Strategic planning article and non-profit training session

In one Texas County, a volunteer group has been working with several non-profit companies helping them build a strategic plan for their organizations.  This approach has been executed through training and one-on-one facilitation sessions.  The strategic planning approach that is being used in the training is a traditional strategic planning methodology.

I was able to participate in the first and last night’s session, which was the third and final training session.  Last night I facilitated discussion at a table of six non-profit organizations.

Ironically this session occurred during the same month as the publishing of my Inputs Into Action: 9 steps to a better VOC-initiated improvement project OKarticle, which describes the linkage of strategic planning and project creation in the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) value chain’s metrics and associated goals.

During this traditional strategic planning training last night, a Relationship graphic was presented that linked in tree format from the left of the page to the right: vision>strategic objectives>goals>action plans. If one were to look at Figure 4 in the previously linked article, they would see a similar tree diagram.

A similarity exists between these two graphics in that with the 9-step IEE business management system, step 1 involves the creation of a vision and mission.  One should note how this is to be completed before the creation of Figure 4 in the overall IEE 9-step roadmap.  One could then compare strategic objectives in the Relationship graphic to what Figure 4 lists as business goals.

In Figure 4 of the article, goals are linked to value chain metrics whenever possible under the projects column, which also includes defined projects.

With the IEE data-decision-making approach, value chain metrics that need improvement (where each value-chain metric has an owner), from a big picture point of view, will be pulling for the creation and execution of projects that benefit the enterprise as a whole.  This difference addresses one of the most common complaints about traditional strategic planning; i.e., it produces documents that end up collecting dust on the shelf.

The above linked article goes into details of the IEE system and its strategic planning process.  Among other things, formally assessing the organization’s value chain metrics in the IEE roadmap before creating a strategy can have much benefit to determine analytically-determined targeted focused areas so that the enterprise as

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