A strategic plan is the ultimate determinant of the success of a given project. It is very important that an organization comes up with a proper means of measuring the effectiveness of a strategic plan. To measure how effective a strategy is, then it is crucial that you examine how it links your goals with the means of accomplishing the goals and the way you intend to achieve the plan. An effective strategy is one that uses the initially allocated resources and delivers all the set goals. It is important that you continually assess performance and resource usage to confirm whether your strategy is in line with the set targets.
The first step in developing an effective strategic plan is to come up with measurable strategies. It is important that you can measure the performance of a strategy and also confirm that it will accomplish the objectives set by the Company. For instance, if the strategy of a Company is to open up to a new market, then it is important that you come up with a specific goal and a means of measuring whether it is successful or not. If your strategy is to improve customer service, then you should come up with a target like a means of measuring progress, for example, surveys, and the percentage of customer issues that the customer’s satisfaction plan resolves.
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The next step to an effective strategic plan is the measurement of the variables during the implementation stage. These base values will be helpful for you when tracking the progress of the strategic plan. With the base values, it is now essential that you evaluate performance continuously using specific targets that are set using measurable variables. Once you have fully implemented your strategy, you can now proceed to evaluate its overall effectiveness by checking the extent to which it has reached the set goals using the resources allocated. If the plan used up extra resources or failed to reach its objectives, then you will need to take a step back and evaluate where the plan failed.
The rules of strategic planning are timeless, and they are a fool-proof means of ensuring an effective plan in the long run. It is very important that an organization deeply understands and shares a strategy for it to be termed as effective. A strategic plan in itself cannot accomplish anything; it is important that the people to whom it is directed understand and internalizes the articulated direction so that they can make their personal tactical choices. A strategic plan should be outlined in such a way that it allows a seamless flow of tactical and operational decision-making.
For a strategic plan to be effective, it is important that it provides for flexibility so that an organization can easily adapt to changing circumstances. It is also important that you come up with the strategic plan as a group and not just an individual to ensure that the plan takes into account the ideas and thoughts of every group represented in the organization. For an organization to come up with an effective strategic plan, it is important that it keeps in mind the ideas and thoughts of every stakeholder so that no one feels left out during the process of implementation.
References
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Lawler III, E. E. (1990). Strategic pay: Aligning organizational strategies and pay systems . Jossey-Bass.
Neumann, P. J., Palmer, J. A., Daniels, N., Quigley, K., Gold, M. R., & Chao, S. (2008). A strategic plan for integrating cost-effectiveness analysis into the US healthcare system. The American journal of managed care , 14 (4), 185-188.
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