FAQ

5. What activities and period of time does a strategic plan cover?
LBL / MAPP® strategic planning is a process consisting of six primary activities:

• Organize to plan- create a team-based approach to management, measurement and improvement
• Outline a framework for ongoing growth, performance measurement and process improvement
• Systematically scan the external and internal environments of the business
• Define a shared vision statement, a focused mission statement and a core set of values to guide decision making, and a small set of overarching goal statements or themes
• Create an operating plan including a balanced set of objectives and strategic projects.
• Build out the necessary performance indicators and metrics and deploy them in a performance evaluation system integrated with the operating plan.

The time period necessary to fully cover these six activities depends on many factors, most importantly how fast a particular industry is changing and the structure of a specific organization. In today’s operating environment, a strategic plan covers a 12 to 24 month period to be useful to an organization, although results focused on internal improvements should pave the way at early stages of its implementation.

6. What is the difference between strategic planning and strategic management?
Strategic management is a general term meaning the art of strategically running an organization with the purpose of making it successful. It can be defined as the set of administrative decisions and actions that determine the long-term performance of an organization. Strategic planning is a part of strategic management. Strategic management can be divided into three parts: strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. In strategic planning a formal plan is developed, which allows an organization to understand and manage the business phase in which it is situated, specifically a growth, maturity or decline phase.

7. What is the difference between a strategic plan and a business plan?

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The main rationale behind a traditional business plan is to guide an organization’s annual operations growth, to insure the financial health of the business, and to help it obtain outside financing. A business plan helps boards, owners, managers and administrators:

• Think through what type of business they are starting or running
• Think through the entire business process so that they do not lack vital information in opening and maintaining their business and can make resource decisions
• Understand how much money they need, when they will need it, and how they are going to get it
• Analyze competition
• Run their organization on a year-to-year basis.

Strategic planning is a longer-term oriented change management process for creating and then executing an organization’s plan for future growth, maturity or decline. Strategic planning often results in implementing specific projects concerning an organization’s directions and structure. Leadership, managers and administrators use strategic planning to focus on an organization’s long-term vision, which describes what the organization will be in the future, and on the necessary steps involved in achieving this vision.

8. What is the difference between a strategic plan and an operating plan?
A strategic plan defines the goals and objectives of an organization; whereas an operating plan is a schedule of how the goals and objectives of the strategic plan will be accomplished. An operating plan is intended to help manage the tasks of day-to-day operations by scheduling events and responsibilities necessary to achieve the goals and objectives laid out in the strategic plan. The operating plan ensures that everyone knows what needs to get done, coordinates their efforts in getting it done, and keeps close track of whether and how it got done.
The main differences between an operating and a strategic plan are:

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