Strategic Planning and Management Insights

An immigrant from South Africa, Elon Musk is an inventor, entrepreneur, investor and multi-billionaire. After dropping out of a Stanford PhD program, Musk went on to create and sell his first technology company to Compaq Computer Co. for over $300 million (USD). After that, he and his brother created what we know today as PayPal, before selling to eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Finally, he had the funds to start a private space exploration company called SpaceX, as well as an electric vehicle company called Tesla shortly after. Along with having an involvement in other companies such as Solar City, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, Musk’s success has amassed him a net worth or over $19 billion.

Successful projects and programs should be governed by a clear strategy, which should be designed to deliver business benefits. However, it is surprisingly easy for the work carried out as part of these programs or projects to drift off of the intended course or to become misaligned from the wider strategic objectives.

From program management, through to team building training, there are a number of steps that can be taken to improve this alignment. Below are four outlined steps that explain how they can contribute towards a situation where project work and business strategy are pulling in the same direction:

In this post, I will walk through the five steps in the strategic planning process that we follow with our exclusive process, Aligned Strategy Development.

The BCG-Matrix is an effective tool which helps you with strategic planning and implementing your growth strategy by identifying and evaluating the most profitable products and strategic business units. Organizations can identify the current and future value of their products, as well as the best strategic approach to invest in order to increase profit, market share and return on investment. The BCG-Matrix is also called growth/share matrix because the market growth rate and relative market share are being considered. Therefore the revenue streams are positioned in a matrix of four quadrants, which were named symbolically and give an indication for recommendations on actions like investments or divestment.

For this episode of our Strategy and Leadership Podcast, we were joined by Carey Rome, the CEO of Cypress Resources. Referring to himself as a “recovering CPA” , Carey started his career in accounting, and eventually moved into other areas of business, leading to positions as CFO, COO, and now CEO. Throughout his various roles, Carey has developed a wide understanding of business operations and a passion for strategy development.

Goals, Objectives, Measures Targets, Pillars, Strategic priorities: These things all mean different things to different people. While there is no one right way to interpret each term, you do need to agree on which ones you and your team will use when developing your strategy.

Time and time again, organizations book strategy days, plan retreats and spend money on strategic planning sessions that don’t produce any lasting results. The session may go well and produce a sensible and comprehensible plan for everyone to follow, but progress hardly takes form. The plan barely gets off the ground before it’s pulled back down to business as usual.