Too many consultants help businesses develop strategic plans that fail. This is often not the fault of the business or the strategic plan. I don't really fault the consultant except that they did incomplete work. A great BIG picture is draw up, but no blueprints are made. And what we are left with is a pretty picture with no tools to implement it.
There is a way to remarkably simple way to go about prioritizing and implementing your strategic initiatives. Let's walk through it briefly and you tell me if it makes any sense. (For a PDF PowerPoint, go to http://www.marknissley.com/, click Client Access, then click Client Tools in the middle of the page.)
1. First, if all identified strategic outcomes are tied tied to bottom-line values (this means $$$), then you have to revisit them and do so. Generally all strategic goals can be tied to one or more of these three things: increase revenue, increase margins, reduce expenses. All affect the bottom line.
2. Once you've done this, you should have a list of strategic outcomes and the dollar values they will represent annually once achieved. For example, let's say we have a bakery, and we determine that a 20% increase in our birthday cake sales will reap an additional $12,000 in revenue every year. $12,000 is our Annual $ Value.
3. Next, figure out how long it will take for you to reach that outcome. Completely reach or exceed it. Let's say we know how to sell more cakes, but believe it will take us 9 months to actually achieve a 20% increase in sales. 9 is our Months value.
4. We are almost ready to go, we just have to divide these things into 4 categories.
Category A: Anything with any Annual $ Value that can be achieved in 1-3 months. If you have anything that can impact your bottom line immediately, DO IT.
Category B: Take your biggest Annual $ Value (unless is is disproportionately larger than all others, then take your second). Cut that value in half. For example: $12,000 divided by 1.8 is $6667. Anything that will bring more than $6667 to the bottom line is next. The longer the outcome takes, the higher the value must be.
Category C: Take all initiatives with your mid-Annual $ Value or lower. The longer they take the more likely they are to fall in category D.
Category D: Once you get to these projects, they are all fairly low value, so better get more strategic outcome in place fast!
(Graphic representation below.)
5. Execute the outcomes in the order of A,B,C.
You can argue with this all you like, but then you will just be arguing, not DOING, and that gets you nowhere.
(I should note I took this tool from someone, though I can not remember who. All the credit goes to them. I just use it.)
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