Real-Time Strategic Planning

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The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World

http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/

Manage opportunities and challenges quickly—and strategically

The fact is, the world changes continuously and rapidly. It’s foolhardy to believe that strategies should not do so as well. Nonprofit leaders already know this, but traditional strategic planning has locked them into a process that’s divorced from today’s reality. That’s why plans sit on the shelf and why smart executives are always seeking workarounds in between planning periods.

The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution offers a nimble and powerful alternative. In this ground-breaking book, strategy expert David La Piana introduces “Real-Time Strategic Planning,” a fluid, organic process that engages staff and board in a program of systematic readiness and continuous responsiveness. With it, your nonprofit will be able to identify, understand, and act on challenges and opportunities as they arise—not in six months when the “plan” is done.

A framework to fuel change

Strategic thinking begins with a clear understanding of strategy. To help you grasp this essential but often-confusing concept, the Strategy Pyramid offers a simple, graphical framework. You’ll learn about the three types of strategies—organizational, programmatic, and operational—and how they align to contribute to the overall aim.

Instead of a hodgepodge of unrelated goals and activities that ultimately lead to inertia or total chaos, you’ll learn to develop true strategies—coordinated actions that pull the organization in the same direction, toward the same ends. That is revolutionary.

Complete guidance for forming strategies

At the heart of this practical book is the Real-Time Strategic Planning Cycle. Based on four years of research and testing with a variety of nonprofits, this proven process guides you through the steps to sound strategy.

You’ll find tools for:

Clarifying your competitive advantage—where your organization fits in its marketplace, who your competitors are, and what sets you apart from the pack.
Generating a strategy screen—criteria for evaluating strategies. The next time a critical issue pops up, you’ll have strategic principles in place and be able to respond quickly.
Handling big questions—the opportunities or threats that require development of a new strategy in order to respond.
Developing and testing strategies—reduce the chances of picking the wrong strategy.
Implementing and adapting strategies—learn how to continuously probe for crises and opportunities—not just once every three years.

This useful guide also includes:

Exhibits and case examples showing how concepts play out in real-life
A total of 27 tools—10 of which are essential for forming strategies
Theory to Action sidebars telling you which tool to use for a given task
A CD with all the tools and interactive worksheets you’ll need

Get Started In One Day

Kick off the process with a one-day Real-Time Strategic Planning session. In seven hours you’ll have formed the backbone needed to develop strategies going forward. The Facilitator’s Guide to Real-Time Strategic Planning (also on the CD) gives you everything you need: the day’s agenda, instructions for preparing flip charts, prework to be done, handouts, and worksheets.

Because the work is done by the staff, not a consultant, your organization will learn key skills, take ownership of the process, and increase its capacity to think and act strategically.

Use The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution and get the clarity and direction you need for maximum mission success.

Real-Time Strategic Planning

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The focus of traditional strategic planning is to produce a formal written document, within a preset time frame, to endure for a predetermined length of time, usually three years. This traditional strategic plan covers a predetermined list of areas with very specific and often distant goals and objectives. This focus is just not compatible with the formation of effective strategy in a nonprofit functioning in the rapid-response real world of today.

To address this problem, La Piana Consulting led a four-year research effort resulting in the Real-Time Strategic Planning methodology that engages participants, addresses the Big Questions facing the organization, and creates an atmosphere where ongoing strategic thinking and acting can flourish.

The findings from this research project were published in 2008 by Fieldstone Alliance as a book titled The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid Response World. The Book includes a CD with over 27 interactive tools and worksheets essential for forming strategies.

The Real-Time Strategic Planning Process

Nonprofits that have used this approach agree that this is much better than the traditional planning process they have used in the past, which often results in a written document that sits on a shelf gathering dust.

Beginning with the Real-Time approach, we can help you to determine how best to address your Big Questions in the context of your mission. We can:

Take you through a one-day kick off session in which you articulate your organizational identity and business model from elements such as your organization’s geographic, programmatic and customer scope, as well as your organization’s competitive advantage and market conditions
Use informal and formal market research techniques to gather and analyze intelligence from a variety of stakeholders, including clients, funders, competitors, colleagues, public policy makers, and former board members and employees
Help you foster an environment in which ongoing decisions are made from a strategic perspective
Support decision-making that builds on your organization's enduring values, mission, and vision
Identify and focus on the top opportunities and challenges facing your organization, its Big Questions, which we can then address aggressively
Develop a Strategy Screen that enables you to set out criteria for strategic decisions before the decision is on the table, thus expediting your strategic response to emerging opportunities and challenges
Embed within your organization a methodology for identifying and addressing future Big Questions as they emerge, rather than only once every planning cycle
Develop complete business plans to serve as a blueprint for your next steps
Leave you with simple but often quite powerful tools you can choose from as you continue to enhance your organization’s ability to anticipate and respond to strategic challenges
Document your decisions in accessible language, in an easily changeable format that includes strategies for monitoring and evaluating the outcomes you achieve over time
Develop effective promotion and communication strategies for addressing both internal and external constituents, and for achieving an optimal market position

"La Piana thoroughly dissects what has come to be thought of as strategic planning, presents compelling new ideas about how to best talk about strategy, and provides useful tools to advance your mission-focused work ambitiously."
- Gregg Behr, Executive Director, The Grable Foundation

Strong organizational capacity can’t be imported or taught; it has to be built over time by nurturing and encouraging the organization’s strengths over its weaknesses....

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