Plan 2019

Strategic Plan 2019

7 ideas that will serve you
José Antonio Cárcamo Hidalgo / Consulting Area / December 2018

The end of the year is a good time to analyze the results we have obtained and plan for the next year, although it is possible that you have not done so yet, Have you planned something for this new year? What projects, initiatives or actions can you and your team do to be the best version of yourself?

The end of the year brings with it many distractions and events, which although necessary and cannot be postponed, is also a good opportunity to consider the New Year's resolutions and goals.

Many organizations conduct annual reviews of their strategic plan and focus on finishing and reporting on the past year, but as important as evaluating the effectiveness of our actions, is to establish what the objectives are for the next year and the necessary actions to achieve them.

are you looking for some tips to set your goals for your strategic plan and how to achieve them? Or maybe some new perspective for your Strategic plan? Here are some tips that can help you with this important task.

1.- Reflect on what went wrong.
Chances are you're already doing this, at every monthly or quarterly review meeting of your strategic plan, you've been looking at your underperforming goals, your measures and initiatives, and the effectiveness of your actions. However, it is important to take this opportunity to take a step back and view your strategic plan from a broader perspective. Look at the performance for the year as a whole and if necessary, go back to previous years. Try to spot trends.

Take a moment and put some extra effort now to find the main reason (or reasons) why the objectives have not been achieved, which projects are consuming resources but not helping to improve the results as expected? initiatives we have to change because they have not yielded the expected results? And if necessary, redesign your objectives, remember that it is more effective to review the actions that have been taken and change, discard or improve them, than to keep changing your objectives.

2. Reflect on what went well
Instead of feeling bad about constantly putting out fires throughout the year or spending your time only focusing on the shortcomings of your strategic plan, make time to focus on what you've accomplished so far from your strategic plan.

The benefits of focusing on the positives are twofold.

First of all, you need to reward your staff and your organization for what they have done well so far. When they reflect and look at their accomplishments, everyone will feel more motivated, plus positive reinforcement keeps everyone excited and involved in the new strategic plan.

Second, focusing on the positives helps to see what can be learned from them. Why have some projects succeeded while others are failing? What is the difference between an objective that has been achieved and another that has not? Just as you need to find the root cause of poor performance, you need to find the root cause of good performance and find ways to repeat those successes.

3. Ask yourself if you are acting like a strategist, regarding your strategic plan
Is your strategic plan really strategic? It is a good question that one should ask themselves at least once a year. Are all elements of your mission and vision integrated into your strategic plan? Does your strategic plan accurately represent the core values and expectations of all stakeholders?

Your strategic plan is supposed to include decisions and actions. It should not work as a simple reporting of numbers. Are these decisions and actions really a strategic alternative?

4. Consider your goals, indicators and initiatives
Do your goals, indicators and initiatives (actions and decisions) make sense to you right now? Remember that the external and internal context changes. Indicators are sometimes added at the beginning of a strategic plan, but if you have been consistently meeting a goal over the past three years, perhaps the indicator for this goal has become more operational than strategic. Also, it is very possible, although less frequent, that some objectives can be deleted or new ones added to your strategic plan.

Take a hard look at projects that started more than 18 months ago and have never been completed. Perhaps now something has changed and the original project is irrelevant. If you're in a fast-moving industry like tech, your business or market may have changed, make sure your strategic plan changes with it.

5. Make known the purposes of your strategic plan
We all know that peer pressure works. Discuss your strategic plan with people, as they will spread it and stay true to it. If your organization is able to share your strategic plan publicly, do it!

Basically, it is about communicating to all stakeholders your strategic plan and what you want to achieve. Peer pressure and fear of failure can be powerful forces. It is very important to control and use this pressure, to motivate and succeed.

6. Take your strategic plan to the next level
Here's a purpose for customizing a generic strategic plan. One very important thing is what the next level might mean for you and your organization. If you have wanted to publish your strategic plan online and have not done so up to now, this year you can. If you have floated the idea of setting and developing new goals for other levels, now is the time.

Suppose your company-wide strategic plan is being executed very well, this may be the time to set goals at business unit levels.

Whatever the next level means to you, make sure you define it well, that it is specific, and that the actions it entails are within a certain timeframe.

7. Don't forget about resources
No strategic plan is complete without taking into account the resources needed to maintain and implement it. One of the main risks of its execution is in foreseeing the resources, financial, material and human. A resource generally forgotten in most forecasts is the financing of operating funds, forgetting this important resource is the cause of the much feared "death of success".

One way or another, next year is here and your organization's progress depends on your strategic plan, we hope these tips have helped you.

Happy New Year!

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