Blog (Spanish) — Planeación

Every organization needs an action plan to determine the objectives and choose the most appropriate steps to achieve them.

A plan should be realistic: this means that we shouldn’t set impossible goals for ourselves. Setting impossible goals could lead to a non-productive assignment of resources and it could be demotivating for the team.

Developing a Strategic Plan starts from the analysis of our situation and our environment, the resources we have and the goals we want to achieve.

We can build our Strategic Plan by answering the following questions:

• How are we? Where are we?
• Where is the organization going?
• What do we have to get where we want?
• How do we do it?
• What do we need to do it?
• How do we concrete it?
• How do we measure our performance?

How are we? Where are we?

With these questions we get an analysis to determine the current situation of our company, whether is already operating or we are still "next to start it”. This diagnosis will allow us to:

• Clarify the direction that we want for our enterprise.
• Know the legal status of the organization.
• Visualize how we are; managing our financial, human or material resources.

This diagnosis will help us know our strengths, our weaknesses and if necessary, make the appropriate changes.

Where is the organization going?

Here we must define the area of action for our company (Mission, Vision, Values and Policies), to clarify how we will develop our project.

Mission is the reason of existence for the company, so we must take adequate time to define it. It will help to provide direction, focus and motivation to our team.

What do we have to get where we want?

Through a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) find the strategic factors of your organization. A SWOT analysis allows us to:

• Create more effective and direct strategies, to the organization's needs
• Know precisely our strengths and weaknesses
• Know the resources that the human capital of our company can offer
• Prevent obstacles or detect possible problems and difficulties.
• Plan strategies to improve our services.

How do we make it happen?

By answering this question we will define the objectives, strategies and actions that must be taken to fulfill the mission we set for our company.

We must break down our mission in strategic objectives that can be achieved in the short and medium term. With this we reduce complexity, focus effort, involve the team and assign goals.

What do we need to do?

This section helps us to determine the needs, both, human or financial and material, as well as tools to achieve those resources and manage them.

How do we concrete it?

The purpose of this question is to help us recognize the kind of projects we can carry out, to prevent problems and to improve the performance of our company.

How do we measure our performance?

The evaluation of our project is essential to improve processes and make them more effective. We should be able to see what was expected and actual results. This assessment should be continued to achieve improvements in both, the medium and long term. 

The strategic planning process is like a chain, all the links should be strengthened, allowing you to be useful and functional in the development of the daily activities of our enterprise.

By Andrés Mayo Góngora

“Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions”.

Peter Drucker

When it comes to entrepreneurship, one of the pillars of success is  Strategic Planning. This is an obvious matter that is not always a priority for the entrepreneurs.

According to Carlos T. Wagner, author of the book “Planeación Estratégica Social” (2012), latinos are creative and ingenious, but also undisciplined and barely methodical. The reason is that they prefer to react rather than planning and to correct rather than prevent. They assume that since reality always exceeds plans, planning implies a waste of time, and therefore it is better to improvise.

Strategic Planning requires a capacity of criticism and self-criticism that exposes the deficiencies of the projects, and many people prefer to avoid it.

Strategic Planning is a process that allows us to act and make decisions efficiently, which is a great help for institutional philosophy, in addition to supporting our organization in the achievement of our goals. It is crucial to consider these points before starting any task we want to perform, so we will be able to save time, money and effort.

Some benefits of planning are:

• Allows us to narrow our efforts focusing in important things
• Avoids unforeseen crises and prepare us to react in case they arise.
• Identifies our strengths, helping us to exploit them.
• It helps us recognize which responsibilities we can delegate.
• Improves our decision making by offering an overview of our organization.
• To establish well-defined goals and objectives.
• Promotes team cooperation.
• It helps us to adapt to the changing conditions of our environment.
• To measure and evaluate the performance of our company.
• To reduce risk, uncertainty and insecurity.
• Strengthens and controls the economic operation avoiding unnecessary expenses.

We must be clear that Strategic Planning does not guarantee success alone, it is not the solution to all the problems of our business, but it does provide us with the elements that lead the way to success and permanence.

The process of Strategic Planning can be applied not only to start-up companies, but also to established companies that need to be strengthened.

Once we develop our Strategic Plan, we must bear in mind that it is not a monolithic document, a key feature is its adaptation ability, so it must be revised periodically to carry out adjustments that allow us to obtain the results we seek.

To achieve the effectiveness of a strategic plan, it's necessary that all members of our company participate in its development and implementation. The particular vision that each one provides allows us to approach the specific needs of each area so all the collaborators are responsible for the achievements, they help to innovate and to contribute, while sharing the acknowledgments and benefits that our company may achieve.

If you are interested in going deeper into the subject, I recommend you the book: Strategic Planning (2010), by May Gary May, Business Expert Press.

By: Andrés Mayo Góngora