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STRATEGIC PLANNING Why is strategic planning important? Proper strategic planning is essential for your organization to reach its proposed goals over the next year and even beyond. In addition, by planning in a strategic manner, your organization will clearly understand how it will reach those goals. Strategic planning typically will address several important activities: 1.) Strategic Analysis - This activity allows the organization to be viewed within its environment from several different viewpoints. As part of this process, your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are noted and analyzed as an integral factor in your total planning activity. 2.) Determining Strategic Direction - By understanding the major issues and opportunities facing your organization, planners can determine the strategic goals that your organization must reach and what methods, techniques and strategies are needed to accomplsih these goals. Goals should be designed and worded as much as possible to be specific, measurable, acceptable to those working to achieve the goals, realistic, timely, extending the capabilities of those working to achieve the goals, and rewarding to them, as well. 3.) Action Planning - Action planning is carefully laying out how the strategic goals will be accomplished. Action planning often includes specifying objectives, or specific results, with each strategic goal. Therefore, reaching a strategic goal typically involves accomplishing a set of objectives along the way -- in that sense, an objective is still a goal, but on a smaller scale. Action planning also includes specifying responsibilities and timelines with each objective, or who needs to do what and by when. It should also include methods to monitor and evaluate the plan, which includes knowing how the organization will know who has done what and by when.
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