How To Get Things Done: A Guide To Strategic Planning

A step-by-step program for creating a strategic plan and tactical plan guaranteed to help you get more of what you want done.

You are pursuing a strategy en route to your vision. Whether it is revolutionary or evolutionary, it does not matter. You are on the road, committedly driving your business in a direction of your own choosing. The important thing is that you have, in fact, chosen this course.

And, once you have made this choice, how are you going to realize this strategy? The answer is just like the answer to "How do you climb Mount Everest?" One step at a time. The way you realize your strategy is one step at a time - the trick, of course, is to know what steps to take, and in what order to take them. This article details an approach to developing a strategic and tactical plan.

Completing the past

The first step in creating a strategic plan is to review and complete the previous past period. For the balance of this article, we will refer to that period as a year, although your planning horizon may be either longer or shorter. You complete the past for two reasons - to learn everything possible from your previous actions, results, and mistakes, and as importantly, so that what ever is left over, whatever issues are hanging over your head, are no longer a burden.

Answer the following questions:

What were your intentions, what were your goals?
What did you set out to accomplish?
What intentions did you really take action on and which ones did you merely talk about?
Specifically, what did you actually accomplish?
How effective were you? What percentage of your goals were realized? For instance, if your goal was $14 million in sales and you reached $12 million, you were 85% effective. And so on.
What did you accomplish that you didn't intend?
What were the unintended side effects?
In your opinion, what did you do "wrong"?
What did you simply skip?

One useful practice is to write a detailed, objective history of the past year. Document the year's events and results in journal form. Your records will be a big help - use your date book and your sales ledgers to reconstruct this narrative.

Gather up whatever you learned. Three questions will assist you in this phase. What did you do that worked? In other words, what actions produced the results they were intended to produce? What didn't work - what actions (or lack of actions) produced something other than the desired result? And finally, what was missing - in terms of missing resources, skills, knowledge, attitudes, relationships, etc. - which if you had them would have enabled you to be more successful?

At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.

Set priorities

Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all areas of the business at once. Take a look at the following list - in which of these areas do you most want to make a difference?

product development
market penetration
revenue and profit
customer satisfaction
technology and product quality
intellectual capital
productivity
strategic relationships
new customer growth
geographic expansion
employee retention
community and global impact

Add other areas which are relevant to your business. Then choose which you will focus your attention on. Some prioritizing questions to ask are: What particular area is important? By important I mean that which will move you forward in the direction of your vision, goals, etc. Why is that area important? What will a shift in a particular area provide to the business (or specific categories of stakeholders)? What will not causing that shift cost the business?

Once you have decided in which areas you will focus your efforts on (and also which will not receive much attention), you then establish goals, or measures for success. Here is where things can get tricky. The standard approach to establishing measures for success is to "look around" and try to figure out what is practical. "We did X last year, now we'll do X plus 10%." Then you think about what you know how to do. "Well, we know how to do an extra 10%. Good - that's what we'll shoot for."

The catch is, this approach will get you some pretty practical, incremental, and average results. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with average results, my guess is, that is not why you are reading this article. To get extraordinary, breakthrough results, you have to step outside your normal confines and dream a little. Set your goals by considering what will move you rapidly towards realizing your vision, what will quickly implement your strategy, and go from there. Set goals - establish success measures which will inspire you! Do not think about how you will achieve the measures or goals before you set them. That will only limit your thinking.

Establish Measures and Goals

Establish a clear set of measures for each area of focus. In Product Development you could add two new products for your target niche, or a new product which will enable you to penetrate a targeted customer segment. In Customer Satisfaction and Quality you could reduce open customer incident time by three days, raise your customer satisfaction metrics from a 7.3 to a 9.0, or eliminate defects in your final product release. You could Geographically Expand into Canada, Mexico or the Northwest.

Employee retention and Intellectual Capital would be impacted by reducing turnover from 14% to 5%, providing 50% more training days for employees and targeting an increase in patents held from 2 to 5. You could increase Market Penetration, Revenues and Profits by adding 25% to the customer base, increasing service revenues 100%, and raising your net profit margin to 23%.

Place a time frame on each measure and turn it into a goal. Total customers increased 25% by September 30th is a clear-cut goal. It fits nicely on the end of a timeline.

Initiatives

You have measures, you have goals - now develop a plan to reach them.

For each measure within an area, invent one or more initiatives which help you reach your goal. Sometimes the initiatives are relatively simple, such as hire a salesman for the new Northwest territory. There may be alternate options such as contracting with a distributor in lieu of a local sales force. In that case you have to evaluate suitability, costs, resource drain, and the likelihood of success for the various options before committing to one path.

Sometimes achieving the goal will require a series of initiatives, or parallel initiatives. Increasing the customer base 25% may involve direct mail, print and web advertising, two new sales reps, a phone campaign, and working the dead customer file. Alternatively, it could involve acquiring a competitor, or maybe the competing product line. Each of these initiatives then requires its own measures for success. And each one must be evaluated in terms of suitability, costs, and likelihood of success.

Action steps, milestones, and timelines

When you have chosen the suite of initiatives you will pursue, break each into action steps and intermediate results, and place the whole thing on a timeline. Include acquisition of missing resources and skills on the timeline. Set regular milestones to keep the whole effort on track, and have a way to blow the whistle when things get off course.

Develop a tracking system, and update it regularly and often. A big white board or flip chart paper taped to the wall can display your timeline, including measures, milestones, and commitments made by various team members defining what will be accomplished each tracking period. Project management software is useful for complex initiatives - it helps you visualize and account for "dependencies." If you use it, email reports to all participants.

The Merlin Method

For some of your areas and measures of success you are clueless - you simply have no idea how to achieve the results. In this case, you can use the Merlin Method. Merlin, you may remember, was a magician and prophet who served as counselor to King Arthur. What you may not know is that Merlin did not really predict the future. Legend says Merlin was born as an old man and lived his life growing younger. He was simply relating events which for him had already happened.

The Merlin Method is based on this same principle. Imagine you are standing at the end of a long timeline - you have already achieved your specific goal. Imagine or visualize, how did you do it? What actions did you take? What resources did you secure? Who's help did you enlist?

Ask these questions in a stepwise fashion starting from the end. What was the last significant thing you had to do just before reaching the goal. Put that on your timeline. And just before that, what did you have to do? And just before that? And so on, moving closer and closer in time, right up until the present.

If you were taking a family trip, imagine yourself at your destination. What did you do just before you got there? You exited US 10 at exit 54. And before that? You exited US 15 at Riverside, having driven 67 miles. And before that, you bundled the kids into the car. Before that you put the luggage in the trunk. Before that you packed. Before that you went online and got directions. And so on. Working backwards from the realization of the goal, you have developed a timeline, complete with milestones - working from your collected knowledge and wisdom, but not necessarily from your conscious mind. The Merlin Method can be a very powerful way to generate set of tactical actions to realize your business strategy.

For a reality check, think it through forward. If you add the necessary resources, skills, and knowledge, take each action in turn, and reach each milestone, is that likely to produce the results you intend to produce?

You can even use the Merlin Method to generate alternative plans to evaluate against your other approaches.

Using one or more of these methods, you have developed a strategic and tactical plan - a complete set of strategic priorities, measures, goals, and initiatives, along with action plans, milestones, resources requirements, and timelines - built upon your strategy and designed to realize your vision.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Without Workforce Planning, Your Organization Could Become Extinct

Workforce planning is a key workforce management step for long-term survival in a situation where workers are aging or leaving, and business environments are constantly changing.

You need to replace over aged workers and workers who leave. You also need to adapt to new business environments by getting people with needed skills.

Workforce Planning Goals

Existing workload determines current workforce levels. So the first step of workforce planning is to assess this workload, its skills set composition and location requirements. To assess this requirement, you answer the following questions:

• What kinds of skilled workers do you need to achieve your organizational purpose?






• How many persons with each kind of skill are needed to achieve targeted performance levels?






• Where would these persons be needed - geographically and departmentally?

Answering the above questions is only the starting point of workforce planning. A complete plan would also identify the strategies needed to get the people required to man your workforce, and to keep the people with you.

For the longer-term, you need to estimate:

• The number of workers who would retire or leave and have to be replaced






• Additional numbers of differently skilled persons who would have to be added to meet expansion needs






• Likely developments affecting your business and the likely changes in the number and composition of your workforce under the new environments

Workforce planning is a continuous process that needs to be updated as the requirements and forecasts change.

Implementing the Workforce Planning Process

The key requirement for successful workforce planning is to get your managers to understand the significance and key importance of workforce planning. Without their active involvement, you cannot expect to develop realistic plans that are affected by diverse factors.

Create a workforce planning team consisting of employees from different departments, with required knowledge and interests. Define the team's role and responsibilities.

Use modern software tools and planning systems to speed up the processes of data collection, analysis and generating preliminary plans. These can then be human-reviewed for fine-tuning.

Start carefully with a smaller scope, review the processes, get feedback and improve the effectiveness of workforce planning exercise.

In the case of large enterprises with geographically spread operations, the workforce planning exercise should be decentralized and the unit plans should be consolidated.

Workforce Recruitment and Development Strategies

Workforce planning is not just an exercise with numbers, though numbers are important. You have to look at the labor market and competitive conditions, and develop strategies to attract and retain the kind of workforce you need.

Think through the policies and practices you need to attract and retain talented people. Build your brand as a good place to work in. Create working conditions and a managerial culture that would make your people want to remain with you.

Spell these out and include them in your workforce plan.

Conclusion

For organizations to survive in the long term, they must be able to attract the right kind of talented persons and to keep them. Workforce planning helps you to assess your people needs, in both skill sets and numbers, and start developing and implementing strategies and policies to attract, develop and keep the kind of workforce you need.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Event Planning Tips The Pros Use

Putting together a big event is no small accomplishment. That's why many organizations call on a professional event planner. Sometimes, however, you may have to organize a big event by yourself.

Kara Mickelson, a corporate planner for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., has planned everything from intimate dinners to corporate meetings to citywide events for 20,000 people. Here are some tips that she has found to be helpful:

• Get everyone on the same page. According to Mickelson, the first step is to sit down with everyone involved in the planning and set the objectives for the function. She also suggests that this can be an excellent time to assess what funds or resources will be available for the event. Mickelson believes one of the biggest mistakes planners make is improper budgeting. One way many pros save money is by printing their own meeting materials, including tent cards, signs, badges and more, with a company such as Avery Dennison.

• Think backwards. When should you start planning? "The best way to start is by backing everything out from the event day," Mickelson advises. It's critical not to plan too much until the event date is set.

• Build in extra time. What makes it hard for novice planners is they have no benchmark for how long it will take to research a hotel, negotiate a contract or find a band. "Give yourself more time than you think you need," she recommends.

Some find it helpful to use a tool, such as those available on the Avery Meetings and Events Solution Center Web site (www.avery.com/meetings). It provides templates, tips and tools to make it easier to plan meetings and events.

• Write it down. Mickelson suggests using a notebook to write down all the basics. Do you need invitations, meeting materials, flower arrangements? The details will help you create a timeline for your event. She contends that once it's written down, the time-line will start to reveal itself.

• Play pretend. How do you avoid forgetting an important task? "Do a mental walk-through," advises Mickelson. "Pretend you're actually at the event. Go through the process of driving your car there. Where is parking? At the venue, do you need signs? Badges? Table tents for seating? Visually, if you can walk yourself through the entire event, it becomes clearer."

What is her foremost bit of advice? She suggests to plan for the worst, and hope for the best.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Executive Career Coaching: Providing Solutions To Succession Planning Challenges

Organizations today are facing several challenges and talent management is one of the greatest. According to a poll conducted by OI Partners, Inc., the number one challenge facing the HR profession is leadership development and succession planning. Attracting, developing, and retaining quality talent is more costly and has a greater impact on the bottom-line than ever before. Retiring baby-boomers, the expectations of Gen X and Gen Y employees, and the new definition of 搇ong-term?employment add up to a drastic shift in the way organizations are managing their talent.

One effective way to overcome these challenges is to implement a succession planning initiative. This proactive approach to ensuring future leadership talent offers many benefits. Studies have shown that organizations with succession planning programs have a higher retention rate of human capital and a reduction in recruitment and compensation costs.

Succession planning has to be more than matching employees with forecasted vacancies. Consideration must be made for the future direction of the organization as well as the direction of the employees intended career path. This ensures that the employee is engaged in the process, committed to the organization, and has a vested interest in the company抯 success.

Obstacles to Implementing a Succession Plan

While there are numerous benefits to succession planning, there are also challenges such as limited resources and expertise within the company. Without the assistance of external consultants and coaches, implementing a succession planning initiative can drain an organization抯 resources. The most effective programs capitalize on the talent available throughout the company during the implementation phase, however, companies often lack the resources needed for ongoing management. In addition, utilizing external resources provides expertise in succession planning and offers an objective perspective.

Coaching as a Resource

Executive Career Coaching can provide assistance with career management and employee development at the individual level. Using individual coaching and assessments, the coach will guide the employees through the selection of the career path within the organization that best matches their interests and abilities. Once a career path has been chosen, the coach will help the employee prepare for their next promotion.

The career coach can administer assessments such as the DISC, PVQ, and the Enneagram to help the employee gain clarity in the areas of motivators, interests, values and strengths. The feedback obtained from the assessments is essential in creating a career management plan. During the coaching engagement, employees will compare this information along with their experience and education to key leadership positions and determine the strongest fit. This process ensures that employees are matched with the correct positions, reducing the possibility of employee disengagement and turnover at the executive level.

In addition to career pathing, an executive career coach will assist in the creation of development plans. The steps outlined in the development plan will be based on the information gathered during a gap analysis. Comparing the employee抯 current level to the experience, skills, and education needed for the next promotion will give the coach and executive a clear picture of where to focus their coaching sessions. Execution of the development plan during the coaching engagement results in promotion readiness.

Benefits of Succession Planning

Identifying and developing strong leaders for future roles is critical to the ongoing success of an organization. Without an effective succession planning program in place, companies will face greater challenges than those incurred during the implementation of a program, including:

?Waging the 揥ar on Talent??Fewer leaders prepared to take on new roles
?Obstacles to achieving strategic goals

Attracting and retaining high-potential employees is costly. However, it is not as costly as the turnover of high-potential employees. Studies have shown that superior performers are 50% to 100% more effective than the average performer.

Using these statistics, if an average performer generates $250,000 in new business each year; a superior performer will generate between $375,000 and $500,000 in new business. By developing and promoting the superior performer to a leadership role, they have the potential to increase the productivity of the team. As an example, this leader can increase the revenues of a team generating $2.5M to $5M.

Given the possibility of increased profits, meeting the employee抯 desire for career growth is both a financial and strategic advantage.

Because growth and development are benefits highly sought after in a potential employer, organizations with highly publicized succession planning initiatives and career management programs become 揺mployers of choice? thereby making it easier to attract top talent and reduce turnover.

Most employers are unaware of how much turnover costs them each year or how to reduce this number. Assuming a fifteen percent turnover rate and turnover costs of twenty-five percent of an employee抯 annual compensation, an organization with one thousand employees and an average compensation of $50,000 will incur $1,875,000 in costs each year. Given that half of all turnover is avoidable, this organization could save $937,500 each year by investing in employee retention strategies.

The Added Benefits of Using Career Coaching as a Resource for Succession Planning Programs

Utilizing a Career Coach in your succession plan initiative allows leaders and Human Resources to focus on effectively managing and evaluating the program. An external career coach provides a confidential environment where the employees are free to discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in their careers and establish plans to overcome them.

One of the greatest benefits the coach offers is preparing the organization抯 existing talent for future leadership roles. They take the organization抯 human capital to the next level through the use of assessments, powerful questions, and individual development plans. Promoting from within provides benefits, such as:

?Reduced recruitment costs. The need for external recruiting is lessened for executive level position, which reduces headhunter fees (between 25% and 33% of the candidate抯 total compensation) Ex. An executive placed by a headhunter with an annual compensation package of $200,000 would incur fees between $50,000 and $66,666.

?Reduction of executive compensation. According to Towers Perrin, external candidates are generally paid 20% to 30% more than internals that are promoted because externals needs a financial reason to make a career change.

?Promoting internal candidates offers the employer the benefit of knowing their track record, strengths, and their development needs. External candidates, unless personally known, only reveal as much or as little information as they deem appropriate, leaving the organization to rely on the interview process, assessments, and references to complete the picture.

Thriving succession planning initiatives balance the strategic direction of the organization with the career aspirations of its high potential employees. They also rely on external consultants and coaches to provide expertise, an objective perspective and additional resources.

Executives who engage in coaching during the succession program have a clear direction of where they are going and how they are going to get there. In contrast, executives that are not offered coaching are not as well prepared to map out their career path or develop the skills they need for future promotions. Executive career coaching facilitates the process of creating successful careers and developing future leaders.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Seven Simple Steps To Planning The Perfect Conference

It抯 that time of year again and your organization is getting ready for its next big conference, and it feels slightly overwhelming. You may even feel in your heart everything that could go wrong. Perhaps, its time to take the guessing out of planning and begin to take care of what you can control when planning your next conference.

Streamline

First step always is to streamline your tasks; make sure to create a plan before you begin the event coordination. It is imperative to make sure you know the direction you are going before you start. Make a list prioritizing from beginning to end; from finding the right speakers to developing the right promotional plan that meets your organizations vision.

Know your Target Audience

Second, evaluate your organization and the people you are trying to reach for your conference. Prepare the right topics with the right speakers, to ensure you are connecting with the right audience. A communication抯 plan is essential for everyone involved so you can put the focus of the conference back to the direction of its people.

Promote Early

Third, get the word out early, and give people something to talk an about, if you start late than don抰 expect large numbers. The more hype you build through word of mouth the better direction you have to bring in large numbers.

Booking the Right Conference Center

Fourth, the right conference center is imperative in ensuring your events success, and everything from the layout of the room to the location of the bathroom should be checked before entering into a contractual agreement. It is vital that you meet the needs of the organization and the people attending, if they are uncomfortable throughout the day than it creates a negative impact on your conference抯 perspective and outcome.

Location

Fourth, if you are bringing in out of Towner抯 then location is key for everyone, make sure it抯 in happening spot, at the right time of year. Ensuring this will meet the needs of everyone involved and draw more attraction the big day.

Plan B

Fifth, be prepared for the inevitable as you sometimes never know what will happen. A speaker may drop out last minute or perhaps there maybe a mix up with the catering. It抯 not a problem if you have back up speakers in mind, and remember not everything is in your control.

Relax and Enjoy Yourself

Getting ready for the conference can be a huge stressful task but if you do it right; it can be a lot of fun. Remember, to enjoy yourself, while planning, and promoting the more excited the coordinator is the more apt people will come. Do it with a smile on your face to let everyone know this will be the best event, yet!

Get a head start, get organized, and get ready to host the best conference in your area. If you can follow these six simple steps than you are ready for instant success. Event coordination can sometimes be overwhelming but if you plan early it will be an instant success

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.