Strategic Plan Creation

Creating a strategic plan may be easy to some people. There are templates available in the market. The creation of strategic plans that do not work is of no value; it is fiction not reality. In the real world, while fiction entertains, amuses and provokes, it does not contribute to the goals of business or organizations.

Realistic Strategic Plan

Can a strategic plan work? Can it actually work? This thought provoking question will be our criterion as we as we navigate through the maze of planning workability. What works will work, what does not work will not work, no matter what to put into it.

Creating a strategic plan that work starts with the question of, is it realistic? By definition plans are results of the thinking process and the brain performs so many astonishing things, it produces dreams and visions that oftentimes are fictional in character. When creating a plan and you target workability as its end, the question of it being realistic is the first of four steps. Reality is both tangible and intangible. Computer software is tangible, you write the programming language; it is also intangible, you do not actually see with your eyes how the computer sorts and analyses the data, but you see the results. Same thing characterizes a plan that actually works.

By realistic it means that the created plan can and will work. The end result is not the primary consideration but workability is the issue. Realistic plans will work regardless of whether the results will be favorable or unfavorable. Years ago, business and organizations hired all the people it possibly can hire, to cope up with expansion and business volume. A case in point are, companies who have heavy documentation: banks, insurance companies, health care providers. Their dilemma is so much volume and so few people to process them. Hiring more will only add to the dilemma.

A realistic plan was conceptualized, that of sub-contracting or subs as they are mostly called. This was a realistic plan because of two very important highways: the information highway and the delivery highway. The sub can be located far off but still document processing was still possible, they can be delivered by special couriers and sent back by special couriers. Another alternative was to do the processing on line and send the processed data via the Internet.

Attainable Strategic Plan

Creating a realistic plan is just the initial stage in a strategic plan that actually works. A second step connects it. A strategic plan that actually works is not only realistic it is also attainable. It must be something that can be constructed, something that can be made concrete, and something that should be within reach.

Our previous picture of the documentation hungry business or organization had not only a realistic plan but an attainable plan as well.

This attainability was achieved primarily by two very important driving forces: that of information delivery via the information highway and that of document delivery via special couriers who can deliver anywhere in the world. The absence of one would tip the balance so that the plan becomes unrealistic and unattainable.

The strategic planner should be able to identify driving forces or important technology that may be crucial to the attainability of the strategic plan. Such driving force or new technology may differ from business to business or from organization to organization. It is the planner’s responsibility to see to it that the strategic plan should be within reach.