The Fourth Article on Strategic Planning

By Julie Felice, CPM
Julie.Felice@intermountainmail.org

Strategic planning must include an assessment of the organization's environment because no organization operates in a vacuum. The very definition of strategic planning stresses the importance of focusing on the future within the context of an ever-changing environment forces that change our world daily. Skill at assessing the environment and then being proactive in responding to that environment (i.e., strategic planning, thinking, and management) determines who is effective in using their resources and, ultimately, who survives.

The situation assessment outlines the process of gathering and analyzing the information needed to make an explicit evaluation of an organization in its environment. At the conclusion of a situation analysis, a strategic planner will have a database of quality information that can be used to make decisions and a list of critical issues which demand a response from the organization—the most important issues the organization needs to deal with in the strategic planning process.

Part of getting a clear view of the environment and dynamics of an organization is to look at it through others' eyes; both internal and external stakeholders' perceptions of the organization will add valuable information to the situation assessment.

The SWOT technique, a simple and effective vehicle for collecting this information, helps focus the process by breaking it down into four broad categories:

S - What are the organization's internal Strengths?

W - What are the organization's internal Weaknesses?

O - What external Opportunities might move the organization forward?

T - What external Threats might hold the organization back?

Evaluating an organization's general strengths and weaknesses, as well as the strengths and weaknesses specific to each of its programs.
Successful organizations exploit strengths rather than just focus on weaknesses. In other words, this process isn't just about fixing the things that are wrong, but also nurturing what is right.

The same kind of thinking should apply to how an organization approaches its opportunities and threats—the external trends that influence the organization. They can either help an organization move forward (opportunities) or hold an organization back (threats)—but opportunities that are ignored can become threats, and threats that are dealt with appropriately can be turned into opportunities.

© Copyright 2006, American Association of Certified Public Managers®