Strategic vs Operational Planning

You've decided it's time to do some business planning — and that's great! But before you jump in with both feet, it makes sense to explore strategic vs operational planning to figure out which type of plan will serve your organization best.

In fact, before you hold even one meeting or make that first keystroke, spend some time determining why you're creating a plan and how you will use it.

To start, ask yourself these four questions:Business People Considering Strategic vs Operational Planning

  • Do we need high level guidance or down and dirty details?
  • Is this for our internal use or for an external audience (board, funders, customers/partners)?
  • What kind of leadership team do I have? Do we need lots of specifics to be effective? Or, are we good at the details, but need help imagining the future in broad strokes?
  • Which of the following best describes the reason for creating a plan? A) We want to know if we're doing the right thing, based on our current understanding of the environment; or B) We want to know what we need to be doing in the coming year to best accomplish our goals.

Your answers will help settle the strategic vs operational planning debate and, in the meantime, here is a top-line of the key differences:

The Strategic Plan

Strategic plans aim to focus an organization’s vision and priorities in response to a changing environment, and to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals.

Many strategic plans consider a range of future outcomes, trends and unknowns to arrive at a set of strategies that best use organizational resources.

Most strategic plans incorporate a SWOT Analysis into the planning process to help develop strategies around organizational strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats that exist in the external environment.

Many times, the strategic planning process taps into knowledge from diverse stakeholder groups who can help navigate the unknowns and future. This broad perspective is helpful for better understanding the external environment and in developing strategies.

Simply put, strategic planning is a continuous process that guides organizational action and behavior.

The Operational Plan

Most operational or business plans are focused on short-term objectives.

Operational plans provide a detailed road map that outlines how activities will be accomplished and by whom. In other words, operational plans are highly tactical.

Additionally, operational plans view the future as known - a perspective that enables the organization to take action toward implementing specific activities.

So, What Type of Plan Does Your Organization Need?

Organizations ultimately need to conduct both periodic strategic planning and more frequent operational planning, but your answers to the four key questions we started with, plus the descriptions of both types of plans, can shed light on what type of plan your organization needs RIGHT NOW.

If it's a strategic plan, start with the big picture and then create your operational plan when it's time to take action against specific short-term goals.

If it's an operational plan that's needed immediately, but you also do not have a strategic plan in place, consider setting aside time in the near future to begin to work on your organization's big picture, too.

 

 

 

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