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Strategic planning.

Article Excerpt
Introduction

This checklist is for managers involved in considering the strategic position and direction of their organisation for the first time. It provides a framework of practice to draw on and encourages strategic thinking rather than imposing a sequence of steps to follow.

At the beginning of the 21st century, such is the pace of change, the growth of uncertainty and the diversity of customer expectations that the major risk to survival and success is in not planning. Strategic planning helps you manage the future; if you don't manage the future, the future will manage you.

There are no magic formulas; each organisation will be different. So getting the questions right is crucial to success. This checklist details the questions to address in the strategic planning process and should be read in conjunction with the checklists: Developing a strategy for world class business (009) and, Producing a corporate mission (067).

Strategic planning will provide the organisation with a framework for:

1. understanding the organisation's position in the marketplace

2. moving forward with a sense of direction and purpose

3. focusing on key issues such as quality, productivity and customers

4. better motivation and communication throughout the organisation

5. changing the organisation to deliver required results and profitability.

National Occupational Standards for Management and Leadership

This checklist has relevance to the following standards: B: Providing direction, units 1, 3

Definition

Strategic planning goes to the heart of what an organisation should do, why and how it should do it, and where it is going in the future. It is "a total concept of the whole business involving a framework and process that guides its future" (Napuk). Strategic planning addresses a number of basic questions:

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