Strategic Planning Part 3: Build your Operational Plans

Identify a Vision? ✅

Develop the Strategy?  ✅

Build an Operational Plan? 🚧

We find too often that organizations and companies will make the investment in time and funding to identify a vision and even build a Strategic Plan with a dedicated team and then NOT integrate the operational or annual planning effort to the outcomes from those activities. But who needs a Strategy to know what you need to do today? Acknowledgement of this potential gap, setting into motion activities and initiatives that are disconnected from your strategy, is where many organizations first recognize the need for a strategy. 

If you followed the approach to use your vision to develop your strategy, then using your strategies to build your operational plans will simply be a matter determining not just priority, but sequence in which you should develop your strategies. 

If Vision sets the WHY, and strategies set the WHAT and WHO, then operational plans help define the WHEN

While developing strategies, you should have identified gaps and the investments that would be needed to fill those gaps. Those investment opportunities are the road map for the initiatives needed to meet future business requirements. However, your strategic initiatives have to be broken down into a sequence of smaller initiatives and programs which allow a business to evolve and validate. 

Enabling your Vision

You may ask why breaking down those investments is required. Why not just fund and start all of those strategic initiatives and achieve everything desired? You might be a part of company or organization where the cash flow to fund that level of investment actually exists. So why not just take advantage of all the effort put into the vision and strategies and get it all? The answer is actually quite simple: you cannot achieve it all operationally because your operational plan is where the rationalization occurs and evaluation of portions of your vision that were transformed into strategies gets tested in the real world and assumptions you used build that vision. You purposefully allowed for only loosely validating vision components, and your strategies integrated those components to set direction. However, your operational plans is the first time you get to see what happens when you introduce those visionary and innovative strategies into the world. It is likely that the real world will introduce some reactions that were not anticipated. Don't be afraid of that happening, instead plan for it. It is exactly what you want to happen! Use your operational plan to help guide refinements to vision and strategies. It is a wonderful cycle.

Reach and Range

One method of breaking down the strategic initiatives into operational plans is to use a concept such as "Reach and Range" of those initiatives. Describe the strategy and priority for the logical progression of building out the features/changes for your business area. Consider how you would see the strategy deployed geographically or by business market or by product.  For example, if you are attempting to grow into markets where you have never been, then which markets have the lowest barriers to entry and can be entered first? Which take longer to enter and have longer timelines? Which markets are even open now or are some closed for the next few years? Evaluate the related opportunities, business value, and consider documenting reason that drive the priority of functionality or deployment by audience, geography, or whatever drivers are in play. 

Once you have your road map for the initiative, you can focus on the operational scoping required to achieve. 

Who uses the function?
Who has accountability for the business results?
Where is the function performed?
When (how often) is the function performed?

The operational plan then simply focuses on the scope for the year, funding, people, investment in infrastructure required to achieve. Evaluating results against that plan is key to validating those strategies. 

Simple? Maybe. If the effort is planning (remember, it's an action verb!) then the operational plan is obviously the output from those efforts. It will make sense to focus on the tactical efforts required to move the strategies forward. It is fine for there be to tactical efforts in your strategic plan that are not necessarily strategic. For example, work to exit a market that may have resulted from a strategic initiative several years ago, may be required to continue until the results are achieved. It is always worth scrutinizing those efforts to evaluate need, but that scrutiny is a part of the process and should not be ignored. Finally, ensure that your operational results and especially factors which impacted your success or impeded progress, are incorporated back into your visioning and strategy. 

This is the final post in this series and hopefully it provided some basic structure and process ideas for establishing you plans. Key takeaways include:

• Planning is a VERB and it is the Planning JOURNEY that drives the value of these efforts
• Vision is about the WHY, Strategies are about the WHAT and HOW, Operational Plan define WHEN
• Use DATA to derive your strategies
• Strategies are delivered operationally through a road maps which set the course of actions and decisions

Strategic Planning Part 2: Determine Your Strategy

You have your Vision, your team is engaged, but how do you determine the appropriate focus for the next few years?  More importantly, how do you start down a path that leads to building out that Vision? Most companies and organizations understand the business value of producing a Strategic Plan, and that is the core deliverable of your strategy. They do this annually, as a part of a formal function, and produce a document outlining their plans for the next 3-5 years. However, many lose sight of the fact that the emphasis on the process to create the deliverable is where you differentiate your plans. You are seeing in a theme in the recommendations for all of these efforts:

Approach with DATA

Your vision helps with establishing the direction and engaging your company's or organization's leadership. As you embark on the development of your specific strategies, you want to use as much data as possible to truly transform those visions components into plans. Data is the basis for informing the development of the plans that have the biggest impact and highest opportunity for success. Let's look at the type of data that is helpful for this type of effort.

Current Environment 

What are the current business process flows, applications, data records, and user points of interaction? Utilizing your existing operational documentation and data is key to understanding how to lay out a course for the future. It is highly likely that your existing GAPS in supporting your business today will still be there in the future if you do not explicitly understand and address them.

Business Drivers

The vision was developed using a process that ensured appropriate business input. Use that to distill down into specific drivers so that as your operationalize into a plan, you can consider the time and relative impact. External impacts that are occurring soon MUST be understood in more detail than impacts that are forecast for farther in the future. Getting your business stakeholders to distill their business vision forms the basis for this part of the data.

Build Your Strategies

You have a vision. You understand your starting point. And you have a direction the business heading. Now you lay out your plans. Keeping in mind that that the Strategic Planning effort emphasizes the process and also takes different perspectives to ensure it is as real as strategy can be. Focus on gathering information and facts, and documenting as you go.

Example of Building Strategies

Business Goals - A statement of WHAT will be achieved
Business Strategy - The HOW or choice to achieve that goal
Business Critical Success Factor - Capability or condition that must exist for strategy to be successful
Business Value of the CSF - What is the business value of the specific CSF?

After defining the CSFs and Business Requirements, leverage your analysis to begin to describe the gap between the existing  environment and the vision for the functional area. Once you describe the vision and the current environment, the gap between the two should naturally fall out.

The last step is to document any know business value associated with filling the gap between the current state and the vision as well as the investment expected to achieve the business value described. Note that is possible, in fact likely, that your strategy will include investment that is not a part of your vision. There will be critical success factors you need to operationalize before a vision state can be achieved. That is why the process and action of developing is so valuable, you uncover details that were not available to you before!

Developing the Specifics

Keep in mind that this effort is iterative and can take time. Months if you are developing a Strategic Plan for the first time. But once your strategies are developed, maintaining them, even if business direction and vision evolves, is not onerous. Do not shortcut these steps and know you are the right path when it feels like all you are doing is talking about what will be. Most companies and organizations do not spend enough time on this part of the process because the payback is not immediate. However, you can be sure that this time is some of the most valuable your organization or company will spend. That will be more clear when we talk about how to develop your Operational Plan from your Strategy.

Strategic Planning Part 1: Visioning

There is nothing more energizing than a really good visioning session. The idea of laying out a vision for an organization or a business or even just a project without any boundaries hits my own personal sweet spot of purposeful creativity. I get that this may not be everyone's favorite work activity, but it should be the starting point for any significant planning effort your team or organization is taking on. Why you ask? Let me explain...

A good leader has a vision for what an organization or business has the potential to be. A good Strategic Plan is built on a foundation based on that vision. And what do we I always say? That's right, "what's good for the strategic plan is good for any plan".

Planning is a VERB

When you think about any long term planning effort, it is important to keep in mind it is about the PROCESS and JOURNEY, not necessarily the plan itself. The Vision allows you to appropriately define a Strategy which can then be transformed into an Operational Plan which drives your tactical organization and business efforts. We will explore all of these steps of the journey over the next few posts.

There are many ways to approach setting a vision and different methods might be more effective for different reasons. Some teams or leaders do best with a formal structure that asks specific questions and elicits answers and then probes for more detail. Other teams or leaders are good working with a whiteboard or sticky notes. Don't be afraid a combination of these efforts. Visioning for a business can be done by asking your key stakeholders and leaders the following types of questions:

What could they be without market barriers?
How would they change their industry? Why is the industry we are competing in limited? and what is the reason of the limit?
Are the regulatory limits/boundaries changing and how are we poised to take advantage?
What is your consumer going to be in 10 years? What external impacts are going to evolve that consumer from today to then?
Do we have the RIGHT levels of innovation? Why not?

Vision versus Innovation

The differences between these two key terms are pretty simple: a Vision is an unbounded view of what could be but Innovation is the means to the Vision and therefore will have some boundaries and specific outcomes that are intended to be achieved. Alignment of appropriate Innovation strategies is the key. Utilizing your key stakeholders to think beyond their day to day and year to year horizon is what supports the innovation when needed. Innovation is best delivered in a targeted, deliberate manner with a goal of specific outcomes, but successful visioning can engage many in the process without having to deliver specific outcomes.

Just Do It

Answer the questions above with your key business leads, use tools such as SWOT, Value Chain assessments, or whatever tools help you vet and prioritize statements made. You do NOT have to spend a significant time researching validating statements made in visioning sessions.

There are no wrong or right answers when working on your vision! 

Loosely validating that the vision components truly reflect the future is sufficient. You will spend more time on that research and validation process during the development of the actual strategies. Your organization is going to be an interesting mix of pragmatists and futurists. The trick is to engage a mix of views but also to reflect the culture and the mission of the company. Not always easy, but very energizing if led and facilitated appropriately. There are many examples of this type of effort resulting in significant employment engagement, look at Zappos or Disney if you want see a visioning culture.

So get out there and create a vision. Let yourself thing beyond what you know for sure. All perfectionists, detail oriented individuals, and control freaks can relax. The next step is the development of your Strategic Plan, and your Strategies will help ensure you still in control. 😀

Particular Purpose

or·gan·i·za·tion

ˌôrɡənəˈzāSH(ə)n/

noun

1.

an organized body of people with a particular purpose, especially a business, society, association, etc.

Organizations can be complex. And they can be simple. Sometimes they are effective. And sometimes they are inefficient. As a leader, one of the biggest challenges is transforming your organization to support your business strategy and committing to that particular purpose.

Too many companies ignore the need to include organizational strategies when they define their overall strategies. Which is crazy, because if your organization doesn't also have a plan to achieve the culture needed to build and sustain those strategies, it will not be successful. Think of all the work that you are putting into the vision for your products or services, establishing the market goals and defining the differentiation needed to achieve those goals. Translating from the strategic vision and into tactical plans is the most important step if success is to be achieved. If your management team responsible for translating does not understand the critical success factors, have the key roles to operate, or appropriate performance levers to drive to that future state, how will you get there?

You have probably worked in companies that do not seem to have a common "Particular Purpose". Where achieving the documented company objectives seems impossible because the "culture" of how the work is defined and implemented does not seem in alignment. Companies trying to grab market share through rapid growth might require quick spending decisions and speedy design efforts to attain that growth, However, if they have established formal decision governance in the past to ensure financial and product design supports a low-cost strategy to maintain markets, there is a misalignment between the business strategy (establish market growth) and organizational strategy (ensure lowest cost). 

So what can be done to prevent this misalignment? it is quite simple actually. You place the same importance on the strategies of your organization as you do on the rest of your business areas. Transforming your organization to establish the foundation for executing cannot be an afterthought.

Is leadership on board and acting as change agents?

Are your processes aligned? 

Do your reward and performance processes and systems drive the behaviors to enable success?

What skills and competencies does the organization need to acquire that don't exist today?

Is your current culture an enabler or is there work required to redefine?

Are you communicating that a new Particular Purpose is coming or is fear of the change paralyzing your teams?

Ensure you build this concept into your overall Strategic Planning efforts.  Be realistic about the time it might take for organizations with significant culture gaps between the purpose today and the purpose you need in the future. It may take some time and concerted effort to ensure your achievements are both obtained and sustained.

Need for More Likes

I had a great weekend planned. Lots of projects to do! My daughter had plans Friday and Saturday and had made her own arrangements for transportation to a birthday dinner and party. Big bonus for parents, I am sure many of you share that sentiment. Friday night, daughter home around 9:30, chatty about her dinner for 30 mins and then off to bed. Saturday morning, I'm up at the crack of dawn for my "tea and me" time. Settled down to do some quick audits on my daughter's phone, part of the parent responsibility associated with providing a phone to a 13-year old. A review of her social media on Instagram and Twitter revealed nothing to be too concerned about. Her group chats had some cursing, misspelled, but a bit of salty language. Oooh, some texting about something a boy has said. Little more interesting. Decided a short convo about appropriate language is needed with her sometime soon.  A few final group messages to check and then I could get on to cleaning the kitchen. And then my weekend was ruined...

I'm not going into the details, but let's just say that years of raising a daughter to be conscience of herself and others seemed undone in a matter of 10-15 messages between friends. And in the grand scheme of things, my daughter is a good kid and so the events around the ruination of the weekend were simply disappointment that all of the messaging I have been doing with my daughter since she was very young to respect herself and others seemed to go out the window when it came to her decision making in the last few weeks.

My friends and I have lots of interesting discussions about social media, what it is doing to us as adults and our children. My daughter and I have spent a lot of time talking about appropriate behavior on social media, and in general, with social situations. Hence the sense of failure as a parent I felt when I realized that some of that conversation was theory and then when it came to implementing, she lacked the context to successfully do so. I felt that I had done such a great job of preparing her for those tough situations, but in fact I had simply provided a support structure that was invisible when it came to keeping her from falling out of the windows. Talk about a great opportunity for a teaching moment. Hence the painful weekend.

Then I listened to this week's Note to Self which was called Sexiness, Social Media and Teenage Girls. Unbelievably timely! I had to check out Peggy Orenstein's books as a result and am currently immersing into Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape. The best line from the podcast for me was:

"Every girl knows they are going to get more 'likes' if they post a picture of themselves in a bikini then when she puts one up in a parka"

It's all about the context of your behavior in the midst of everyone else's! As a parent, that difference in the behavior of others is the logic killer. My daughter absolutely knows that being confident and dressing attractive (i.e. sexy clothes) is a fine line and there are limits. The question is how do you know the difference between using your body as a source of confidence and power and when it's actually low self esteem and need for validation? How do any of us know that? Social marketing messages encourage girls to feel comfortable with their own body shape and size. But what happens when that is message is exhibited by the gorgeous 14-year old wearing a bikini that makes you cringe at the thought that she can now pass as a 21-year-old?  How do you know when a girl is truly confident versus simply needs more 'likes'? Who is taking something virtuous like the Dove Campaign and turning it into Kardashian World???

Sunday left our house with a little more understanding as a family as to what it's like to have a teen in this media-saturated world. All of us have learned a lot about ourselves and each other this weekend. My daughter is learning to survive without any digital connections to the outside world and her dad is learning to what is like to be the father of a teenage girl. And I'm still convinced that advocating for my gender in a world driven by male-dominated messaging is fight worth fighting.

Advocating for a Choice to Leave Poverty Behind

Reading through the week's news and interesting commentaries usually leaves me fired me up on some topic and this week was no exception. My first read of the morning had to do with recent updates from the Pew Company on Public Opinion on Abortion Rights. I was was not seeking any specific information out on this particular topic today, I just happen to believe that having an informed opinion is better than an uninformed one. I support Pro-Choice for reasons we won't go into here (at least today!), but wanted to understand where the rest of country stood. Of course Trump's "punishment" gaffe made this a trending topic, and not sure how I feel about the reason for having to be more current on this topic! My takeaway from reviewing is an understanding that this polarizing issue pretty much splits most Americans, with those against abortion in most/all at 41% of the total population and 56% felt abortion should be legal in most/all cases. Interesting. Hard choices for anyone really.

Then I read on into my weekly dose of non-partisan Constitution reading (yes, I am that nerdy) and ran across an article on what would happen if the Supreme Court ratifies or rejects the view at the case of Zubik v. Burwell, representing non-profit organizations, that may have objections to contraception and want to be exempt from required health coverage for contraception for employees. That's a continuation of the lawsuits brought on by the Hobby Lobby case (representing public corporations) in case you are not up to speed on your Supreme Court docket! Of course this topic is important due to the increased spending on health of women of child-bearing age, and projects I am personally involved with that are focused on pregnant populations and improving their overall health. But that was not really what was interesting. It made me wonder whose interests these cases were really focused on? Reading the overview of who was involved and whose interests these non-profits were focused on was quite a meandering journey! [Note that if you are looking for real people that have pious beliefs, keep looking as it's really an institute known as a  powerhouse law firm, not known for their intimate stories about raising a family!]

Since I started the morning wiht the knowledge that that only 41% of the adult population currently believes that abortion should be illegal in MOST cases but only 16% believe it should illegal in ALL cases, it made sense to me that this is the population who might therefore feels that abortion could be extended to include contraception. Again, not trying to argue the belief, it is what it is even though I have a different view. If we start with only 16% of the US population potentially opposed to contraception as a type of abortion, simple math tells us that the majority of our population that is most impacted is statistically NOT against contraception. So this is a minority (16%) imposing their will on a majority (84%). Even more telling is the fact that Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has stated that

"In fact, nearly 99 percent of women in the United States have relied on contraceptive services"

So I feel fairly confident my simple math will apply here. If we assume that most women are actually seeking contraception then who does this case really benefit? I acknowledge that these issues are complex, but it does come down to choices and who decides what what choices you have. I do feel the need to represent the stories of a few of those women in the 84% who need an advocate in their lives. These stories are real. Access to contraception is a major effort within the healthcare industry and it drives significant socioeconomic factors for these women for the most of their lives. There are young women with unfortunate circumstances and issues such as homelessness and mental illnesses who are not prepared for self-care, let alone for caring for another. Where are these stories in the push to eliminate a choice that might give them hope to live a life outside of poverty? Who is advocating for the women who just need a few choices that many of us might not need? Reducing contraceptive choices leaves women with much harder choices to make.

And furthermore, we are all aware of Trump's "shining moment" follow-up that came when he was asked whether the man who created an unwanted pregnancy should be punished, too.:

“I would say no,” Trump quickly decreed.

Therefore, in a Trump presidency, the companies who want the exemption from contraception might directly be ensuring women who end up with an unwanted pregnancy and choose to abort are punished (I don't believe this would ever happen, but it works as a great summary point here). And is that what the non-profits in the case before the Supreme Court really stand for or is it just a byproduct of imposing their minority view on a choice that helps avoid much harder choices? I know, lots of assumptions, but look at how politicizing women's choices drives women even further away from living in a world where advocacy makes a difference.

I will leave you with what I thought was the most telling stat that summarizes my whole view...

On Becoming a Health Advocate

It has been more than 13 years since I was pregnant. However, now that I am working with a younger generation dealing with pregnancy at work, time off after the baby arrives, and figuring out how to balance life after returning, I am being exposed to the same challenges that I experienced so many years ago. Initially, as we were sitting around over a glass of wine (a measly 2 oz. for the breast feeding moms!), I was so happy I did not have to go through this again. Listening to stories about having to “instant message” during time in the “Mother’s” room made me remember the dread that came with trying to figure that all out for myself. Once was enough. Yet I appreciate that these challenges are not limited to just moms with babies trying to balance child care and work schedules. Many of us have parents or family that require more time and demand the same attention to balance our careers and home life. A sick family member who needs to be driven to appointments or needs some extra help around the house can require the same type of considerations. Maybe it is not even a family member, but a neighbor or a friend, who would benefit from an extra few hours set aside just for them, you just have to find the time. When you consider the “network” of care you are engaged in, you can quickly see that in reality, you are advocating for others in very formal and informal ways beyond what you might have realized.

My mother recently shared with me a story about her efforts to coordinate health services for my dad when he was sick this winter. He was admitted to the hospital, not once, but twice. Discharged, but then referred to a rehabilitation facility. It included plenty of new doctors and specialists at each facility that needed to review his health and case workers who sometimes knew his situation but more often did not. The story itself did not come without a surprisingly large number of “that’s just crazy” comments. (Honestly, it seemed as if random acts of health care occurred during this 3-5 week situation). We lamented at the end of our chat, that without an advocate, in this case my mom, who knows what might have happened. I started thinking and researching about the health advocacy services we have in our community and available to us to support this health advocacy. Because no one should ever have to think of healthcare as random.

What is health advocacy?

Health advocacy encompasses direct service to the individual or family as well as activities that promote health and access to health care in communities and the larger public.

I realize that by that definition, I am not very prepared to be anyone’s health advocate, perhaps not even my own. I prepared for becoming my child’s advocate because I read and learned as much as I could about what being a parent and a mother means. What in our many years of being family members, students, or employees prepares us for health advocacy? I would argue that our best preparation has come from sharing those “that’s just crazy” doctor visit stories. Very few of us have read significantly about other’s tales nor do we have experience beyond watching the current medical drama unfold on television. Technology is not very helpful here as I have lamented recently and while that is evolving, today we are left with information and healthcare knowledge gaps. That leaves us really unprepared for the health advocacy that is in our future, [(as a side note, if you have not read about Paul Kalanithi, I strongly encourage it as a good start to your knowledge journey!]

We will all have a role to play in the future of health advocacy. Just consider for a moment all of the advocacy you are already doing. Most of us probably have a pretty simple view, like figure 1. More and more of individuals are developing a more complex synthesis of interactions and concerns as our health care system evolves to one in which advocacy will have to play a bigger part. We have already talked about the need for Personal Health Record and the information needed. Advocacy though, goes beyond information in a PHR and helps us all drive access to the care needed and helps ensure the quality is there. Healthy individuals drive very little demand for advocacy in their journey because healthy people can take care of themselves and self-care is a primary focus. When a person’s health is not fine, their journey gets more complicated and interventions to drive specific outcomes ensure that advocacy increases in importance.

In a broad sense, health advocacy includes Patient Centered Care delivered through Patient Centered Medical Homes, Pregnancy Centering Programs, and care managers. All of these are impacting the healthcare landscape and are forcing the evolution of our healthcare system as a whole. Advocacy might come from a health insurer, a hospital, or clinical researchers, but there is no doubt you (or someone on your behalf) will be a part of that network. Regardless of the source, the intention is ACCESS and QUALITY CARE. That intention is best served by considering the patient journey and experience. Our US Healthcare systems are focused on those improvements and it wouldn’t be a good healthcare blog unless I mentioned that the Triple Aim.

Triple Aim is focused on”: Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction); Improving the health of populations; and. Reducing the per-capita cost of health care. 

Preparing for health advocacy means you must ensure you have knowledge of how access works and learn what good care looks like. Frankly, you have to learn how to advocate for someone else besides yourself. Not an easy mission, but you have chances to support your family and friends every day. I would challenge readers to consider improving their advocacy skills and then take it to the next level by truly finding someone in your life you can advocate for. What have you done to advocate for the women and men in your organization who have found themselves struggling with balancing career and home? Can you think of at least one situation where you tried to help an individual with this struggle? Were you willing to go up against the “rules” in place or did you simply help them work within the confines? Ask your parent if you can join them for their next regular doctor visit. How satisfied are you that he/she has your parent's best intentions in mind as they talk to them or examine them? What do you do if you don't? Challenging ourselves to publicly support a cause is already something you have to do.

Do you have what it takes to be a good advocate? I think my daughter still does...