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With COVID-19 upending how we operate and do business why not rethink the planning process as well. Our actions to respond to this disruption on our organizations may need to be accelerated as we are pushed out of our comfort zones in a possible re-set of direction and resources to meet market changes.
I suspect I will get some agreement from those who have participated in developing strategic plans. It does look impressive when it is done with all those sections, graphs, roman numerals and sub-categories. But after all the analysis, discussion and the amount of time invested, who remembers the details two years later? A year later?
Kevin O’Connor in his book The Map of Innovation writes “…Once we captured all the good ideas, we wasted enormous amounts of effort and time justifying the fact that we had gotten all the good ideas.”
I have found that most people already know what needs to be done, and that the process can be energized into an action-centered, shorter-term, custom-tailored planning solution. My suggestions to get the planning conversation started at your business:
- Establish key objectives & priorities linked to the customer.
- Keeping the customer as the benchmark can help simplify decision making in complex times and unify staff around a common goal.
- Consider a timeframe based on the immediate to one year (“the must & need to do’s”) with a two-year maximum( the “like to do’s”).
- Evaluate ideas vs. reality, ease of implementation, obstacles, resource availability (time, money, people) and ROI.
- Create action steps to meet the objectives.
- Assign responsibilities.
- Monitor progress weekly; update and redirect as needed.