Strategic Action Planning Now Setting and Meeting Your Goals

Cate Gable is a writer, poet, and business consulta President of Axioun Communications International, Ga strategic marketing and planning for clients both in the Axioun’s clientele includes high-tech start-ups, Fortune nonprofits, and small businesses. Prior to founding Axioun, Gable was Marketing Direcl Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Marketing Manager at 'Western Division. Additionally, she has served as D Information both for Ohlone College, an institution of 1 the Silicon Valley, Fremont, California, and for the Fedt of Los Angeles. Gable has published widely in a variety of fields.

"As anyone who has attempted to facilitate strategic planning processes knows, the hard part is that every situation is unique and the unfolding of events produces a great deal of "messiness". In Strategic Action Planning NOW!, Gable strikes a workable balance between the need for a simple, basic structure for planning steps and the equally pressing need to be responsive to emergent complexity." -Susan L. Harris, Ph.D., Leadership and Organization Development ConsultantPromo Copy

• List of Figures -- Introduction xiii Beginnings xiii Is This Book for You? xiv Review of Book Contents -- SECTION I: Pre-planning -- My Team, My -- What Is Your Planning Process? -- What Is a Team? -- Who Is Your Team? -- Who Are You and What Is Your Role? -- What Is Your Team Culture? -- Exercise 1: Creating Agreement -- What If? -- Summary -- Notes -- Beginning -- So Why Plan? Why Worry? -- Where Do You Fit in Your Company’s Planning Process? What Is Strategy? -- What Are the Qualities of an Effective Strategy? 23 What Is Action? -- NOW! A Brief Interpretation of Time 28 Exercise 2: Influences from the Past 30 Notes -- Becoming a -- Frozen Strategy vs. Fluid Insight -- Information Harvesting: Trend-spotting without the -- Exercise 3: Influences from the Future -- What Is on Your Reading List? -- CHI: Clarity, Honesty, Integrity -- Exercise 4: Nurturing Your CHI -- The Courage to Create -- Notes -- Strategic Action Planning: Four Steps -- Planning Methodology -- The Challenge -- The Goal -- The Strategic Action -- Monitoring and Measurement -- Summary: The Process -- Notes -- SECTION II: The Planning Process -- Seeing the Challenges -- What Is Wrong with This Picture? -- Identifying Challenges: An Overview -- Task 1: Capturing Challenges -- Exercise 5: What Needs Fixing? -- Sample Planning Items: Brainstorming Challenges -- Task 2: Alignment -- Exercise 6: Alignment with Management -- Notes -- Sorting the -- Connection and Dissection -- Task 3: Discussion and Analysis -- Task 4: Grouping by Clusters -- Exercise 7: Clustering the Challenges -- Sample Planning Items: Challenge Clusters -- Task 5: Prioritization and Selection of Key Challenges -- Exercise 8: Prioritize and Finalize Challenges -- Sample Planning Items: Final Challenges -- Summary -- Notes -- Setting the Goals -- What Makes a Good Goal? -- Exercise 9: Transforming Challenges into Goals -- Sample Discussion for the Goal Formulation Step and Sample Planning Items: Challenges and Goals 102 Summary 108 Notes -- Devising Strategic -- Preparation -- Exercise 10: Influences Reprise 115 Devising Strategic Action 116 Exercise 11: Intentional Insight 118 Exercise 12: On-Target Action 120 Final Check Mop-up -- Sample Planning Items: Goals and Strategic Actions 121 Summary 125 Notes -- Monitoring and -- Monitoring: What and Why 128 Monitoring as a Communications Tool 129 Monitoring as Standards for Performance 131 Monitoring as Guidance for Decision-making 131 Monitoring as Strategic Action Feedback 132 How Do You Measure Success? 133 Exercise 13: How Do You Measure Success? 137 Sample Planning Items: Adding Monitoring Tools 138 Summary 142 Notes -- SECTION III: Post -- Implementation -- Overview -- The Planning Document -- The Communications Plan -- The Implementation Team -- The Information and Communications Mobius -- The Last Word -- Notes -- Future -- Evaluating Your Team’s Planning Process 158 Exercise 14: How Did We Do? 160 Future Perfect 160 Notes -- Postscript -- Appendices -- A List of Exercises -- B Sequential Overview of the CGSMO Planning Process C Sample Planning Items -- Glossary -- Selected -- Bibliography -- Index