Strategic Plan For An Organization

For most organizations, the principal representation of their strategic direction is their written strategic plan. The plan articulates the organization’s mission, vision, values, goals, and objectives and the motives behind its decisions and actions. However, written plans should be used as a strategic guideline, not as a blueprint that has to be followed. Although there are many ways to construct a strategic plan, to be useful and effective it must answer the following questions:

• Where is the organization now?
• What needs to be done to better achieve the organization’s mission and vision?
• What avenues might the organization take to accomplish the mission and vision?
• What specific actions should be taken?
• How do we translate the strategic plan into actions?
• How do we know if we have achieved our objectives?

Understanding an Organization’s Current Status

It is critical that examination of the current status of an organization be based on observed and recorded data. Leaders must rely on periodic evaluations of their environment, not just on their “gut feelings.” An organized approach to examining the organizational environment involves routine collection of both quantitative and qualitative information to determine whether the organization’s strategic plans are working to achieve its mission. Environments change, so organizations must reanalyze their circumstances and situation and update their plans accordingly. If they fail to do so, their plans may become misaligned with their mission and vision.

By periodically assessing their organization’s environment and communicating the results to all staff, leaders update not only their perspectives but also those of all employees. Periodic updates are important to aligning perceptions in organizations. When staff at different levels in an organization have different perceptions of their external or internal environment, progress derails and efforts are wasted. Research has shown that strategic efforts often “go off track” as a result of misaligned goals, created in part by inaccurate communication, poor feedback, confused goals, and uncertain strategic directions.  Specifically, perceptions of the change efforts may differ along organizational hierarchy and create conflicting perceptions of goals, outcomes, and strategic directions, leading to misappropriations of resources, inconsistent efforts, premature abandonment, and poor results.

Key Stakeholder Involvement

Proper involvement of stakeholder groups in the planning process helps them reach a consensus on the environmental challenges and motivation for change and develop a sense of common ownership and vision. If they are not involved, conflicting positions may arise among stakeholder groups.  Stakeholder alignment must be measured periodically through surveys, focus groups, workshops, and interviews. The degree of alignment between stake‏holders and leaders can greatly impact an organization’s ability to develop and implement strategies.

Stakeholders and executives can become aligned or misaligned in various ways. Exhibit 10.2 demonstrates the different opinions stakeholders and executives can have regarding the need to make a major change, along with probable outcomes. If a proper environmental analysis has been conducted

and communicated appropriately, a consensus of either negative‏negative (indicating a need for change) or positive‏positive (indicating agreement that existing practices and programs should be institutionalized) will be reached. If the executive team does not involve stakeholders in strategic planning or communicates poorly with them, the perceptions of the two groups can quickly become misaligned. In these situations, one group has a negative perception, indicating a desire for change, while the other has a positive perception, indicating resistance to change. Therefore, stakeholder involvement, communication, and transparency of organizational issues are critical components of strategic planning. Involving and interacting with employees and other stakeholders promote both emotional and cognitive alignment.

Communication

Often the process of discovery and communication during planning is as important (or perhaps more important) than the creation of the ultimate written plan. Referring to his position as supreme commander during World War II, former president Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle I have always found plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”. The planning process brings stakeholders together; reinforces the organization’s mission, vision, and strategic direction; and unites the work effort.

Buy‏in is facilitated by involving critical stakeholders early in the strategic planning process. Especially in large organizations, involvement of all employees is impossible. Influential representatives from key stakeholder groups are chosen to participate on boards, committees, task forces, and subcommittees concerning the strategic planning process. Stakeholders should be appointed as spokespersons for the groups in which they participate and serve as ambassadors or liaisons between their groups and the organization.

The initial steps of strategic planning therefore are to identify, communicate with, and involve key stakeholders. These steps are facilitated by early development of a communication plan. Key milestones in the planning process and the mechanisms to be used to communicate with key stakeholders are specified in this plan. Key milestones might include presentation of a summary of the environmental analyses, including significant challenges facing the organization; a revised mission or vision; the overall strategic goals; and other components of the strategic plan and planning process. Venues through which information and progress can be shared include departmental or company‏wide meetings, intranet postings, newsletters, bulletin boards, e‏mail, Twitter, and Facebook, among others. An established public relations department can implement the communication plan, or a subcommittee of the strategic planning committee may be tasked with managing the communication effort.

Consensus is reached more often in organizations that focus on learn‏ing and innovation rather than adherence to rules, budgets, and avoidance of failure. A culture of learning and innovation increases stakeholders’ open‏ness to change. On the other hand, organizations that exercise control, focus on rules and policies, and tie budget outcomes to rewards are less likely to engender intra‏organizational consensus.

Environmental Analysis

The components of the internal and external environment‏ and types of analyses that may be used to clarify an organization’s market status. If too many data are analyzed, however, “analysis paralysis” may result. Therefore, only key, critical factors should be analyzed. Key internal data include factors that help measure achievement of the organization’s mission and progress toward the vision and reflect important stakeholder needs. These data may be drawn from documentation of volume activity, financial statements, employee opinion surveys, and research. Past successes and failures should likewise be examined. Key factors contributing to both successes and failures should be identified and inform the planning process. Areas reviewed should be restricted to a manageable number.

Key external data also include factors that could significantly impact the organization’s direction and ability to fulfill its mission and vision. Data on competitors, industry data, community and customer perceptions, market share, and information on customer origin (e.g., from hospital patient origin studies) are some examples. SWOT analysis may be used but should never be an exclusive source of information.

The Affordable Care Act includes an interesting provision that requires all tax‏exempt hospitals (i.e., those with the 501 designation) to assess the health needs of the community and design a plan to meet those needs at least once every three years. The assessment must consider input from individuals representing the “broad interests of the community served by the hospital facility” and must be made publicly available. information required to be documented in the implementation plan is similar to that included in a strategic plan, including:

• a description of the community served; community demographics;
• other community healthcare facilities and services;
• the health needs of the community;
• the health needs of uninsured, low‏income, and minority groups;
• prioritized community health needs; and
• an implementation strategy.

Strategic planning must be a data‏driven process in which decisions are based on current, reliable information. If planning is not data driven, it devolves into decision making based on opinion and conjecture. While there is never only one right decision, relevant and accurate data improve the quality of decision making.

Sources of Data

Finding accurate, timely data can be extremely difficult. Public data commonly take one or more years to be published and often are incomplete or contain errors. Private data tend to be more accurate and timelier but must be purchased.

The following sites are good sources of healthcare data:

• org: The National Association of Health Data organizations is a nonprofit educational association dedicated to improving healthcare data collection and use. NAHDO’s members include state and private organizations that maintain healthcare databases as well as stakeholders of these databases in the public and private sectors.
• gov: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality maintains a large sample of data on hospitalized patients, including the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, a national inpatient sample of about 1,000 hospitals.
• hhs.gov: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services maintains Medicaid and Medicare inpatient and outpatient claims data.
• org: The Medical Group Management Association collects data on physician productivity in group practices by visits and costs.
• com: IMS Health maintains data on pharmaceutical agents and diseases/medical conditions.
• gov/statistics: The National Cancer Institute provides cancer statistics by type, geographic area, and demographic subgroups.
• com/blueresources/tec: The BlueCross and BlueShield Association performs technology assessments to gather scientific evidence of the effectiveness of different treatments and tests.
• com: The American Hospital Directory provides data and statistics on more than 6,000 hospitals nationwide.
• com: The American Hospital Association collects detailed annual hospital statistics.
• dartmouthatlas.org: The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care provides data on variation of care across the United States.

To get management assignment help, strategic management assignment help or management class help. Please WhatsApp at +44 7448-027841