"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities
Draft by A. J. Schwab
Version 0 – 06/14/96
(Initiated by the discussion during the San Diego SPC-Meeting in Feb. 1996)
Introduction
Strategic Planning is a most valuable tool helping organizations improve their performance and total quality. Strategic planning simply means creating a strategy giving
guidance in realizing a vision. A strategy tells how to get from where an organization is
to where it wants to be or is supposed to be. Moving from the status quo to the
envisioned state is a process, that is a combination of sequential and concurrent
activities. A strategy can be considered a plan or map of this process.
It is appropriate to distinguish between long-term and medium-term strategic planning.
– Long-term strategic planning is done at the corporate level of an organization,
looks many years ahead and results in a grand strategy (altern.: corporate
strategy, master strategy). The grand strategy consists of a corporate mission,
a corporate policy, and strategic, far-reaching goals. The grand strategy is
written in very general terms and is widely published to customers, members
etc. (Not necessesarly true in industrial organizations.)
– Medium-term strategic planning can be done at the corporate level but also at
lower levels. It builds on the grand strategy, looks 1 to 3 years ahead, specifies
objectives to be sought to move the organisation toward achieving its strategic
goals, and results in a medium-term strategy. The medium-term strategy
consists of an imperative mission, objectives and object strategies suggesting
specific projects. The medium-term strategy is the database from which an
operational plan is derived, specifying individual projects. It is written in very
specific terms and is, basically, an internal document accessible only to the
corporation's managers, in the case of the IEEE, its staff and volunteers.
Usually, a long-term strategy document is accompanied by a medium-term strategy
document. Alternatively, a medium-term strategy document could include a Prologue
"Long-term strategy". Obviously, long-term strategy and medium-term strategy
address different audiences and differ by broad, far-reaching goals on the one hand
and specific, short-term objectives on the other hand.
The basic structure of the overall strategic planning process and its components are
shown in Figure 1.
"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities2
Figure 1: Basic structure and components of Long- and Short-Term Strategic Planning.
The components and their relationships are explained in more detail in the following
paragraphs.
Long-term Strategic Planning
Creation of a grand strategy begins with a long-term vision existing in the mind of the
top corporate management. In order to realize its vision and to communicate it to
others, the top corporate management writes down a corporate mission and cracks the
mission into strategic goals, e.g. IEEE's mission and goals:
"The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers promotes the
development of electrotechnology and allied sciences, the application
of those technologies for the benefit of humanity, the advancement of
the profession, and the well-being of its members."
"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities3
– Goal 1: Globalization
– Goal 5: Education
– Goal 2: Information Exchange
– Goal 6: Public Support
– Goal 3: Products and Services
– Goal 7: Organization
– Goal 4: Standards
– Goal 8: Finance
Further, the top corporate management outlines operating and decision guidelines for
dealing with members, employees, nonmembers, colleagues and the general environment of the organization, so-called corporate policy or corporate culture.
In more detail, creating a long-term strategy is accomplished by
– analyzing all business opportunities,
– evaluating advantages and disadvantages of the various options considering
environmental influences and financial resources,
– establishing a corporate policy,
– specifying desired goals.
By having coined the corporate mission, chosen a certain set of strategic goals and by
having defined the corporate policy, the top management has created a grand strategy.
The grand strategy is the smallest common denominator to which all members of an
organization must become committed. It is followed by a medium-term strategic
planning process run by a strategic planners committee, including participants from all
management levels.
Medium-Term Strategic Planning
Medium Term Strategic Planning presumes that the corporate mission, corporate
policy and strategic goals exist already. The strategic planners of the medium-term
strategy build on the long-term strategy and are generally concerned with the identification of objectives and specific activities being means of reaching the goals of the
grand strategy. Further, medium-term strategic planning deals with evolutionary
changes, e.g. the updating of existing goals, adding of new goals, improvement of weak
points in various areas of the organization, etc.
Creating the medium-term strategy begins with a comprehensive analysis of the present
state of the organization. SWOT-Analysis has proven, to be a highly valuable tool for
this purpose. This method identifies systematically the Strengths and Weaknesses of
the organization as well as the Opportunities and Threats of its environment. In
addition to this analysis, the present policy and present strategies must be discussed
and challenged. In order that all IEEE volunteers identify themselves with the goals
and the objectives of the strategic planning process, the strategic planners must fre-
"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities4
quently step in the volunteer's and regular member's shoes wich enables them to better
consider member's expectations.
Based on the results of this analysis existing goals must be updated or upgraded, new
goals must be identified. Possible chances and options must be evaluated, possibly
supported by the development of scenarios. Eventually, all options are prioritized and
a set of objectives for each goal is identified. As a result of these activities the strategic
planners carry in their head a common medium-term vision. This vision describes in
present tense a virtual state of the organization which, of course, does not yet exist,
e.g.:
"IEEE is the best practice professional organization exceeding
members expectations by its superb member services. It is
perceived as a role model by all other professional organizations,
even in humanities or politics. Because of IEEE's invaluable
support of their daily work and professional life, all electrical,
electronic and computer science engineers consider IEEE
membership a must."
Usually, all identified objectives and options, one way or another, are capable of improving an organization's performance. Hence, one could be naive and try to implement all of them simultaneously. However, most activities cause cost and, because the
resources are limited, one must make a selection and prioritize all options with respect
to their potential of achieving the selected goals and objectives. By selecting specific
activities (projects) with respect to their cost and efficiency in reaching the objectives
and goals and by allocating commensurate resources to these options, one has designed a medium-term strategy, including as many objective strategies as objectives
exist. In other words "A medium-term strategy is a combination of carefully selected
objectives and activities for which the spiritual fathers of the strategy allocate
commensurate resources."
In order to realize their vision and to communicate it to all volunteers downstream the
organization, the strategic planners write down their thoughts in form of an imperative
mission and a set of objectives for each goal to be achieved.
Imperative Mission
An imperative mission defines a task, for instance
"Make IEEE the best practice professional organization perceived as the standard against which other professional
organizations benchmark themselves. Enhance IEEE's member
services such that electrical, electronics, and computer science
engineers would consider lacking IEEE membership a missed
opportunity".
"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities5
The imperative mission is cracked into smaller pieces, so-called objectives. Each objective has its own objective-strategy, specifying the projects achieving that objective.
The granularity of the objectives and projects depends on the complexity of the
mission.
Objective G1.1
Objective G1.2,
Objective G1.3...
Objective G2.1
Objective G2.2,
Objective G2.3...
Objective G3.1
Objective G3.2,
Objective G3.3...
Objective G4.1
Objective G4.2,
Objective G4.3...
Objective G5.1
Objective G5.2,
Objective G5.3...
Objective G6.1
Objective G6.2,
Objective G6.3...
Objective G7.1
Objective G7.2,
Objective G7.3...
Objective G8.1
Objective G8.2,
Objective G8.3...
Upon documentation of the imperative mission, the objectives, and the individual
objective-strategies in written form an operational plan is generated listing in detail all
projects required to achieve individual objectives.
Generating the Operational Plan
Visions and missions by themselves do not guarantee success. Visions must be realized,
missions executed, and planned goals and objectives be reached. Therefore, the most
substantial and concrete component of strategic planning is the operational plan
(implementation matrix) which precisely defines who does what, when, how and
where, when certain results (milestones) must exist and which financial resources
(budget) are associated with specific activities.
The operational plan accompanies the strategic document and, as a rule, must be
designed with strong involvement, at least close supervision, of the strategy's planners.
The operational plan specifies numerous projects for which project managers must be
appointed and financial resources be allocated. Both are management decisions.
Design of the action plan must by no means be completely delegated to the implementers. If so, strategic planning will remain without impact and will be commented as
Fu-Fu dust etc. Only poor managers create missions and visions and expect their realization exclusively from the implementers. Highly qualified top managers do not only
create visions but carry also substantial thoughts in their mind about how they want to
realize their vision and communicate these thoughts to their subordinates.
Frequently, strategic planning and operative planning (operational plan design) are
regarded isolated actions. False, optimum results are obtained only if the strategic
"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities6
planners are sufficiently knowledgeable and competent, in order to identify the right
operative activities and the right strategies themselves. Although the design of the
action plan may be delegated to their subordinates, the spiritual fathers must contribute
to the formulation of detailed objectives and objective-strategies. Thereby, operative
planning becomes part of strategic planning.
An example of an operational plan is shown in Figure 2.
Goals
Projectleader
Task
Result
Budget
Start/End
1. Goal
– Project 1.1
– Project 1.2
– Project 1.3
– Project 1.4
– ………
– ………
2. Goal
– Project 2.1
– Project 2.2
– Project 2.3
– ………
– ………
3. Goal
– Project 3.1
– Project 3.2
– Project 3.3
– Project 3.4
– Project 3.5
– ………
– ………
4. Goal
– Project 4.1
– Project 4.2
– ………
– ………
5. Goal
– Project 5.1
– ………
– ………
Figure 2: Typical operational plan (implementation matrix).
The individual projects of the operational plan are described in detail using separate
project sheets, Figure 3.
"Strategic Planning" Guidelines for IEEE Entities7
Figure 3: Typical project sheet.
Controlling
Upon execution of the operational plan, the spiritual fathers of the strategy must
compare the goals and objectives reached with the goals and objectives planned and
must decide whether the implementation was successful or not. Without this feedback
the whole process is very inefficient, if not useless.
Epilogue
In view of the present permanent changes of a business' environment it is occasionally
argued that development of a strategy is no longer meaningful, instead, professional
improvisation would be required. Of course, fast reaction to environmental changes
and constraints is positively needed, however, it does not make planning obsolete.
Today's planners, simply, must be prepared more than ever to run their plans and
strategies flexibly and to match them permanently with instantaneous boundary conditions.