Preparing for Your Strategic Planning Meetings

By Bill Birnbaum

All too often, managers give insufficient thought to preparing for their strategic planning meetings. So they arrive at their meetings without the needed information to make necessary strategic decisions. Or they discover, far too late, that their planning team members are unfamiliar with the strategic planning process. Or, because they haven’t used a pre-planning survey, they suffer from a terribly slow start to their strategy discussions. Also because they’ve not used a pre-planning survey, they fail to discuss some important, though somewhat sensitive issues – so those issues remain not-discussed and unresolved.

Such faulty preparation invariably leads to unproductive strategic planning meetings and to serious problems with the implementation of the plan’s resultant strategies. Clearly, a well thought out process of pre-planning would be beneficial. A well thought out process of pre-planning is exactly what strategy consultant Bill Birnbaum presents in this book. Based on his three decades of experience helping client management teams prepare for, as well as conduct, their strategic planning meetings, he shares his “Ten Steps to Success.”

Birnbaum clearly explains:
1.The criteria for selecting the “right” planning team members.
2.How best to educate your planning team to the strategic planning process.
3.How to develop the planning assumptions you’ll need.
4.Gathering of information you’ll need to make sound, strategic decisions.
5.Why, when and how to conduct a pre-planning information sharing meeting.
6.How to decide on the time span for your plan – three year? Five year? Or ten year strategic plan? And which is best for your organization?
7.Using pre-planning surveys – Why? How? Who? Specific questions to ask. And how the surveys will bring benefit to your strategic planning meetings.
8.What location for your planning meeting? Away from the office, but why? Far away vs. nearby. Pros and cons of each choice.
9.Should you meet on consecutive days? Or in a series of one-day meetings? Determining which is best for your organization.
10.Facilities required for your strategy meetings. Space, equipment, supplies. Nitty gritty stuff that’s easy to forget.

If your organization would benefit from thoughtful preparation for its strategy meetings, then you and your planning team would benefit from reading this book. Your time invested in such preparation would pay back many fold in the form of a sound strategic plan and in the success of the strategies within that plan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Birnbaum
• Release date: Dec 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781932632033

Bill Birnbaum

For over three decades, I’ve worked with senior management teams helping them develop a shared strategic vision for their organization and then turn that vision into a sound business strategy. For 20 years, I published and edited the Business Strategies Newsletter. I’ve authored a number of strategy books including “Strategic Thinking: A Four Piece Puzzle,” currently in its fifth printing. Also for 20 years, I taught strategy courses for the American Management Association including: •The Strategic Planning Course •Strategy Implementation (I developed this course for the AMA) •Thinking and Managing Strategically I also developed The Strategic Planning WorkshopTM, a hands-on program to prepare senior management teams to develop their strategic plan. I’ve conducted that program for hundreds of organizations and thousands of senior and mid-level managers. I’ve served on the board of directors for three high-growth corporations, all of which were acquired per the plan I help them develop. •ISR Corporation •Trans-met Engineering •Woodroof Laboratories I’m certified as a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) by the Institute of Management Consultants. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration. In 2007, I lived and worked as a business consultant in Abancay, Peru, helping entrepreneurs and university students stimulate economic development in this poor region of the Peruvian Andes. I lectured at both UNAMBA and UTEA Universities and wrote for Nuevo Management Journal. I speak, read and write Spanish, and have traveled extensively in Spain, Mexico and South America. Now semi-retired, I work with a few select clients from time to time. I continue to write on the subject of business strategy development and implementation and also offer critique of strategic plans and strategic planning processes.

Book preview

Preparing for Your Strategic Planning Meetings:

Ten Steps to Success

Bill Birnbaum

Douglas Mountain Publishing

www.DouglasMountain.com

Preparing for Your Strategic Planning Meetings:

Ten Steps to Success

Copyright 2014 William S. Birnbaum

ISBN: 978-1-932632-03-3

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Step 1: Select Your Planning Team Members

Step 2: Educate Your Planning Team to the Process

Step 3: Develop Planning Assumptions

Step 4: Gather Information for Use at Your Strategy Sessions

Step 5: Conduct a Pre-Planning Information Sharing Meeting

Step 6: Decide on the Time Span for Your Plan

Step 7: Conduct Pre-planning Surveys

Step 8: Decide on a Location for Your Planning Meetings

Step 9: Decide Whether to meet on Consecutive Days or in a Series of One-day Meetings

Step 10: Consider the Facilities Required for Your Strategy Sessions

Appendix A: Overview of the Strategic Planning Process

Appendix B: Pre-planning Survey Forms

About the Author

(back to top)

Introduction

All too often, managers preparing for their up-coming strategic planning meetings give little thought to the information they’ll need at those sessions. The afternoon before his first strategic planning meeting, a manager might sit at his desk wondering just what he should bring into that session. Glancing over at the left side of his desk, he might think, Oh there’s that new marketing report. I suppose it would be helpful if I brought it to the meeting. And what else? Oh yes, we received the monthly productivity report just yesterday. I think I’ll take that along too. If each of the planning team members were to similarly scrape together a few documents during those final hours, they’d arrive at their strategy session with a miscellanea of stuff gathered hastily. They’d be pretty darn lucky if those documents served them well during their meetings. More likely, they’d be devoid of the information necessary for making strategic decisions. Clearly, a more well thought out process of pre-planning would be beneficial.

Hopefully, the managers in your organization will be more thoughtful about preparing for your strategy sessions. For you and your planning team would then benefit. You’d especially benefit if you and your team would think, well in advance of your strategy sessions, about what information you’ll need while developing your strategic plan. Your time invested on the front end will pay back many fold in the form of a sound strategic plan and in the success of the strategies within that plan.

A simple analogy comes to mind. A house painter named Todd painted the outside of our home a number of years ago. He spent his first day on the job pressure washing our house. Then he brushed down the walls. And he followed this with wiping down the walls. Then he did some more water blast. This preparation of the walls continued into the morning of the second day. About then, I got to wondering if Todd was ever going to put any paint on our house!

To my delight, about mid-morning on that second day, Todd cranked up his paint sprayer and (finally) began applying paint to the walls. And I can tell you that the application of paint on our home was absolutely beautiful! And why was it beautiful? Oh sure, Todd used a good quality paint and he applied it smoothly and evenly. But the main reason the paint’s application was beautiful is that Todd’s preparation was excellent. His secret wasn’t so much in putting paint on the wall. Rather it was in getting the wall properly prepared to accept the paint smoothly and evenly.

Just as Todd prepared for the application of paint, you’ll need to prepare for