Strategy Team Procedure | MP1000

Strategy Team Procedure

The Strategy Team Procedure helps your company form a strategy team annually to develop and refine tactics for marketing your products and services. The strategy team procedure allows your company to develop strategies and plans so that it can effectively compete in the marketplace and ensure that it continues to meet or exceed customer requirements.

The Strategy Team Procedure applies to the CEO, Board of Directors, and the strategy team. (16 pages, 1896 words)

Strategy Team Responsibilities:

The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) is responsible for selecting a Strategy Team and ensuring the Team has the necessary resources to develop/refine strategies.

The Strategy Team is responsible for developing inputs to the MP1070-1 MARKETING PLAN (e.g., analyses, strategies), as well as for developing the Plan itself.

Strategy Team Definitions:

Advisor – Expert who gives advice; one who gives advice to or within a group

Champion – High-level person in the organization who supports and promotes the product, project, plan, etc.; person with sufficient clout in the organization who believes in and sells the idea and helps solve problems between groups; member of senior management responsible for logistical and business aspects of the program, plan, etc., as well as removing barriers to program and individual success.

Facilitator – One (preferably issue-neutral) who guides a discussion or activity; person external to a group whose purpose is to help the group work more effectively.

Spokesperson – Person who speaks on behalf of individuals or groups but is not necessarily one of those individuals/groups represented.

Sponsor – Individual or entity taking responsibility for and initiating a process but not actually conducting the process; individual or entity for whom a project is undertaken and who is the primary risk taker.

Strategy Team Procedure Activities

• Forming the Strategy Team
• Strategy Planning a Development Schedule
• Strategy Project Cycle Management
• Strategy Review

Strategy Team Procedure Forms

• Strategy Planning Timeline Template
• Project Status Report Template
• Strategy Team Review Checklist Template
• Strategy Progress Review Checklist

Set Your Strategic Management in Action

Most management systems require at least an annual review of company goals and objectives, as well as its vision and mission. Your organization’s vision and mission statements should encapsulate your organization’s core principles; perhaps you could even call them your meta-goals. It is the starting point for the organization’s goals. It should succinctly tell everyone inside and outside the organization what you are about. Reviews with your strategy team should be conducted so that all changes and revisions can be honed and finalized. This allows you to start with a clear image in place of where your business or department should be going, and to have it well-communicated throughout the organization.

A Sincere Statement of Vision

The vision-mission statement is written for the members of an organization. A clear vision statement should serve as a guiding light for members of the organization to understand what the organization is about, and to what ultimate principle all their efforts should be working toward, in both direct and in supporting roles.

Setting Goals to Realize SMART Objectives

Objectives, unlike goals, should be very specific, and should be created to fulfill goals. We frequently hear the term SMART goals, but the acronym is more appropriately applied to objectives. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relative and time-based. Goals should be set throughout the business: with high level goals set by top management, and then goals set within each department or segment: design, sales, customer service, production, shipping, and so on. Theses goals should align directly with, and ultimately lead to fulfilling, the high level goals. Then goals can be set for groups or individuals within the department that align with and fulfill department goals.

Alignment of Strategies and Tactics

Strategies are the action plans that will help you achieve the objectives. Tactics are the very specific, functional level activities that carry out your strategies. Goal-objective setting, and use of strategies and tactics, may not help your organization if they don’t align properly to achieve desired results. First, goals-objectives-strategies-tactics should be used to fulfill the overarching vision-mission statements. But typically other things need to be happening in the organization as well for it to be successful.

There is still time to develop strategic management and communicate vision & mission, goals & objectives, and strategies & tactics. Departments can create their aligning set by developing and utilizing the strategy team. The idea is to have your goals & objectives and strategies & tactics reach far down in the organization, yet support the effort to fulfill organizational goals.

Making your objectives specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based not only focuses the attention of the organization on high priority activities, but it also creates metrics that can be measured and monitored in order to see how well the organization is performing. Strategic management and SMART objectives assist in creating “dashboard” systems that displays performance, and allows managers to recognize when things get off-track in time to make appropriate corrections. For example, if half the year is gone and the design department has not made one new prototype, then the goal of two new products each year is in danger if corrective action is not taken.