Strategic Planning Process Analysis

It is evident that the business/service environment has experienced changes whereby customers are more demanding of better service delivery and variety in goods. Hence, organisations have been called out to improve their performance in a competitive environment. In an attempt to respond to this change in the environment, both public and private enterprises have employed strategic planning and management processes and structure to guarantee same. How successful have public organizations really been at strategic management? The ultimate aim of the strategic planning process is to implement the strategic plan at the end of the day. In other words the plan must come to life – be a living document.

Bryson (1988) highlights about nine (9) advantages

Given the five (5) strategic planning models presented by McNamara (1997-2006) and Kriemadis & Theakou (2007), an organisation may adopt one or a combination of these models – Basic, Issue/Goal-based, Alignment, Scenario and Organic/Self-organising, when executing their strategic planning process. While this strategy change cycle serves as a guide, the ownus is with the public manager to apply the most suitable model given the circumstances and goals to be achieved. Strategy Change Cycle or Ten-step process highlighted by Bryson (2004) was an upgrade from the eight-step process put forward by the said Bryson (1988) in an attempt to realise or even revise annaul Corporate or Business Plans. Being party to a recent planning process, this steps involved were executed as follows: 1) Commence and agree upon a strategic planning process – A common goal is the order of the day. To achieve this shared goal a wide cross-section was selected which guaranteed representation of all units, division and branch of the organization. It was not limited to only top management. Effort was made to have employees whose start date was subsequent to the planning session be in attendance as well. Consensus was among all. 2) Recognize all organizational mandates relating to the organization – with a legal foundation and supporting regulations as in the case of the Forestry Department, it is important to continuously review the governing instruments. Extracts and full copies of each the aforementioned documents were placed in the workshop folders along with the Business Plan and previous Operational plan for periodic reference. It was eventually recommended that the Forest Act 1996 be revised to address some gaps. 3) Spell out and make clear the organization’s mission statement and shared values – the current vision, mission and core values were presented for review and