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I’m sure your organization has a strategic planning process in place. If you are responsible for this process or if you are one of the key stakeholders of strategic planing and policy deployment, this note will help you examine and assess the impact of your organization’s strategic planning process. In simple words, you will understand the measures of success for strategic planning process.

Strategic Planning Process in most organizations is synonymous with annual goal setting exercise. While these two activities have certain common threads, strategic planning process isn’t restricted to just goal setting.

Strategic planning process is essentially meant to stir the organization towards its long term goals. To be more specific, strategic planning process should help organizations to organize themselves better, such as :

• Establish priorities on what organizations will accomplish in the future
• Forces organizations to make choices on what they will do and what they will not do
• Pulls the entire organization together around a single game plan for execution
• Broad outline on where resources will get allocated

Thus strategic planning process is iterative and cyclical(yearly).

In my experience, following are some of the key measures of success for a strategic planning process:

• Reliable – It is important to ensure timely completion of some of the key deliverable, such as agreement on organization goals, identification of strategies, commencement of strategic initiatives, inputs to budgetary planning, assignment of targets to individuals, etc. They are all very time critical and any delay can result in misalignment. It can even render the whole process counterproductive. Thus timely completion is one of the most important measures of success for any strategic planning process.
• Buy-in from Leaders – While the ownership of the organizational strategy and its deployment resides with top leaders, there should be acceptance among senior and mid level leaders to the strategic goals, assumptions, etc. Each leader must own the organizational goals, their accomplishment and failures. Several goals may require shared responsibility among functional/business heads apart from overall ownership. Level of participation and engagement from leaders is a good measure of their buy-in.
• Visionary Goals –The strategic planning process should facilitate a strong linkage between the organization’s core purpose of existence, its guiding principles and a compelling desire for a positive future, all looking beyond just “money-making”. All these require quality leadership time and bandwidth. A quick review of nature of goals, targets, underlying purpose, etc., can reveal its effectiveness.
• Flexible – As the process involves several functions and leaders, its likely the tasks may not happen as per schedule. It is also likely that leaders will bring in their personal style for deployment. The governance of strategic planning thus should accommodate such variations while maintaining the overall approach. In-flexible planning process show up during execution. Unrealistic goals, lack of ownership for failures, figure-pointing, delay in reporting performance, etc., are signs of inflexibility.
  Integrated Plan – A good strategic plan should sync in with financial planning process. If we end-up with budgeted revenue or cost figures that don’t align with specific strategies or if we have no budgets allocated for strategic initiatives, then that’s a clear indication of misalignment.
• Deployment to employees - Effective implementation of strategic plan resides in how well we can cascade the goals to various functions and there upon to individual employees. If, at least, significant roles have their performance goals & incentives linked to strategic goals, it is a good indication of well cascaded plan.

Each of the 6 measures of success would help you assess the effectiveness of the strategic planning process in your organization. However, if you wish to improve its effectiveness then you should deep dive its to each of the process tasks.

If you are Project Manager managing IT projects you will agree with my following statements:

Instead of preparing or sitting in project reviews, I can spend the time usefully managing the project

It’s always frustrating, because I don’t want my performance to be analyzed in a meeting room in front of several others

I’m not sure how all this data I provide is useful for managing the project

When I asked Project Managers how they feel when they walk out of a project review, quite often they feel frustrated, discharged, de-motivated and sometimes even humiliated.

On the contrary, Project Managers should be energized, satisfied, empowered and fulfilled when they walk out of a project review.

Here are tips for Project Managers to make this happen. (A lot of these tips might sound very basic, but its these simple things that derail projects):

• Detach yourself from the project performance

You are just the manager of the project. The project is not your baby, so don’t get emotionally bonded to the project. If things don’t go the way they should, it’s not always because of you. By working harder and spending extra few hours, you can’t always get things back to normal.  Try to step back and reflect on the situation as an outsider. This is very important because when there are early warning signals of project going off-track, the project managers don’t share this information with others thinking that it’s too premature. They want to put the best effort to get it on-track. This is the first step in the spiral of getting too attached to the project!

• It’s project review, not your performance review

Yes, it’s not your performance review. There can be a project that has really gone very well and received good feedback from customers, but team members and delivery managers would know that the Project Manager did a lousy job. On the contrary, there can be a project that miserably failed, but the Project Manager did his best to deliver the project against all odds. Hence a project review is simply a project review. It’s not your performance review. Don’t get defensive.

• It’s you who leads the review, not the reviewer

It’s always you who has the maximum stake in the project. Hence you lead the review and not the reviewer. Take initiative and demonstrate your leadership qualities in the project review.

• Prepare in advance. Spend few minutes to reflect

As mentioned earlier, there is no substitute for preparation. It’s not about spending hours filling up the project logs or making the power-point slides, it’s about spending quality time on how you can use the review to clear the roadblocks and move the project ahead.

• Walk in with a set of objectives that you wish to accomplish

As a part of the preparation for the review, list down set of objectives that you wish to accomplish by the end of the review. Most often they should link to top risks and issues. Things which are bother you. Don’t bring up administrative tasks such as asking your manager to approve leaves, asking him to send someone for a conference or training program, etc.

• Don’t have hidden agenda

As you start the review, share your objectives. Don’t run the review with hidden agenda. It doesn’t help anyone.

• Take liberty to decide the participants for the review

You are leading the review. Based on the risks and issues, if you feel for an additional invitee in the review, take the initiative to invite him, for example, the HR manager. It’s much better than complaining about him in the review in his absence. More importantly, you can expect resolutions to issue in the review.

• Set the stage for reviews

Most often participants may have diverse opinion about an issue. The duration of the review meeting may not be sufficient to convince or even simply get them on same page. Hence, if needed, set the stage by sending emails on the issue and having one-to-one meeting with relevant stakeholders.

• If you expect support or help from reviewer, let her know in advance

If you know that for some items the review cannot get remedies instantly, take the initiative to inform them in advance that you are likely to bring up that particular issue for discussion in the review. It gives him time to come prepared for the reviews.

• Don’t get mechanical and move slide-by-slide, prioritize important issues

And finally in the review, don’t just move from slide to slide. Choose the important areas or slides to focus in the review and quickly bring the attention of the reviewers to those areas.

In continuation to this article, I will cover some tips for reviewers in future article.

This is part of the series of articles aimed at helping the reader understand how customer experience can be mapped during every interaction in the customer’s journey of purchase & use of any product or service. A live situation that recently occurred is considered in the case study.

Four important aspects are analyzed at the end of the situation:

• Values (Values that the customer received during this interaction)
• Barriers (Factors which inhibit the customer from purchasing the same product or service again)
• Levers (Elements that motivate the customer to purchase the same product or service again)
• Gaps (Difference in the perception of value between the customer and staff during this interaction)

Please note the name of the service provider is retained confidential as our intention is not to tarnish the brand or gain undue advantage from this case study.

Situation

We recently visited one of the premium hotels in Chennai to bid farewell to our friend. We were dinning in the restaurant specializes in ‘South Indian’ cuisine of a 5 star hotel. The staff in the restaurant received us very well. I had booked a table and hence we didn’t have to wait. A waiter walked up to us and introduced himself and said that we could approach him for any assistance. It was more like a relationship manager in a bank. I liked this concept.

There was a live classical Indian instrumental music and the ambiance was good. But I felt there were too many tables for the size of the hall!

The Moment-of-Truth

But soon things fell apart. Anyone who knows about south Indian cuisine will appreciate that ‘masala dosa’(snack) and ‘sambar’ (side dish) are ‘must-haves’ in the menu. Surprisingly, the menu didn’t have these items. Our waiter offered to arrange for masala dosa from the coffee shop kitchen. We also ordered for a platter of mini-dosas from the menu.

After a brief wait, we got what we wanted. But then the mini-dosa’s didn’t have sambar. When we asked the waiter, he gently whispered to my guest to share the ‘sambar’ from my wife’s plate because it’s not there in the menu! So in a nutshell, a South Indian specialty restaurant didn’t have a basic side dish in the menu. A good analogy is a Chinese restaurant with no sauce in their menu…just noodles!

Now further to compensate for this deficit, he served several extra servings of ‘chutney’ (another side dish that comes along with the snack) to my guest. At one point, the plate was full of ‘chutney’ and it looked so awkward. My guest was upset. The waiter didn’t pick up the vibes. He was also too busy running around attending to other guests.

The quality & taste of the food wasn’t great. It was just ok!

Finally, came the check with a 5 star price tag!

We never registered a complaint, but decided will never return back to this hotel!

Now let’s map this customer interaction!

Values

• Quality & taste of food served was ‘average’ – same as market.
• Esteem value of dining in a 5 star hotel!
• Live Indian instrumental music with not so bad ambiance

Barriers

• Basic promises weren’t met – south Indian specialty restaurant with basic items missing in the menu
• Poor etiquette on the part of the waiter to ask people to share the side dish!

Levers

• There isn’t any motivation to get back to this hotel another time

Gaps

• The waiter never sensed that we weren’t happy. His perception is probably that he has offered great value by providing an exceptional service (by getting something out of the menu). Thus there is a gap in perception.
• The menu wasn’t comprehensive.
• While it might have been the intention of the chef to offer something out-of-box in the menu and keep away all run-of-the-mill south Indian items, customers still expect the ‘must-haves’ to be included the menu.

Overall Customer Experience Take away :

Always get the basics (must-be requirements) right, before thinking out-of-the-box!

This article authored by Neil was originally published in tickledbylife.com in June 2009. The essence of this article is to all ways of life. But its very pertinent to many professions, more particularly to Project Management as there are multiple stakeholders.

It is miraculously true and accurate. Here is a small but true incident.

A young lady who leads a sales team as sales manager was judged the best performer last year. She keeps up her performance this year too. Being in the role she is in, it is very common to hear her yell at the peak of her voice at her subordinates whose performance lags. At times the language used is also unpleasant, so much so that one would be uncomfortable even overhearing her.

One day what started as a well audible conversation between a restless customer and the sales manager, in a while turned out to be furious and noisy scream? The customer’s language turned rude. Certainly, it wasn’t a pleasant scene. Something must have seriously gone wrong with service to that customer. Ironically, all this happened in front of same colleagues who were used to our sales manager’s dialect. No one bothered to interrupt the customer and break the temper. Everyone watched, probably deep within, they all knew that it is something she deserved. What goes around comes around too.

At the risk of not becoming philosophical, all our actions come back to us – both good & bad. Apart from the recipient of our action, the environment around us including people & objects and our own mind senses the energy associated with it. A good action creates a positive energy within and around us. Similarly negative energy creates bad actions. In essence, our subconscious records all behaviors and our future actions are based on these records.

So simple, isn’t! Next time, if you wonder why you are the only one getting into unmanageable situations, guess were the answer lies – within YOU!

How to change?

Every day before you leave for home, spend few minutes to reflect and see what happened in the office.

• What good and bad happened to you and what you did to others?
• Take a rational view and be true to yourself, after all this is just a self-reflection.

Something bad that happened to you today is something that you can stop doing to others!

Here is a quick checksheet to evaluate if your staff are aware of the significance of ‘Customer Interactions. The method of adminstrating this questionnaire is by you probing staff rather than asking them to fill it up. In that sense, this is a cheat sheet rather than a check sheet.

1. Given our products, processes and technology, where do you think is the biggest opportunity to improve customer experience
2. A customer has purchased our product and is not able to install it at his home. He is calling us back to seek clarification. As installation is not in the scope of our organization, do you think it is important to attend to him and why ?
3. Before walking into our retail outlet, a customer has done research on internet about our organization, customer reviews and compliants? Is this important to us and why?
4. List down different interactions that you have with customers?
5. Which of your interaction does the customer highlyvalue?
6. Your customers’ views of the effectiveness of highly valued those interactions?
7. Your customers’ needs in each stage of their relationship with your company?
8. The most common sequence of interaction prospects encounter as they consider your products and services?

For someone who understands the significance of the Customer Interactions, the answers to this questions are obvious. Hence a key for these questions isnt included in this cheat sheet.

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Whether you are outsourcing or IT Enabled Service provider, you will agree that deciding Service Levels is such an important task. But you will also agree that it isn’t that easy. There are communication issues, end-user requirement, learning curve and many more such factors.

For the first 100 registrants we are waiving the registration fee ($40), and as of right now, we only have 2 complimentary seats remaining

This webinar specifically addresses one of the core issues on how to analyze the historical data and find the process baseline performance & service levels using concepts such confidence intervals, nature of distribution, central limit theorem. (Note: Participants need not be technically qualified or statisticians to attend this program)

Our principal, Neil will be exclusively covering concepts where Black Belts and Transition Managers often go wrong!

• In transaction processing & contact center, in general across service sectors, the concept of Upper Specification Limit & Lower Specification Limit is not very relevant
• Service Levels are mostly on ‘Average Monthly Performance’ such as TAT or productivity rather than conformance every part in manufacturing sector
• Many other times, the Service Level is about agreeing percentages such as 95% or 99%
• How can we find a statistically valid targets for such scenarios?
• How can we minimize our risk of not meeting the committments?
• How to analyze the historic data?
• Do we have sufficient data, on the first place?
• What distribution does it follow? We can assume it is Normal Distribution?
• Do’s and Don’ts of Service Levels?

Who should Attend?

• Transtion Leaders
• Quality Leaders, MBBs and Black Belts
• Outsourcing Vendor Managers
• Operations Leaders

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Schedule

• 22nd April 2010
• 4.00 to 5.00 PM IST

Register through above widget and you will receive dial-in details just before the program

We are organizing a 4 day Six Sigma Green Belt Training and Certification Program

Its February and high time you think about the coming financial year.

Many times, you have a Vision for the year, as the year passes it fades off too because you are fire-fighting or just didn’t have enough resources.

In our free webinar, we will share how you can translate your vision to reality by:

• Creating Marketing, Sales, Operations, Technology Strategies that are aligned to your vision
• Linking these Business Strategies to FY2010 Annual Goals.
• Set SMART goals for your teams and measure performance against goals.
• A tactical plan that gives a monthly calendar of events to deliver on Annual Goals
• If things are working as per plan, a simple method that you can use to fix issues

JOIN FREE WEBINAR

Who should attend?

Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who want to out-perform competition in FY2010

Typical Profile of our participants:

• CEO
• Director – Finance
• Head – Operations
• Chief Technology Officer

Schedule : 26th Feb 2010
Timing : 2.00 PM to 3.00 IST
Entry : On prior registration. Limited Seats Only

Technology Requirement:

• Internet (Broadband) for Viewing Presentation
• Telephone Line to dial to Bridge Line

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