effective if
the resources are used on the metric objectives that are tied to the plan. Ask
in planning scenario for the long-range planning what should be stopped, what
is not working? oo An evaluation of the strategy plan needs to happen yearly in
my opinion to explore the planning, leading, and controlling within the
organization or department. o The last process is determining what is working
and how can it be improved or updated to current business trend.The important
piece of information to consider the effectiveness of strategy is the employee
input. Coming up with the three-step process strategy plan looking at employee
onboarding/continue training. My management asked the three questions – Is there
something we should be doing, what should be stopped or is not working, and
what is working and needs to continue. Our organization is always trending to
the next generation of technology which means processes are constantly evolving.
Listening to net promoting process with employees was showing metrics that
were failing in employee satisfaction and security. Stepping back to monitor and
evaluate developed a strategic plan on what needs to happen. Remember is the
employees are not considered important input then business will struggle in many
areas. The effectiveness in planning session broke down important components
that will be targeted this calendar year. Well to evaluate the effectiveness of a
strategic plan you have to examine hot it links your objectives to the way you
plan to achieve them and the means you plan to use. the strategies are effective
if it uses the resources, you allocate according to your plan and delivers to
expected results. I think you need to take a look at all the aspects of a
strategic plan, planning, leading, organizing and controlling. Some will be more
important than others or useful then others. I think you need to look at what
the goal is for the future for the company and go from there what you want
to do. I know with my company my goal is to grow my company bigger,
have some loyal customers, which I do already have a few and they have been
spreading the word to friends and family. and to be able to hire some
employees eventually, so it's not just me working and I have some people that
I can rely on and that will help with making my company better. To evaluate
the effectiveness of a strategic plan there must be a time set aside to do a
feedback session to discuss what is working, what is not working, what
improvements need to be done, if the plan is still aligned with the
organization’s objective. If the results expected are not being delivered, this
could be a result that the plan is not working and needs to be modified. If
the plan was not attainable or measurable, it will most likely not reach the
expected result. Strategic plans are just what they are, they are plans. Plans can
be changed or tweaked at any time. Once it realized that it is not effective,
changes should be made to ensure avoid costly mistakes. Your vision provides
support for a strategic plan and typically outlined an organization's overall goals
and states the purpose of the company to exist. For these reasons is why i
feel the vision and mission are important information to consider. The
management process designs and manages an atmosphere in which workers,
working together in groups, achieve selected goals effectively. When looking at
the strategic planning efforts consisting of planning, leading, organizing, and
controlling some tend to think the effectiveness of the strategic plan are based
on the final results of the given focus. I think the way I would look at
evaluating the process would go a little deeper beyond the final outcome, I
would try to look at each step of the strategic plan and understand the value
and guidance each section had given to the final outcome. I believe this is the
only way to ensure the effectiveness of the strategic plan was developed
correctly. Taking this information into account for the next strategic plan could
benefit an organization by reducing some of the issues that arose on the way
to completing the goals outlined and generate an even better outcome for future
endeavors. I don’t believe that there is a single piece that is greater than the
other when it comes to strategic planning, I believe that each section has a
vital part in obtaining the goals of the organization. To look at an individual
section within the plan and say this is the reason why this plan was effective
misses the guiding principles from other sections of the plan that might have
helped the other sections be successful. This is why I believe that in order to
have a successful strategic plan in place the organization needs to value each
section to ensure the goals are met. Evaluating the effectiveness of a strategic
plan determines is the plan was measurable and what the expected results would
be. Strategic planning is the method of recording and directing your small
company by determining where you are as well as where you are going. The
strategic plan provides you with a place to document your purpose, vision, and
principles, as well as your long-term objectives and the action plans that you
will use to achieve them. A well-written strategic plan will play a vital role
in the development and progress of your small company. When your plan is
fully implemented, you will measure its overall success by asking to what
degree it has accomplished the objectives you have set with the funds you have
allocated. You have to assess where your action plan has failed if your project
has not met its targets or used up extra resources. Without these four
management functions/aspects, you can not assess effectiveness: planning, leading,
organizing, and controlling. They are inter-related and cannot be skipped. The
management process designs and manages an atmosphere in which workers,
working together in groups, achieve selected goals effectively. The three major
strategy types include Cost Differentiation (or low cost leadership), differentiation
(from a product or service perspective), and finally focus (or niche). A couple
of examples that I can think about includes Walmart, which implemented a low
cost differentiation strategy and Hot Topic, which uses a niche strategy type.
Many organizations use hybrid strategies, which uses characteristics from the
three major strategy types. This is sometimes referred to as a best value
strategy. oo
It is important for a company to properly recognize how they want to operate
and take the steps to implement the right strategy type. An organization that
targets a specific market population should make sure that their products or
services are tailored to meet the demands of that group. If an organization
selects a low price strategy, then it has to make sure their business model
allows selling products or services at a discounted price. To evaluate the
effectiveness of a strategic plan you could examine how it connects your
objectives to the way you plan to achieve them and the means you plan to
use. You could check up on the progress of your strategy on a regular and
scheduled basis to see if your plan is still on track. I believe that performing
a situation analysis, self-evaluation, and internal/external competitor analysis could
also evaluate the effectiveness of a strategic plan. The most important piece of
information to consider when determining effectiveness is whether or not you
know your mission and vision. Your mission aligns your people and your
organization, it is the thing that will help you accomplish your vision. It helps
you focus your team on what you need to work on the be better and
successful as well as what you don't need to waste time working on. Your
vision provides support for a strategic plan and typically outlined an
organization's overall goals and states the purpose of the company to exist. For
these reasons is why i feel the vision and mission are important information to
consider. When evaluating the effectives of a strategic plan, you must determine
if the strategic plan was measurable. Once that has been determined, then it
must be decided what were the expected results. To evaluate the effectiveness
of a strategic plan there must be a time set aside to do a feedback session
to discuss what is working, what is not working, what improvements need to
be done, if the plan is still aligned with the organization’s objective. If the
results expected are not being delivered, this could be a result that the plan is
not working and needs to be modified. If the plan was not attainable or
measurable, it will most likely not reach the expected result. Strategic plans are
just what they are, they are plans. Plans can be changed or tweaked at any
time. Once it realized that it is not effective, changes should be made to ensure
avoid costly mistakes. My current employer requires performance reviews. During
those performance reviews each employee provides goals and those goals are
encouraged to align with the organization’s values. During the conversations with
management, they would say make sure the goals were attainable and
measurable. In my opinion, the most important piece of information to consider
when determine effectiveness, is the results. If the results are not being
monitored, that means the performance is not being evaluated. This could result
in resources not being used in the most effective way. On the flip side that
may be more resources that need to be allocated in order to achieve the results.
Not monitoring the results could also lead to costly mistakes that could impact
the organization in a negative way. When thinking about the aspects of
planning, leading, organizing, and controlling through the strategic planning
process there are many things that can be done to measure success and evaluate
the effectiveness of the strategic plan for a company. I really enjoyed the
readings this week and specifically the callout to the "strategy graveyard" which
is strategic implementation. A company can have all the strategy plans in the
world but if structure falls before strategy and if there is no alignment in the
organization on the strategic priorities then implementation and effectiveness will
lose every time. When the leadership team is reviewing and conducting the
SWOT analysis and defining the key measures of success on their balanced
scorecard, it is imperative that the objectives of the strategic plan are clearly
defined and are written in the way that it is clear what will be true if the
objective and goals are met. From there, the leadership team needs to have
transparent and clear communication consistently across the board so that the
business is in alignment on the priorities of the strategic plan and understand
how each and all can make an impact on its success. Finally, the most
important piece of information to consider how to evaluate effectives will be
that the inputs and outputs are in alignment with the business values, as well
as the appropriate awards system is in place to invent ethical behaviours to
help the organization win in the right way. Strategic planning involves analyzing
the organization's positive opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses. Also,
strategic planning determines how to position the organization to compete
effectively. oo Strategic planners provide detailed analyses of a company’s internal
and external and apply them to quantifiable areas like prices, costs, margins,
market demand, production runs, and head counts. The executives allocate the
growth annually and based on the analysis, the company adjusts the vision,
goals, mission, and values. The executive team will implement the new strategies
in their company planning. The most important part of strategic planning is
planning and goals. I was a Market Operations Manager at my previous
employer, and our duties were to plan our projects and ensure our goals were
effective. More than often some of our Market Leads' goals were not specific,
and the data used was not well thought out. To be more effective when
aligning your company objective and goals implement a system that manages
your progress. As a leader, I always kept a spreadsheet for my recording to
make sure my goals were on their stated task. oo I watch my timeline carefully
and automated my projects. If all the ideas and concepts are created in a closed
room and they aren't open shared in a consistent way, then it leaves the vast
majority of the organization in the dark. This, in turn, creates misalignment
because the understanding of the why, how, and what isn't clear and all just
continue on in their day to day. As to your question on rewarding ethical
behaviors, I would refer to the Wells Fargo example in our reading. Their
rewards system was focused heavily on growth in accounts and their core values
were not strong enough to counter balance the unethical behaviors and activities
that led to team members cloning and creating fake accounts to hit objectives.
The goals were unrealistic and the leadership team didn't reinforce the right road
to take to get there, leaving team members to make poor decisions. Leaders
and front line team members must clearly understand the goals, their role in
helping the company win, and ensuring core values are not overlooked to
achieve them. Businesses do themselves a big disservice if they don't put a non-
strategic plan into action. An organization's business model, as well as new
missions and innovations, are explained more clearly with the aid of strategic
planning. Communication is one of the most crucial planning procedures in a
business. Employee performance and purpose alignment are both improved when
they are aware of a company's plan. For the team to establish what works and
what doesn't, a well-organized strategy should be documented and examined on
a monthly or quarterly basis. Linking the objectives and or goals, is essential.
The use of SWOT is an effective tool. Know that is will more likely that the
organization will fail if it is not grasped by all throughout the organization.
Top to bottom and vice versa, will have to buy into the goal. This is why
the planning, leading, organizing, and controlling is so important. A company
with a strategic plan can predict significant growth in earnings and sales revenue
over the coming year. Strategic planning broadens a business vision and mission
which drives goals toward success. It lays forth a company’s vision for
expanding its organization's potential to spark innovation and ignite growth. It
helps identify opportunities that would otherwise not be present and help further
develop new opportunities and development. When establishing new priorities
several changes must occur to begin evaluating the present internal and external
areas for improvement. A company with a strategic plan can predict significant
growth in earnings and sales revenue over the coming year.
