Alternative models of strategic planning and organizational effectiveness

¶ … alternative models to strategic planning? What are the pros and cons of these models? How successful have they been when organizations use them? 400 Words

Strategic planning processes have not always been perfect for organizations. In my papers for instance, I noted plans that I have for Dendro. They sound perfect and I have no changes to make to nay of them. However, alternative models to strategic planning are just s helpful. Strategic planning when done appropriately can be fine, but other times, alternatives may be needed and these include others such as engaging the board, getting everyone on the same page, getting buy-in from stakeholders, and so forth. Some of the alternatives are the following:

Focus on the questions that need answers

The organization (or Dendro in this case) can begin sessions with four or five questions that we want un ambivalent answers to and want to focus our session on. These questions should be styled in a yes / no type of manner. For instance the question of "How big do we want to be?" can be rephrased to, "should we aim to grow to 15 staff within the next 5 years?" Or "do we have the right people on board / sufficient resources to implement decision?" And so forth. Formulating these razor-sharp questions will far likely eventuate in razor sharp answers and direction rather than meanderings and vague conclusions.

The facilitator needs to know the core questions that need to be asked. These then need to be phrased in a certain manner that elicits a decisive response. Once given this response, we have a better idea of how to proceed.

Strategic Learning Agenda

An exploratory creative approach can also help employees get out of closed and narrow situations and provide us with a more creative, expanded approach to seeing situations and devising different solutions.

These strategic learning agenda may involve interviewing other companies similar to Dendro and seeing how they have adapted to similar challenges or dealt with risky challenging situations. The employees can them make a presentation to the board, their findings can be discussed and this may eventuate into fresher more stimulating horizons and prospects for discovery.

Logic models and theories of change

The focus here is on the theories of change, namely what changes / outcomes we desire to see from our objectives. The Theory of change (TOC) is stimulating since it forces language to revolve around outcome rather than compelling workers to remain stuck in services or in differences of opinion on how to perpetrate them. The TOC also answers the crucial question - why do we exist, and why do we do what we do - and compels employees to remain focused on this question i.e. On outcome. Rather than staying at the stage where one is fixated in describing the problem, the TOC can be optimistic in that it pushes employees to move beyond and see bigger picture. (Blue avocado. Alternatives to Strategic Planning)

What can you do to ensure that the strategic plan in your organization (see attached) remains a "living" document rather than getting placed on the shelf and visited infrequently? 425 words

Frequent complaints about strategic plans is that they end up accumulating dust. Here are some ideas about how I can prevent this from occurring:

I can have my team meet to reduce these goals into small-term mini goals, to delegate them to specific individuals, and to set timelines to accomplish them in. We can also hold monthly meetings to discuss the progress of these goals and to brainstorm ways of meeting encountered challenges. Benchmarks may be implemented to measure our progress and evaluation / observation activities may be implemented to ensure that we are moving towards our goals.

Also when discussing the plan, I can involve people who will be responsible for implementing the plan and ascertain that there is a cross-functional team involved in decision-making. A similar method would be to ensure that ta the plan is realistic (a question to ask team would be "Is this realistic? Can you really do this?").

Delegation and responsibility as well as small and precise details of the goals should be clearly delineated especially for the first 90 days of implementing of the plan. Review periods should be built in as well as personnel performance reviews. This expectation of performance review should also be conveyed to workers so that workers will be better prepared to implement plan and they will be aware of their responsibilities.

The plan will be documented and distributed and review as well as feedback invited from all participants.