Category 2 - Strategic Planning (85pts)

Aproach-Deployment The Strategic Planning Category examines how your organization develops strategic objectives and action plans. Also examined are how your chosen strategic objectives and action plans are deployed and how progress is measured.

Area To Address : 2.1 Strategy Development (40 pts.)

Describe how your organization establishes its strategic objectives, including enhancing its competitive position and overall performance. Within your response, include answers to the following questions: a. Strategy Development Process (1) What is your overall strategic planning process? Include key steps, key participants, and your short- and longer-term planning time horizons. (2) How do you ensure that planning addresses the following key factors? Briefly outline how relevant data and information are gathered and analyzed to address these factors: customer and market needs/expectations/opportunities your competitive environment and your capabilities relative to competitors technological and other key changes that might affect your products/services and/or how you operate your strengths and weaknesses, including human and other resources your supplier/partner strengths and weaknesses financial, societal, and other potential risks b. Strategic Objectives (1) What are your key strategic objectives and your timetable for accomplishing them? key goals/targets, as appropriate. Include

(2) How do your strategic objectives address the challenges identified in response to P.2 in your Organizational Profile? How do you ensure that your strategic objectives balance the needs of all key stakeholders?

2.2 Strategy Deployment (45 pts.)

Describe how your organization converts its strategic objectives into action plans. Summarize your organization's action plans and related key performance measures/indicators. Project your organization's future performance on these key performance measures/indicators. Within your response, include answers to the following questions: a. Action Plan Development and Deployment (1) How do you develop and deploy action plans to achieve your key strategic objectives? Include how you allocate resources to ensure accomplishment of your action plans. (2) What are your key short- and longer-term action plans? Include key changes, if any, in your products/services, your customers/markets, and how you operate. (3) What are your key human resource plans that derive from your short- and longer-term strategic objectives and action plans? (4) What are your key performance measures/indicators for tracking progress relative to your action plans? How do you ensure that your overall action plan measurement system achieves organizational alignment and covers all key deployment areas and stakeholders? b. Performance Projection What are your performance projections for your key measures/indicators for both your short- and longerterm planning time horizons? How does your projected performance compare with competitors performance, key benchmarks, goals, and past performance, as appropriate?

Baldrige Model: How do you implement your strategy? Item 2.2 in the Baldrige Criteria asks key questions about how your organization converts strategic objectives into action plans. The following processes, best practices, and problem areas look at critical issues in this part of the Baldrige model.

Your organization needs processes for:

Developing short- and longer-term action plans and deploying them throughout your organization and to key suppliers and partners Allocating financial, human, and other resources to support accomplishing the action plans Identifying human resource plans that support accomplishing your action plans Identifying key performance measures you can use to track performance on your action plans Modifying action plans if circumstances change and rapidly executing the new plans Best practices to consider:

Aligning the organizations strategic objectives, action plans, and performance measurement system with action plans and key performance measures for divisions, departments, teams, and individual employees ensures that everyone in the organization is working on what must happen for the organization to succeed. The performance management process identifies annual goals and objectives for each employee that support the goals, objectives, and action plans of the organization and department. Business planning and strategic planning are part of one process that allocates resources to support the strategic objectives of the organization. Human resource plans in such areas as learning and development, recruiting and retaining employees, and increasing employee engagement align with and support the organizations strategic plan. Common problems areas:

No process exists to cascade the strategic plan throughout the organization, which makes it difficult to achieve the plan. Individual employees do not know 9May2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued Baldrige Model: How do you develop your strategy? The Baldrige Model: How do you develop your strategy?

Item 2.1 in the Baldrige Criteria asks key questions about your organizations strategy development process. The following processes, best practices, and problem areas look at critical issues in this part of the Baldrige model.

Your organization needs processes for:

Conducting strategic planning, including identifying key steps and participants Identifying potential blind spots, core competencies, strategic challenges and advantages, and shortand longer-term planning time horizons Collecting and analyzing relevant data and information upon which the strategic plan is based including your organizations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; early indications of disruptive change; long-term organizational sustainability; and your ability to execute your plan Identifying strategic objectives that address your challenges, advantages, and opportunities for innovation; capitalize on your core competencies; balance short- and longer-term challenges and opportunities; consider and balance the needs of all key stakeholders; and enhance your ability to adapt to sudden changes in market conditions Best practices to consider:

Strategic planning is a continuous process that involves ongoing collection and analysis of relevant data and information, regular review of performance to plan, and the agility to modify the plan as conditions change. The strategic planning is inclusive, involving those employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders with unique insight in the planning process. Since the quality of a strategic plan depends on the quality of the information upon which it is based, senior leaders and other planning participants are responsible for identifying, analyzing, and communicating information about the areas they 8May2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued FREE REPORT: Strategy Development How do Baldrige Award winners conduct strategic planning? You can learn from the best practices of six recent Award winners in our free report. Enter your name and email address in the purple box on the right and you will receive a PDF that includes:

The strategic planning processes of four organizations: Heartland Health, Premier, the VACSP Center, and MidwayUSA Ideas on how to prepare to plan, including where to look for relevant data and information and how to analyze what you collect (Iredell-Statesville Schools is a example) The key questions Cargill Corn Milling asks to determine how it should act within a strategic space How these organizations determine and review their core competencies and strategic challenges and advantages Four key elements to consider while developing your strategic plan How to identify effective strategic objectives As the report concludes, strategy development at these six Award winners shares common elements that your organization can use to create an effective approach:

Strategic planning must be a well-defined and refined process that involves key stakeholders in developing strategies. As the diagrams in this report illustrate, a systematic strategic planning process shows who does what, when, with an emphasis on involving key stakeholders in the process. Strategy development is an ongoing process. The front end of the process, collecting data and information, occurs daily throughout the year, a responsibility of key people in the organization to find, collect, and communicate what is happeningor may happenthat could affect your organizations future. The back end of the 23Mar2011 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued Identifying Game Changers Im getting ready to offer the next free report about best practices among Baldrige Award winnersits about strategy developmentand an article on CNNMoney.com caught my eye.

The Baldrige Criteria ask how your strategic planning process identifies potential blind spots and how you address early indications of major shifts in technology. One of the favorite examples of why this is important is the market leader in horse-drawn carriages when the first Model Ts appeared: If you dont have processes in place to detect disruptive technologies or recognize your blind spots, you expose your organization to irrelevance.

The article in CNNMoney.com, available here, has the potential to change how cell phone service is delivered. The explosion of smartphones has stretched wireless networks to the limit, forcing companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint Nextel to cap data, charge for overages, and raise prices on phones and tablet plans. And mobile data usage is expected to grow 30 times in the next four to five years. The cell towers and antennas that create the networks are large, inefficient, and expensive to maintain, costing the industry $210 billion a year to operate and another $50 billion to upgrade.

Its a perfect climate for innovation, and that innovation may be the lightRadio by Alcatel-Lucent. About the size of a Rubiks cube, the lightRadio takes all of the components of a cell phone tower and compresses them down into a 2.3-inch block. It can be deployed almost anywhere: on bus