Discover the 5 Keys to Actionable Planning

Actionable Planning Five keys to creating a financial planning and performance analysis process that serves as a strategic advantage to your business. An OutlookSoft White Paper August 2002

Actionable Planning
Five keys to creating a financial planning and Your company's success is predicated on making the right performance analysis moves and staying competitive. And a vital component of process that serves as your success is the creation and successful execution of a strategic advantage an actionable plan that supports your strategic goals and to your business. drives business decisions. An actionable plan follows a logical process that: ƒ Communicates core strategies and objectives to every manager ƒ Tracks the status of the plan's development, and gives managers immediate and ongoing access to the plan and its supporting information ƒ Establishes performance metrics and lets every manager track performance against the plan ƒ Can be quickly and readily adjusted to meet changing business conditions Frequently, corporate planning becomes a mere exercise that fails to improve or even influence strategic efforts. That's because most companies engage in a planning process that is often random and cumbersome to implement and follow. In fact, a plan is only as flexible and innovative as the process that created it. With a poorly designed planning process, the inevitable result is a static, historical document that's seldom linked to unified strategic objectives. It's a plan that can only describe where you intended to go, rather than a live, adaptive agent for change and competitive advantage. A plan that only describes where you intended to go when the plan was first conceived is radically different than an iterative process that ultimately leads the entire enterprise to success. Most companies have formulated their strategic objectives. They have the data and the information systems needed to organize and analyze the data, and the staff and resources ready to pursue those objectives. So why haven't they been able to combine all these critical elements into a successful plan for action? The answer lies in both process and technology. First, have they created a planning process that can transform a plan into tactics and actions that are in direct in support of the corporate strategy? And second, do they have the enabling technology to support that process and to clearly and easily align data, people, and strategy? Too often companies answer both these question with a negative response. But that response needn't be the final word. Let's take a closer look at the Actionable Planning process and see why.
Actionable Planning Page 2 of 6 © OutlookSoft Corporation August 2002
The Five Standards of Actionable Planning To determine if your company possesses the process and technology to create actionable plans that support the corporation's strategic objectives, consider whether your company's planning process contains the following qualities: 1) Goals and assumptions are clearly, consistently communicated to all involved managers 2) Managers buy into and are committed to the plan 3) It is easy to keep the plan, and commitment to the plan, current and alive 4) Managers receive timely, ongoing performance feedback compared to the plan 5) The process facilitates re-forecasting and adjusting the plan Examine each standard to see if your company is benefiting from actionable planning, or whether it's time for you to adopt a new planning process and the technology to support it. 1) Goals and assumptions are clearly, consistently communicated to all managers involved in the planning process Effective organizational planning begins with a clear understanding of the corporation's objectives by every manager who has planning responsibility. For these plans to be meaningful and unified throughout the enterprise, managers also require consistent, accurate, and current information. No one would expect a home to be built correctly if all workgroups used different measurement units during construction and the corporate planning process is no different. What information should ideally be communicated to every contributing manager? ƒ Vision and goals from senior management; ƒ Assumptions from peer... [download for more]