Long Range or Strategic Planning can be intimidating whether you are a new entrepreneur or a director on a corporate board.\u00a0 The key is to keep it simple and let yourself and your team be guided by two ideas: convert your vision into goals, and make your goals SMART!\u00a0 Those goals become the source of the details for your annual operating plan.\u00a0 By the way, it\u2019s a good idea to have someone with a gift for strategic planning work with you because each goal will need to be divided into team and individual tasks.\u00a0 The process of drilling down requires a fair amount of organized thinking.<\/p>\n
How long do we plan for?<\/strong>\u00a0 The clich\u00e9 that a goal is a dream with a deadline is true for long range plans.\u00a0 The starting point is your dream or vision statement, supplemented by your purpose or mission statement.\u00a0 Focus your thinking by setting the horizon for your LRP, typically three to five years; and you\u2019ve just put a deadline on the dream, or at least part of it!<\/p>\n Arguments are made for different time spans with three years often preferred due to the pace of change.\u00a0 Five years is more traditional with longer times like ten or even twenty years set for slow moving and massive changes like building aircraft carriers or reclaiming and protecting large wildlife habitats.\u00a0 Pick a horizon that makes sense for your organization\u2019s vision.\u00a0 And remember, you don\u2019t have to achieve your vision in three years; you just need to decide what the organization is going to do over the life of the LRP to move toward the vision.<\/p>\n Speaking of the life of the LRP; think of it as immortal.\u00a0 The LRP needs to be updated annually.\u00a0 Each year you can add new long range goals that feed the annual operating plan, assuming that you\u2019re achieving your older goals and they\u2019re rolling off the plan into maintenance mode.\u00a0 The three or five year horizon is that \u201crolling\u201d horizon that is always a few miles ahead of your car out on the highway.\u00a0 The new goal is the milepost way out on that horizon and the horizon always appears to be moving, but the mileposts beside the road identify the previous long range goals you established.<\/p>\n What should we include?<\/strong>\u00a0 Use the business plan outline as a guide and ask, \u201cWhat will it take in each of these areas to achieve the vision?\u201d\u00a0 Remember the first point in each component of the business plan: approach, risks and measures.\u00a0 How will your approach contribute to achieving the vision?\u00a0 What risks need to be addressed to enhance the chances for success?\u00a0 How will you know you are succeeding?<\/p>\n Identify the most significant goal with the greatest benefit for each business plan component and quantify it.\u00a0 Make it SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.\u00a0 Make it specific so you can break it down into tasks to be tackled each year.\u00a0 Make it measurable, you need indicators of progress and results to recognize success or the need for corrective action.\u00a0 Measurable includes not only the desired result, but also rough estimates of resources and timing.\u00a0 Make it achievable and realistic; nothing is more frustrating than trying to do something that cannot be completed in a reasonable amount of time.\u00a0 Make it time-bound; the assumption is that the goal will be achieved within the three year span of the current LRP so specify the date.<\/p>\n You might have noticed I didn\u2019t mention Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat (SWOT) analysis until now.\u00a0 I mention it now because although it\u2019s a step up in complexity from what I consider to be better business basics and common business sense, it is a very helpful approach to evaluating opportunities and related risks (threats).\u00a0 It\u2019s also useful for sizing up your core competencies and resources (strengths and weaknesses), key considerations in developing a workable LRP.\u00a0 There is plenty of guidance available on using SWOT analysis so I won\u2019t elaborate on it here.<\/p>\n One last thought on long range planning; don\u2019t over-analyze or over-plan.\u00a0 It\u2019s too easy to become the victim of analysis paralysis, a business disease that will keep you from doing anything big and increase your risk of failure.\u00a0 Learn to know when to say, \u201cThat\u2019s good enough!\u201d\u00a0 It keeps you moving forward and cuts back on those perfectionist tendencies (I speak from a great deal of experience in this area)!<\/p>\n What do we do today?<\/strong>\u00a0 You\u2019ve come this far; take a breather; building a long range plan is hard work! \u00a0Next you\u2019ll need to break down each goal into stages with shorter deadlines of one year or less, and actual tasks that can be completed in the shorter stages.\u00a0 In other words, you convert your LRP into an annual operating plan (AOP) defining what you\u2019ll do this fiscal or calendar year.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s the subject of another post\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Long Range or Strategic Planning can be intimidating whether you are a new entrepreneur or a director on a corporate board.\u00a0 The key is to keep it simple and let yourself and your team be guided by two ideas: convert your vision into goals, and make your goals SMART!\u00a0 Those goals become the source of … Continue reading The Long Range Plan<\/span>