Strategic Planning Q & A

Questions and Answers

In order to achieve our strategy, goals and objectives we need to embark on a serious professional development program. Can you suggest some "Best Practices" in this area?

In order for people in your workforce to understand the need for upgrading their skills they must first understand the strategy which is driving the need for new/higher skills. Once they understand the need, they will need a path do develop or enhance the required skills. Some examples include:

Set up an apprenticeship program
Training provided by inside experts
Training provided by outside experts
Assess each person's gaps and develop a targeted program to meet his or her specific requirements

Once trained you must test/certify to ensure that the skills trained have actually been acquired. Some companies use a certification program to ensure that the training was effective. Still, it is important to note the training should not stop here; people need review, retraining and updated training to make sure that they retain the newly acquired skills and continue to update their skill level. Repetition is important for significant skill enhancement. Give your associates time to be effective.

On the job training: allow people to learn from their mistakes:

What did they learn?
How would they do it differently next time?
What are the issues?
How do we resolve the issues?

In addition to providing a path for gaining the required skills you must add this development to each person's performance review - and, unfortunately, make sure you are weeding out those who are not up to the task to make sure that you have the required skills that will enable your company to be successful.

Set expectations high: this is the difference between mediocre and superior performance. Remember: it is important to treat people fairly, not equally.

In developing the research required for the second meeting of the Simplified Strategic Planning process I found a number of my team members simply copying pages from web sites rather than filling in the worksheets used in the manual. Is this a problem?

The worksheets in the Simplified Strategic Planning Manual (and on the CD) are designed to not only streamline the research process by requiring significant data items to be collected on each topic, but also to help streamline the review process where the information is shared so that the team develops a common base of knowledge. The common format allows people to easily compare information among topics in a section: e.g. comparing strengths and weaknesses of competitors is simple if the format for each competitor is the same. If team members do not follow the format three problems arise:

Inconsistent data collection
Comparisons become difficult
Too much information is provided and people can not assimilate the important data

While research on the Internet is important, the team member must take the data collected and insert it in the proper place on the worksheet - this will streamline the review process in the second strategic planning meeting. .

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