"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not."
George Bernard Shaw
Though definitions vary, it is generally accepted that strategic planning is a management tool for organizing the present on the basis of the projections of the desired future. But it is much more.
Simply doing better what you are currently doing is not necessarily the path to breakthrough results. Especially if your organization or in our case a school system, has not operated at a high level, consistently and constantly meeting the needs of each learner.
Strategic planning therefore must fundamentally be strategic.
Two glaring shortcomings hinder strategic planning. The first teeters on the obvious. We must think strategically to plan strategically.
Thinking strategically is what Shaw, in part was conveying. Dreaming, visioning, and seeing require different lenses. Thinking strategically requires balancing addressing improvement in the immediate, current or existing programs, practices, and procedures while simultaneously filtering these actions through a forward-looking, transformational if you will, picture of the work completed.
“Planning can be considered strategic only if it sees a new reality and does whatever it can to push the existing system toward that reality or to begin working outside the existing system” (Cook, 2004 p. 73).
The second obstacle to strategic planning is the absence of a detailed implementation plan – the detailed tactical plan that lists precisely the responsibilities of everyone involved in implementing each particular strategy.
There it is – the absence of a clear picture of the future and the necessary detailed implementation plan are the reasons that our plan, strategies, action steps, programs, processes, or practices have not yielded the desired or intended outcome.
To address these obstacles we are resetting our planning processes with the integration of Hoshin planning.
The basic premise behind the Hoshin plan is that the best way to obtain the desired result is to ensure that all in the organization understand the long-range direction, our Strategic Commitments, and that each member of our organization is working according to a linked plan to make the vision of “all means all” a reality.
The second aspect of Hoshin planning is that there are fundamental process measures that must be monitored to assure the continuous improvement of our organization's key processes.
The Strategic Commitments are forward-looking, visionary and achievable. They are purposeful in describing our core work. In a like manner, they specifically describe the key success factors for each commitment to be accomplished. The key success factors drive the work at all levels. Unfortunately, we have not demonstrated the alignment of department, school, and classroom improvement efforts according to the commitments. Hoshin planning will ensure this alignment is achieved. It will also ensure greater awareness, understanding, and implementation vertically and horizontally in our system.
Planning strategically therefore requires vision – a vision that encompasses seeing not only the work completed but also each and everyone one of us in making “all means all” a reality.
Who said our students cannot be successful? Cannot achieve to high standards?
Rather than “why” shouldn’t our focus, our intentions, our commitments, our convictions be “why not”?
“Why not” is a mindset – the mindset that must overcome any obstacles preventing thinking strategically and implementation.
Hoshin planning is not mystical or magical. It is hard work. Different work.
Isn’t that what strategic planning is suppose to be?