Throughout his career as an IT professional, Ronald Kister has been
charged with creating strategic plans for several of the school
districts where he’s worked. Strategic planning is done as a way for
organizations to set priorities, strengthen operations, focus energy and
resources, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working
toward common goals, and assess and adjust the direction the
organization is heading in response to a changing environment. Strategic
planning that is effective is able to articulate where an organization
is headed and those actions that are needed to make progress, as well as
how it will know if it is successful.
There are many different
frameworks and methodologies associated with strategic planning and
management. There is no one rule regarding the right framework, but
there are common attributes and similar patterns that must be followed.
Many of the frameworks that are used in strategic planning, follow some
variation of the following phases:
1. Analyze and assess. This is where an understanding of the current internal and external environments is developed.
2. Strategy formulation. Here, a high-level strategy is developed and the plan is documented.
3. Strategy execution. This is when the plan is translated into the operational planning and action items are developed.
4. Evaluation or sustainment. Here, ongoing refinement and evaluation of performance, data reporting, communications, and other issues occur.
Strategic
planning helps to provide strategic performance feedback to the
decision makers within an organization. Ronald Kister helped several
school districts in New York develop strategic plans to manage and grow
the IT departments and education in their schools.
