Strategy Development and Management
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SWOT
Some strategy development techniques employ a procedure called swot analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Alone, or in a group, the organization’s current state is appraised first by the s and w: what are its strengths and what are its weaknesses? Then, the organization’s future state is forecast by the o and t: what are its opportunities and what are its threats?

Don’t go off on a feeding frenzy of despair and criticism. There are many reasons why issues might exist. Try to be as disinterested and impartial as possible. Restrain from passing judgement on the items coming out of a SWOT analysis. It will only chew up precious time allotted for coming up strategies to do something about them.

Benchmarking
Rather than starting from scratch, it is often useful to assign someone the task of seeing what other organizations in a similar situation are doing. These could be groups trying to achieve much the same mission but in a different region, or a company in the profit sector that seems successful, or even a competitor for the same target audience. Starting from that benchmark and then creating something more innovative can pay off handsomely both in time and effort.

However, don’t fall into the “me, too” trap. Basically, this refers to a type of one-upmanship where organizations compete against each other but forget the customer in the process. Benchmarking is most effective after first understanding customer needs, to see what’s possible, or as a way to trigger new ideas about what services customers might be interested in, but which need to be tested.

Gap Analysis / Strategic Thrusts
So, you’ve got a vision, a mission, a list of categorized strategic issues, some swot analysis, a bit of benchmarking and some critical customer input. Some items reflect today’s reality, some tomorrow’s desired state. Therein lies the gap.

In order to move from today to tomorrow, you need to make some statements of intent. Given that there are likely “too many” good ideas and opportunities, some of which are more critical to success than others, the group needs to understand and agree collectively where energies will be focused to move forward. These are the strategies, the strategic thrusts, the strategic objectives.

Write down four to seven statements that begin: We will invest time and resources to... These form the priorities for the organization to move forward. Together, they help to ensure that you achieve your mission which will lead to your vision.

Possibly, at this point, you’re thinking something like, “okay, but what are some real, honest-to-goodness strategies; are they high-level, low-level, what?” Some people get bogged down in the semantics of strategies versus tactics, objectives versus goals. I have my own preferences but, again, the important thing is to agree on your jargon as a group and stick to it going forward. If you find that you seem to have more than a few strategic statements, they are likely at too low a level and can be clustered together.

For example, a statement such as, We will invest time and resources to attract more young people, may be too specific to a type of audience member. It is possibly a specific tactic under a statement such as, We will invest time and resources to grow our audience. This can be decomposed into various target groups that will help support this strategy: young people, out-of-towners, new residents of the community, golf club members, etc.

Strategy Owners
Under each of these statements will be the measures, milestones and activities that will need to be “owned” by individuals to work on. This, of course, is where everyone starts squirming because nobody has a lot of free time floating around to take on new work. Or do they?

If people aren’t already working on the critical, strategic issues, what are they working on? Will their current efforts push the organization forward? Is there a way to supplant current activities with new activities that, developed in conjunction with key partners and stakeholders, will negate the need for these activities in the first place? It’s hard to say; it depends on the situation. However, as the old adage say, “if you want something done, give it to a busy person.”

Given that a majority of the strategy owners will be volunteers, there will likely be a wide variation in the amount of time and expertise individuals can apply to activities. Within strategic thrusts it may be valuable to allow a fair amount of latitude in the specific projects and tasks undertaken. Let people identify “fun” things to work on as well as “important” things. The more they’re the same, the better!

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