What strategic planning isما التخطيط الاستراتيجي

Why strategic planning matters

Organisations that only react to today's problems are always one step behind. Strategic planning helps an organisation decide where it wants to be in several years, and how it will get there, so that daily decisions move it in the right direction.

In this course you will follow Ur Technical Institute, a private vocational institute in Nasiriyah with 1,500 places, 110 staff and diplomas in electrical work, mechanics and IT. For six years, fewer of its graduates have found jobs and fewer new students have enrolled. The dean, Dr. Salwa, decides it is time for a proper five-year strategic plan, and asks the planning officer, Mr. Hassan, to coordinate it.

What is strategy?

The word comes from the Greek strategos, the general of an army, and originally meant the art of the general: deciding how to use limited forces to win. In organisations, strategy is the set of big choices about where to focus and how to succeed, given limited resources and a changing environment.

Strategic planning is the process through which an organisation's leaders, with its people and stakeholders, define its future direction and the goals, strategies and actions needed to get there. Strategic management goes one step further: it includes implementing the plan, monitoring it and adjusting it over time.

Levels of planning

At Ur Institute, the corporate level decides which programmes to grow or close; the business level decides how each department (electrical, mechanical, IT) will attract students and place graduates; the functional level covers HR, finance and admissions plans for each year.

Strategic and operational planning

Both are needed. A strategy without operational plans stays a wish; operational plans without a strategy keep everyone busy without moving the organisation forward.

Why plan strategically?

Strategic planning is needed by government bodies, companies and non-profit organisations alike. Each has limited resources, changing conditions and people who need to know where they are heading.

Exercise: your organisation's direction

1. Does your organisation have a written strategic plan? If yes, when was it last reviewed?
2. Can you state your organisation's main direction for the next three to five years in one sentence?
3. Give one example of a corporate, a business and a functional decision in your organisation.
4. Which of the six benefits of strategic planning does your organisation need most, and why?