By Mark Rhodes on July 2, 2010
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight D. Eisenhower One of the ironies of the recent oil spill debacle in the Gulf of Mexico is that it is the oil industry that is most often credited with devising and putting to use a strategicplanning tool […]
By Mark Rhodes on June 14, 2010
Nike makes shoes, right? Well, not exactly. Nike is a wonderful company with superb marketing capability. But Nike outsources the actual manufacturing process to someone else. So in that sense, Nike does not make shoes. Nike’s competitive work is the design and marketing of athletic shoes. Obviously, the company has succeeded for years at doing […]
By Carter McNamara on April 22, 2010
In Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of this topic, we reviewed the first 12 of the 15 questions to be answered during the “plan for a plan” portion of strategic planning. This Part 5 describes questions 13-15. 13. How will you get buy-in of members of the organization? There seems to be growing cynicism […]
By Carter McNamara on April 12, 2010
In the previous post (Part 3), we covered questions 7-9 of the 15 questions to address in the “plan for a plan.” This post (Part 4) explains questions 10-12. 10. What Materials Will Be Needed? For example, think about: Materials (books about strategic planning, flipcharts, markers, etc.) Equipment (overhead projectors, flipchart stands, white boards, etc.) […]
By Carter McNamara on April 6, 2010
In Part 1, we reviewed the first 3 of the 15 questions that should be addressed during the “plan for a plan” phase of strategic planning. In this Part 2, we review questions 4-6. 4. What is the Scope of Our Plan? It’s not uncommon that leaders believe that a long-term plan will somehow guarantee […]
By Carter McNamara on April 4, 2010
In this post, we’ll discuss one of the most important phases in strategic planning – a phase that far too often is forgotten, resulting in plans that sit untouched on shelves. The plan for a plan should be developed by a Planning Committee and should answer 15 important questions — do this before the planners […]
Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organizational development, consultant training and Action Learning services, and is developer of the Free Management Library. [Read more ...]