Strategic Planning: Honest Evaluation of Your Organization
By Ronni Ticker

When an organization embarks on the process of writing a strategic plan, a concurrent commitment is made to closely scrutinize internal operations. When performed correctly, this process reveals those aspects of current operations that are excellent and those that are not. Do you wonder whether or not your employees are performing their jobs appropriately or if they are sensitive to customer wants and needs? Are you interested to know how your customers feel about the services your agency delivers? If you receive complaints, have you analyzed them to understand the root causes? Do you know there are problems but are not sure of the magnitude or how to approach solving them? Though it may be uncomfortable to gather and confront the results, it is exceedingly valuable and can lead to meaningful change.

Gathering this data involves spending time with employees, customers, volunteers, and other stakeholders to understand each function. Other important steps include speaking with customers and vendors to gain their perspective; gathering statistics and comparing these to industry benchmarks; and evaluating products and/or services with impartiality and careful attention to details.

One option for organizing the data involves dividing it according to People, Process, Products and Technology. This model pays particular and specific consideration to key problems facing many organizations today. Typically, agencies are run on a shoestring. Justifying investment in systems or in people is difficult. Processes can be haphazard and rarely have been developed with efficiency in mind. Employees are well-intentioned but may not have the skills necessary for the job. Products and services often evolve over time without formalized consideration of the individual situations of current customers. At some point in the lifecycle of an organization, lack of funds is no longer an adequate excuse if the agency expects to achieve its goals and objectives.

To clarify the issues and devise an action plan, one option is to segregate results into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (S.W.O.T.). Consider the simple example of a summer camp that has an excellent reputation. Parents and campers are happy. Recent investments in technology contribute to parent and camper satisfaction because they can now communicate via email. The retention rate amongst campers is high compared to similar camps. Clearly the camp is doing a lot of things right. The retention rate for staff, though, is well below industry standards. The most straightforward way to assess the tangible and intangible factors is to contact counselors who choose to stay and those who do not. Focus groups, surveys and informal conversations are beneficial for yielding both critical information and possible ideas for improving staff retention. Networking with other camps to determine how they are addressing this problem can be very helpful, too. Ideas can then be assessed, financial implications considered and improvements implemented to boost counselor satisfaction.

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