Strategic planning quality

In today's cut-throat competitive environment, quality is dominant and quality management plays an important role in all projects. There are several internal as well as external factors which can affect the quality of a strategic plan. For example, governmental rules and regulations, standards and guidelines specific to the application area may adversely affect the project. Again, the organizational quality policies, procedures and guidelines, historical databases and lessons learned from previous strategic plans may also hamper the project.

The primary benefit of quality requirements is less rework, which means higher productivity, reduced costs and increased shareholder satisfaction. Another technique that is widely used is benchmarking which involves comparing actual or planned practices to those of other projects to generate ideas for improvement and to provide a basis by which to measure performance. A statistical tool called Design of Experiment (DOE) is frequently used and it helps to identify the factors which influence specific variables of a product or process under development or in production.

Strategic Planning is a process performed by the top management and implemented by the lower level management to determine its future set of action over the coming years. External customers of the company integrated with the planning process to identify the Organizational Mission. The strategic planning process starts once the mission of the strategic plan is decided; top management needs to examine the external forces which could affect the success of the mission. SWOT analysis is an important step in the strategic planning process as it involves screening the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of a company.

The above characteristics make top management to stabilize their internal organization (Strengths and Weaknesses) factors with the external world (Opportunities and Threats) factors. Collection of high quality data through reliable sources is a crucial step in conducting the SWOT analysis. Most of the Strategic Planning driven by the strong leadership and strategic thinking will be done at all layers of the organization hierarchy. In fact, experts studying the Best practices of Strategic Planning show that when management has its workforce deliberately and carefully document its strategic thinking and communicate it up the line, strategic planning is much enhanced. The Strategic planning process will be successful, when it is integrated with the business or operational side of the organization. Program managers of an organization need to sketch long term goals of the organization and translate them into the quantifiable results.

Below are the quality components of a strategic plan:

1. The strategic Plan is reliable with statutory authority of the organization.

2. The Mission statement should support the vision statement of the organization.

3. The Goals and Objectives should be result oriented

4. The strategies should be like a roadmap in achieving the goals of the organization.

5. The organization uses performance techniques to measures to track the report progress

6. The company's data collection systems are consistent.

7. The organization has coordinated its activities with other competitive organsitaions.

8. Individual program managers are held accountable

9. External factors that could affect performance have been identified

10. A wide range of stakeholders have given input into the Plan

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