Writing the Plan and Continuous Improvements
Writing the Plan and Continuous Improvements
Issues Preventing Strategic Planning and Strategic Management
Strategic planning is a summary of how and the organization expects to achieve its goals and objectives, and also why the particular organization is in existence; this is the organization’s mission (McNerney, Perri, & Reid, 2013). On the other hand, strategic management majorly involves the formulation and implementation of the goals of an organization by its management. The strategic plan of the organization is written for its audience that may include stakeholders or external and internal customers as a way of guiding the organization towards its future goals. However, there are several challenges that prevent organizations from engaging in strategic planning and strategic management. Some of these challenges may include: time consumption during the process of strategic planning, engagement of the right people in the process, the consensus of the people involved, and most importantly the execution of the strategic plan.
The strategic planning process may prove to be very time consuming when it engages a large community input effort and deprive other significantly important tasks in the organization of their time and consideration. Nevertheless, results of the strategic plan will be improved if there is a broad range of participation by individuals. Engaging the right and competent persons in the strategic planning also tends to be strenuous for organizations. Experienced and proficient people in the organization should majorly be involved in this process because they know the benefits that will be reaped from the planning and continuous improvement.
Another issue that may prevent organizations from engaging actively in the strategic planning and strategic management is consensus. This is because many participants will make some information to be extraneous to the final plan due to personal preferences and experiences that will most likely differ. Execution can also prove to be an issue. Many organizations usually have difficulties when it comes to putting the plan into action. Achieving the goals, strategies, and objectives of strategic planning and strategic management are the point of this entire process.
Implementation of a Strategic Plan
Implementation is an essential part of the process of strategic planning because it mainly dwells on the putting the plans in place. The implementation of the process can vary from one organization to another due to the details of the actual plan. There are however steps that should be followed for effective implementation. A strategic planning committee should be established because the process requires a vast and diverse approach to problem-solving. Members of the committee should be past section leaders in the organization since they have the expertise and experience needed. Moreover, future leaders of the section must be included in the strategic planning committee because, as future leaders, they will be more knowledgeable in the implementation process.
Secondly, the committee should review existing plans. This is imperative because it offers ready-made formats, and it gives several useful examples of how the plan should be implemented. Reviewing the previous existing plans may also trigger new ideas and how to effectively tackle them. Another important step in the implementation of a strategic planning process is defining the issues where members of the committee identify which issues are important to the organization whether current or future. After there is a good understanding of the issues, objectives and goals are established. The goals are just statements that indicate the future outcomes but do not necessarily tell how and why to get there. However, goals will help to achieve the mission of the organization.
The most important part of the implementation process comes when you have to develop the plan. This involves developing the strategies, detailed objectives and tasks that will help to accomplish the goals of the plan. During this process, the committee should determine which resources are relevant and necessary to develop each objective. Committee assignments base the approval of a strategic plan before implementation. Committee chairs are usually held accountable for the implementing the plans therefore, they should request for progress reports regularly, report findings to the membership during meetings, and always keep an active line of communication in the committee at large.
A suitable vision statement for the program of Masters in Administrative Science would be ‘To efficiently prepare the a Master Degree holder in the program of Administration Science to be the first choice for employers in the global market and strengthen the culture and economy of the society.’ The vision can be considered appropriate because it tells why the program is in existence, it shows the problems that were present for the program to be established, and it also tells which people of the society were affected and how they were affected by the problem.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is a crucial component when it comes to the performance of any organization. It brings out the concept of quality and thus should be incorporated and highly considered during the planning process. The strategic planning process should consider training of the employees so that they have the necessary skills during implementation and also meet the customers’ expectations. The goals of an organization must be focused on the client satisfaction since the continuous improvement process may majorly be adapted due to customers’ desire or at times due to the period in which the organization is in.
References
McNerney, D., Perri, D., & Reid, M. (2013, April 23). Solid evidence: Strategic planning practices result in higher performing nonprofits. Retrieved from http://www.strategyassociation.org/?page=ArticlesReports
