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Monday, September 14, 2009

The Strategic Planning Horizon


At Six Disciplines, we encourage business leaders and all team members to look at business planning horizons using this inverted pyramid chart.

Beginning with Mission and Values, which should be decided upon early in the strategic planning process - and should be designed to last for decades.

Next is the organization's Strategic Position, which should be the articulated as the ability to build and sustain a product or service offering that is different than that of your competition, and should be designed to last 10+ years.

Similarly, the Vision should be designed to describe how your organization will look like in 10 years, in pursuing the mission and strategic position.

Next, the Long-Term Goals of the organization (also known as the "Vital Few Objectives") look out 3-5 years, and 1-Year Company Goals are expressed in a balanced scorecard-like fashion (with specific measures, deadlines, assigned accountability) in the categories of financial, customer, production and people.

Individual Plans are created on a quarterly basis, indicating projects, tasks and activities that each person will do in order to support the company goals.

BOTTOMLINE: It all comes down to Today....what are you doing - TODAY - to support the organization's goals, in order to fulfill its Long-Term Goals, Vision, Mission and Values?

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