If nothing gets implemented why bother planning?

 I hear that often strategic plans are created but never implemented. I’m sure you’ve heard this statistic before but over 75% of planned changes do not reach their goals. 75%?????

Your organization is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting today.

So, you’ve got to make changes in the organization to ensure the plan gets implemented!

Some things I recommend are creating a team to monitor the implementation of the plan, scheduling regular meetings to monitor & update the plan (minimum quarterly meetings), and creating a group to support the implementation of the plan (gather data, generate reports & facilitate meetings).

Failure to integrate the plan into everyday work is a sure sign that we should ignore the plan. SPOTS (strategic plan on top shelf – gathering dust).

I used to ignore the strategic plan when I worked at the oil & gas company, because things weren’t integrated down to where it impacted my daily work.

I believe that employees want to do a good job every day, but without direction they can be slightly off that direction. This leads to wasted time & money, poor communication, work being duplicated, and worse.

We ensure that the strategic plan is understood by everyone, that it is integrated into their performance appraisals, that is fits with the budgeting process, and that the departmental planning works with the plan.

The Town of Black Diamond has integrated our planning process throughout their organization: at Council meetings the vision, mission and values are displayed at each councillor's station, their council agenda is organized by the core strategies. This way the staff as well as residents see that the council is making decisions based on their strategic plan. The staff’s performance appraisals are integrated into the process: each individual’s goals are under the core strategy from the strategic plan which it most impacts, there’s also a section for how they will live the values & will get feedback from their supervisor on if they are doing so.

Once final we to ensure you are implementing your plan is that we schedule in an annual review & update of the plan to keep it relevant, fresh, up-to-date.

Want to make sure that your plan gets implemented? Contact me: Valerie.MacLeod@HainesCentre.com