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Strategic Analysis Best Practice 5 – The Use of Models

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In today’s data rich world, it is often difficult to identify the meaningful patterns and relationships that yield information decision-makers need to set the direction of their organizations. Additionally, complex market environments create a multitude of data analysis options; preventing any one person from seeing every possibility. Deriving compelling information from this sea of data and presenting it in simplistic, understandable, and actionable manner thus becomes the challenge of every business analyst. Helping solve this dilemma is the business model.

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StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 4 – Prioritize the Mission, part 2 of 2

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 4 – Prioritize the Mission, part 2 of 2 elaborates on Strategic Planning Best Practice 2 – Prioritize the Mission. This discussion concludes the Prioritize the Mission series by examining in detail the quantitative and qualitative methods to differentiate important mission-based goals.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (21.2MB)

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About the Contributor

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Strategic Planning Best Practice 10 – Future Focus

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Today’s rapidly changing business environment presents a daunting challenge to executives and managers. Gone are the days when a company’s competitive advantage could be leveraged to bring it untold riches year after year. Technology and the phenomenon of the flattening world have created a new market environment in which a company innovates one day only to see its unique creations commoditized the next.

To remain competitive in this new, flatter world, organization leaders must remain focused on the future. While crystal balls do not exist, corporate leaders must serve as the ultimate futurists; anticipating changes in both market demands as well as the availability of human, technological, and material resources. Strategic planning should incorporate these predictions while allowing for flexibility and adjustments to be made during tactical execution.

Additional information

Strategic Planning Warning Flag 2 – Near-Term Focus, highlights the process and behavioral signs of an organization that lacks a future focus. This article serves as a resource to those assessing their organization’s ability to maintain a future focus, thereby, enabling it to more easily adapt and excel in the ever increasingly competitive marketplace.

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 3 – Prioritize the Mission, part 1 of 2

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques managers and executives can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 3 – Prioritize the Mission, part 1 of 2 elaborates on Strategic Planning Best Practice 2 – Prioritize the Mission. This discussion…

  • defines what mission prioritization is
  • identifies the benefits of prioritizing the mission measures
  • specifies the steps involved in prioritizing the mission measures

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (16.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

About the Contributor

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Strategic Planning Best Practice 9 – Avoid Using Jargon

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Best PracticeNot everyone within an organization is a Harvard MBA graduate with a decade or more of business planning experience. Business planners using highly technical terms as a way to impress others with their business planning prowess will often find that they confuse the very people they are trying to communicate with, namely, the organization’s workforce.

In order for a strategic plan to foster a high degree of organizational alignment, it must possess a clear, concise focus and be translatable to the day-to-day actions of every member of the workforce. To achieve this, planners should write the strategic plan in a language familiar to everyone within the organization; incorporating words, phrases, and colloquialisms traditionally used by the workforce. A strategic plan written in the organization’s language will speak to and ultimately be embraced by its implementers.

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.