Strategic Planning Process

Overview

1. Definition of Strategic Planning
2. The Context of Strategic Planning
3. The Strategic Planning Methodology
4. The Cambridge Strategic Planning Process
5. Strategic Planning Vocabulary

1. Definition of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning, if it is true to the original concept, and if it is to have the power of the original idea, can have only one definition: it is the method by which a community continuously creates artifactual systems to serve extraordinary purpose. That definition is so important that it deserves some elaboration, word by word. The significance of each will be made clear in the discussions of the process and discipline, so here a brief note on each will suffice.

Method signifies that strategic planning is not an end within itself. It is to be judged only by the results it produces, therefore it cannot be so rigid that it must be served, instead of its serving the purpose.

Community is the place (metaphorically) in which one sees himself or herself reflected back. It is the reflection of a common core of values that transcends anything that would otherwise separate.

Continuously implies that strategic planning is not an event; it is, in fact, a way of life, the only way of life. It is not a project to be completed; it is not a series of plateaus and valleys. Rather, it is a process of continuous discovery.

Creates captures the power of strategy to actually bring about systems that are not just new in time, but especially new in kind. This word has no prefix (as in “re-creates”), indicating that strategic planning is not to be re-doing a system, but imagining and effecting something completely different.

Artifactual systems simply admits that any construct arising from planning is merely an expedient; none is a permanent fixture. And it is expected that their life will be limited to their usefulness.

Extraordinary purpose states the only reason for strategy. That reason is the commitment to unprecedented possibilities. It is a tribute both to the intuition and boldness. It compels the development of extraordinary capacities, and so it always calls forth the best in all persons involved in the pursuit.

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2. The Context of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is the means by which community continuously creates artifactual systems toward extraordinary purpose. Implicit in this definition is the concentration of all efforts, resources, activities, and energies toward a single goal. The Greek word for a military general was strategos; that is, one who leads (agein) and army (stratos). The strategema were the daring, yet prudently calculated, plans by which the leader concentrated efforts on controlling circumstances and events, thereby ultimately achieving triumph.

The significance of all this is that strategic planning is not defined by methodology, process, or system; but by the context in which the plan is derived. Quite simply stated: Only strategic organizations can do strategic planning. Strategic plans developed by non-strategic organizations or units, even though the planning schema resembles that of strategic planning, can be at best comprehensive or long-range.

To clarify this issue, there are four, perhaps five, distinct characteristics of a strategic organization or unit. First, a strategic organization is autonomous; that is to say, it is self-governing. Quite obviously, no organization is absolutely autonomous: All are subject to laws, regulations, and the like. But when an organization is a legal entity, that status both grants and requires self-governance, usually in the form of a board of directors. Non-strategic units, on the other hand, exercise either delegated or functional control, which means, essentially, that they are governed.

Second, strategic organizations have the prerogative and the responsibility to determine their own identity and to actualize that identity by performance. Non-strategic units have identity and purpose only within a strategic context and their performance is based on factors over which they do not exercise final control.

Third, strategic organizations have the prerogative and the responsibility for the acquisition and allocation of resources of all kinds. Non-strategic units request and manage resources allocated to them.

Fourth, strategic organizations are responsible for creating and nurturing their own culture—the values and vision that lead, guide, and sustain everyone who is a part of that organization. Non-strategic units are charged with the responsibility of realizing the vision, upholding the values, and emulating the leader of the strategic organization.

Fifth, as a practical matter, strategic organizations develop plans that are expansive in both range and scope. The range may be five years and beyond; the scope entails the entire system.

The conclusion is abundantly clear: Strategic planning must always precede non-strategic (or sub-strategic) planning. Organizations who do otherwise soon discover the real sting in Einstein’s memorable phrase: “The perfection of means; the confusion of goals.”

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3. The Strategic Planning Methodology

Strategic planning ultimately must be understood for what it is, rather than what it is not. For example, not a “model,” the strategic planning methodology is an effective combination of both a process and discipline which, if faithfully adhered to, produces a plan characterized by originality, vision, and realism. The discipline includes the vital components of the plan itself; the process is the organizational dynamic through which the vital components are derived. Both the discipline and the process are aimed at the means by which a community continuously creates artifactual systems to achieve extraordinary purpose.

Strategic planning is not an endless intellectual frenzy—which is a substitute for decisions; but it is a voluntary commitment to generate rational decisions about the deployment of resources toward fixed goals and aspirations. The whole purpose of planning is to make decisions about the future before the future either forces the decisions or renders any decisions irrelevant; and to create action, not activity.

Strategic planning is not an academic exercise in theory analyses and problem identification, but it is an obligation to achieve measurable results, translated ultimately into performance by those individuals responsible for implementing the plan. The essence of a strategic plan is the identification of specific desired results, to which all the effort and activity of the organization will be dedicated. And the success of any plan is determined only by the results it produces.

Strategic planning is not a prescription from an outside expert, but rather a proscription that is formulated by the combined expertise within the organization. The fact is that the people who work in an organization know more about the organization—its problems, concerns, and potential—than any number of planning consultants could possibly know. Beyond that, the local people are just as aware of global issues and circumstances, and are even more particularly sensitive to the impact of those factors on their unique situations. And, certainly, they alone understand all the complexities of local issues. In any school district, the best planning consultants available anywhere are quite often the existing staff. They, together with the patrons, community leaders, and students already possess all the answers to the district’s future. All they need are direction and impetus.

Strategic planning is not an edict, but a consensus plan derived through the application of the basic principles of participative decision-making; specifically, (1) the person doing the job is the expert; (2) that which is strategic must be validated by the operational; that which is operational must have strategic context to have meaning; (3) accountability, authority, and information are commensurate, and proceed in that order; and (4) decisions are made at the point of action.

In practice, these principles mean that, with reference to the organizational design, the strategic plan is developed reciprocally from both the strategic and the operational. Without this duality, the result is a plan that is either too broad or too narrow to gain a common commitment to goals and aspirations. A plan that is not based on consensus is not a plan; it is an altercation.

Strategic planning is not political manipulation, but an open, unrestricted examination of issues and earnest consideration by people of good will from each and every constituency of the district. The successful planning process can never be democratic; it must emphasize common interests rather than special interests; and it must seek mutual agreement rather than majority.

Strategic planning is not in any way whatever a mere budget whose only purpose is always to impose and frustrate creativity and confound excellence — in short, to limit progress. Strategic planning, if properly done, unleashes creativity from throughout the organization, sparks new enthusiasm for excellence, and guarantees progress without the artificial limitations of budgets—all because planning begins and ends with ideas and aspirations, not numbers. Budget planners can make the numbers work, all right; but strategic planners work the future.

The methodology of strategic planning consists of both a discipline and a process; the discipline describing the substantive ingredients or components of the plan itself; the process, the method or procedure by which the plan is created. To argue the relative value of either is moot; to attempt completely to separate them is foolish. Both are inextricably connected and, if properly interwoven, will provide a superior plan.

The discipline, if properly applied, will render the process entirely meaningful because it forces a complete and final resolution of all relevant issues. The process,the organization. In a school district, the belief statement reflects the common core values of the entire community.

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4. The Cambridge Strategic Planning Process

First Strategic Planning Session
The Strategic Planning Team consists of 25 to 30 people who collectively reflect all the values and perspectives of the district. The team is made up of board members, administrators, teachers, other staff, community members, parents, and students. After collecting data regarding the organization’s distinctive characteristics, the Planning Team is sequestered for three days to begin the actual planning process. During this meeting, all the following components of the plan are developed in draft form:

Beliefs
A statement that is a formal expression of the organization’s (community’s) fundamental values: its ethical code, its overriding convictions, its inviolate commitments.

Mission
A statement that is a clear and concise expression of the district’s identity, purpose, and the means of action.

Strategic Parameters
Limitations the organization places upon itself. They are things the organization either will never do or will always do. The intent is concentration of effort on the mission and objectives.

Objectives
The planning organization’s commitment to achieve specific, measurable end results in terms of student success, achievement and/or performance.

Strategies
The most important part of the planning discipline. In particular, the articulation of bold initiatives through which the organization will deploy its resources toward the stated mission and objectives.

In addition, the team conducts extensive analyses of:

Action Plan Development
After the draft strategic plan is reviewed with all publics, a facilitator begins working on-site, directing and assisting Action Teams as they develop Action Plans which will implement the strategies. Each strategy is assigned to an Action Team made up of a cross section of people who are affected by and involved in the strategy. The development of Action Plans usually takes 3-4 months.

Second Strategic Planning Session
After the Action Plans and Cost/Benefit Analyses have been developed, the Strategic Planning Team meets for the Second Planning Session. During these two days, the action plans most likely to implement the strategies are selected. The total plan is reviewed, and the final plan is prepared for presentation to the Board, via the Superintendent, for approval.

Periodic Updates
In order to ensure that Strategic Planning is a continuing process of creation, a Strategic Planning team is assembled periodically (usually on an annual basis) to review progress, re-examine internal and external factors, revise any portion of the plan, and incorporate new or updated objectives and strategies, or delete those accomplished or no longer relevant.

Preparation of Final Draft (with resource allocation plan)
Working with the facilitator(s), the chief executive officer will develop a phased schedule for moving the plans to action and will prepare a five-year projection of both costs and savings associated with every plan. Existing programs and activities outside the plan will be abandoned and resources will be reallocated to new action plans.

Board Approval
The chief executive will submit the final draft of the Strategic Plan along with the schedule of action to the board for approval. The board has complete discretion in accepting or rejecting any part of the plan. Typically, if it represents broad professional and community agreement and support, it is approved in its entirety.

5. Strategic Planning Vocabulary

Beliefs
The statement of beliefs is the most logical, if not the most necessary, beginning of any strategic plan. It is a formal expression of the organization’s fundamental values: its ethical code, its overriding convictions, its inviolate moral commitments. Essentially, it describes the character of the organization. That means that the statement of beliefs of an organization must represent a composite, a distillation, of the personal values of those who have a vested interest in the organization. In a school district, the belief statement reflects the common core values of the entire community.

The fact is that every organization has a distinctive value system, even though it may not be formally articulated, perhaps not even admitted. However, the statement of beliefs should not be merely an acknowledgment of what the organization is, but an expression of what it is at its best. Beliefs are, in fact, moral imperatives.

Mission
The mission statement is a clear and concise expression of the district’s identity, purpose and means. Always written in one sentence, the statement should reflect both the clarity of thinking and the vision characteristic of leaders. While the mission statement must obviously acknowledge reality, it must also aspire to the ideal. Furthermore, the mission statement should not be merely a description of the status quo, but rather a bold declaration of what the organization will be. In that sense, it creates a new reality.

Above all else, the mission statement must represent a commitment to the special distinctiveness, the uniqueness, the oneness-of-a-kindness, the originality, that sets the organization apart from others like it. If an organization cannot identify its uniqueness, it probably cannot justify its existence. That means that all the options available to the organization must be seriously deliberated and a single identity agreed upon. Quite often school districts have the mistaken notion that their mission is so rigidly set by law that they have no choice at the local level. But most districts find, upon close examination, that in actuality, they have considerable flexibility and very few limites. In fact, the trouble usually comes in limiting the district activities.

Parameters
First, what parameters are not. Parameters, as defined here, are not the traditional board policies; nor the routine, operational, administrative, or academic rules and procedures – like who parks where and how many English credits a student must have to graduate. They are not laws or regulations handed down from the state or local school board. In short, they are not restrictions externally or internally imposed on an organization. And they are not a bilious recitation of the obvious.

Rather, parameters here are strategic parameters: limitations the organization places upon itself for good reason. They are parameters, boundaries in which the organization will operate; they are things the organization either will never do or will always do. Such parameters are “strategic” because they have the effect of “positioning” the organization in terms of its own mission.

Internal Analysis
Strictly speaking, the internal analysis and, for that matter, the external analysis are as much a part of the planning process as of the planning discipline. And while they are not normally included in the final published plan-except, perhaps, as an appendix-they must be considered here as a prerequisite to developing the objectives and strategies, which are the heart of the plan. In fact, it is not unusual for the strategies to be direct responses to these analyses.

Strengths
Strengths are defined as those internal qualities, circumstances, or conditions that contribute to the organization’s ability to achieve its mission. For that reason, only those strengths that directly relate to the stated mission should be considered here. That is to say, emphasis should not be on strengths relative to other like organizations, but strictly relative to this local mission.

Weaknesses
The weaknesses of an organization are those internal characteristics, conditions, or circumstances that restrict, or even prevent, the realization of the mission. Whereas strengths represent achievement, weaknesses usually indicate either a lack of performance or the inability to perform. However, weaknesses are quite often simply the result of benign neglect. Therefore, they are not necessarily a reflection of the abilities or the intent of the organization, but of either its priorities or its current capacity.

Organizational Critique
The third part of the internal analysis is the critical analysis of organization; that is, a close examination of the organization’s internal functions, communication, and systems of accountability and authority as reflected in the organizational design. This critique is not aimed at correcting; merely at determining what is working and what is not. In fact, at this point, “fixes” or solutions are totally inappropriate. For this reason the very last thing that will be done in the planning process is a strategic organization (or reorganization). Why? Because one of the cardinal principles of strategic management is this: organize to the plan; do not plan to the organization.

Translated into practice, this means that organizing cannot properly take place until the final and complete plan is set. Then, and only then, is the organization arranged for implementation. But a thorough critique at this point in the planning process not only identifies the present difficulties that need to be remedied, but also establishes a somewhat philosophical context-if not rationale-for future organizing.

External Analysis
The external analysis is usually the most exciting part of the planning discipline, because it is futuristic-looking into the future for five to ten years; prophetic-predicting events and conditions that will occur during that time; and challenging-identifying specific impacts on the organization as a result of those events and circumstances. Also, appropriately called “environmental analysis,” this exercise is based on the realization that there are, and will be, many external factors over which the planning organization has no control; but that does not mean that these external influences must necessarily control the organization. That, in fact, is what planning is all about-maintaining control even in an environment that is out of control. Stated quite simply, the purpose of the external analysis is to prevent surprises that may negatively affect the organization’s ability or opportunity to accomplish its mission. But more than providing mere intelligence about the future, the external analysis may serve as the immediate rationale for the formulation of the strategic commitment of resources. That is to say, the external analysis is not for information only; it is a call to action.

Competition
Somewhat related to the external analysis, but deserving its own special attention for planning purposes, is the matter of competition. Competition is defined as any other organization providing the same goods, products, and services to the same client in a free market-place. Typically, public education has not given a great deal of thought to competition, and certainly not to “products” and the “marketplace.” Perhaps that is the reason so many districts are experiencing significant decreases in both enrollment and quality of education. But the fact is that the future of public schools cannot be guaranteed by law; only by the performance of those schools judged against an ever growing number of educational options. In fact, the voucher system and schools of choice, combined with the growing number of for-profit schools, have already forced public education into the free market.

Critical Issues
At this juncture in the planning discipline, quite often it is helpful to identify critical issues; that is, areas in which the institution faces the prospect of getting either much worse or much better. As noted earlier, “crisis” is the point between life and death, success or failure. Critical issues, therefore, are those issues that must be dealt with if the organization is to survive or to recreate itself in the context of its own stated mission. Usually, these critical issues can be identified only by a thorough reconsideration of the beliefs, the parameters, the internal and external analyses, and the assessment of competition.

Objectives
The statement of objectives is the planning organization’s commitment to achieve specific, measurable end results. In essence, the objectives are tied very closely to the mission statement; in fact, they both spring from and define the mission. These are not administrative objectives, operational objectives, nor even building objectives: They are district objectives.

Quite simply, the objectives are what the organization must achieve if it is to accomplish its mission and be true to its beliefs. Such objectives are the specification of the mission into results. Therefore, objectives should be student-centered.

Strategies
Without doubt, the most important part of the planning discipline and, consequently, of the plan itself is the list of strategies. The strategies, after all, are what make the plan “strategic”. They are, in particular, the articulation of bold commitments to deploy the organization’s resources toward the stated objectives. Any and all of the organization’s resources-people, facilities, equipment, money-are subject to assignment or reassignment through the strategies.

A “strategy” is not a strategy unless it represents a significant investment toward an expected significant return. Quite obviously, strategies in themselves are indicative of the organization’s basic operational emphasis, its priorities, and the standards by which it will measure its own performance.

Action Plans
The final component of the planning discipline is the action plans. As the name implies, action plans are a detailed description of the specific actions required to achieve specific results necessary for the implementation of the strategies. Each strategy will be developed by several such plans, all containing step-by-step directions, time lines, assignments of responsibilities, and cost-benefit analysis.

It is in the action plans that the strategies become operational. In military terminology, action plans are the “tactics”. Correspondingly, each action plan has its own specific objectives and must therefore be judged ultimately on the actual results it produces. Action plans that are long on process and short on getting things done are nothing more than a means of postponing dedicated effort and, hence, a denial of accountability.

Summary
With the action plans in place, the strategic planning discipline is complete, and the logical, progressive decision making forced by the discipline is obvious: Beliefs, Mission, Parameters (Internal and External Analyses, Competition, Critical Issues), Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans. Taken together, the components of the discipline tell “who”, “what”, and “how” – who the organization is (Beliefs, Mission, Parameters); what it is up to (Objectives); and how it is going to do it (Strategies and Action Plans).

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