Home > Publications > Newsletters

Foundations For Information Strategy Planning
by Database Design Solutions, Inc.

Abstract
The need for strategic planning is as great today as it has ever been. Some business organizations are here today because they offered the right product at the right time to a rapidly growing market. Much of the success of these organizations was the result of decisions made without the benefit of strategic planning or strategic thinking. However, when you consider that three quarters of the 100 largest U.S. corporations of 70 years ago have fallen from the list, the need for business strategies, which reflect the changing business environment, becomes apparent. Present-day managers are increasingly aware of the necessity of strategic planning.

Often times, in an Information Strategy Planning exercise, it isn’t long before a key participant begins to show symptoms of bewilderment and frustration because of the lack of knowledge and understanding of the terminology being used. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of ambiguity in the terminology used to describe the various components of strategic planning.

The following concepts are not technical but are not always well understood or understood in the same way by all the members of the strategic planning team. Insofar as the confusion can be removed from the following concepts, the strategic planning process will go forward with much less bewilderment and frustration.

Strategic Planning Concepts

Strategy
Sometimes strategy is used to mean specific actions that need to be taken to accomplish a goal and other times strategy is used to mean an overall plan of action. The overall plan of action includes what is to be done, who is to do it, the scope of the future business activity and business commitment plans. In information strategy planning, "strategy" is meant to be synonymous with the complete strategic plan.

Vision
Vision statements come from the very top of the organization and are motivational in nature. They can be long or short statements, but the picture that they draw and the inspiration that they provide are key to getting the organization believing in the same things and moving in the same direction. Visions can be very powerful motivators. Think of Moses’ vision of the "promised land" or the "I Have a Dream" speech of Dr. Martin Luther King as some examples of great motivational visions.

Sometimes the difference between vision and mission are not clear, which brings us to the mission statement.

Mission
The mission is the statement of purpose of the organization. Ideally, this is defined at the time the organization is created. However, this seldom happens and it is not unusual to have to compose a mission statement from information gathered in interviews with company executives. Sometimes a mission is fairly easy to recognize. The mission of the sales division of the mythical Acme Corporation might be to sell Acme’s products and to service Acme’s customers. Subordinate organizations should have mission statements, which correspond to the parent organization’s mission. For example, Acme’s Northwest Sales Region’s mission would be the same as their parent Sales Division’s mission but limited to a specific geography. Perhaps the sales organization would specialize by product set or industry as well as being subdivided by geography, in which case the product or industry specialization would also be reflected in the corresponding mission statement for the sales region.

An organization’s mission is not always apparent. Planning and support organizations can be especially difficult to understand in these terms if their mission hasn’t been explicitly stated by the parent organization. Occasionally, the planning or support organization is confused itself regarding its proper mission. Organizations that are "liaisons" or "interfaces" into other organizations are particularly susceptible to this ailment.

Even if a mission statement was provided at the time of the inception of the organization, the mission could become more or less irrelevant as time passes. As the organization, environment and personnel change, the mission may have to be redefined or restated.

Objectives
The objectives of an organization are the general statements of priority and direction in which the organization intends to go. The objectives may not be measurable, but they should leave no doubt about the direction the organization is traveling. "To provide the highest quality products with the lowest possible cost" is an interesting and noble objective. However, business managers need specific and measurable targets to aim for and to measure progress against.

The objectives should be clear enough to bring employees to the point of saying: "Okay, I understand what you want, but how do we do this?" The answer to what has to be done to meet the objectives lies within the set of goals established for each objective.

Goals
A decomposition of the objectives into clear, precise, and measurable statements results in a set of goals. The goal set should be complete enough to ensure that when they are attained, the objectives will be reached. In other words, if the organization reaches its goals, they will also reach their objectives! And, since the goals are measurable, we should always know where we are in relation to our goals. Corrective actions can be taken if decisions are taking the organization further from its goals.

Properly formulated goals can:

• Be converted into specific action.
• Provide direction and serves as a starting point for more detailed goals at lower levels in the organization.
• Establish long-term priorities for the organization.
• Facilitate management control as the goals are standards against which the organizational performance can be measured.

Certainly, it is beneficial to have a plan on how to reach the goals. Identifying what the organization needs to do and the actions that need to be taken to reach its goals is accomplished via initiative statements.

Initiatives
Initiatives (sometimes called "actions") refer to the specific activity that needs to take place for the accomplishment of the goals and objectives. Since the initiative is action oriented, verbs are important to include in the initiative’s description because they describe the work that is to be done. Initiatives should identify not only what is to be done, but also who will do it and the time frame in which it will be done. Well-written initiatives are key to the transformation of the plan into action.

In other words, the initiatives are the foundation for the execution of the information strategic plan.