The "Strategy in a box" tool
The problems I have seen with planning processes
Since 2009, I have been part of various management groups in start-ups, scale-ups, and large companies. And by now, I must have participated in at least thirty full-fledged planning processes in these companies.
This is what I have seen over and over again:
Executives who do not know precisely what their company's overall goal, vision, and mission are and where to find the latest version.
Executives struggle to summarise their strategy into something easily communicated throughout the organization.
Executives suffer from the planning fallacy because they cannot see the 'big picture' of the business.
Managers who are unsure of the company's strategy and where they can find the latest version of that strategy.
Managers who do not align their plans with those of other departments end up pulling their department in the opposite direction to the rest of the company.
Employees who do not know how the company plans to deliver its strategy and how they, as employees, can understand whether they are making progress or not.
I could go on, but you get the picture. In short, the above means that the company's potential planning processes are highly inefficient, and its chances of achieving its long, medium, and short-term plans are reduced.
How I try to solve this with the “Strategy in a box” tool
All of the above is simply the result of executives, managers, and employees not knowing where to find the latest version of the long, medium, and short-term plans.
The solution should be obvious: create a document summarising all the company's plans. This is what I am trying to do with the “Strategy in a box” tool.
The “Strategy in a box” tool:
It is a planning document created in Excel that summarises the company's long, medium, and short-term plans on one page.
This makes it easy to share and easy to open.
It makes it easy to read and understand
It makes it easy to align plans top-down and bottom-up
Has built-in constraints
Forcing both executives and managers to prioritize, reducing the planning pitfall
Forces concise language, making it easy to read and understand
Forces measurement of progress through OKRs
That (should) keep everyone involved motivated
How the “Strategy in a box” tool looks without content
How you use the “Strategy in a box” tool
If you have experience working with objectives and key results, this template should be straightforward to use. Start at the top and work your way down, and then back up, to make sure you have alignment between long-term and short-term plans.
When your “Strategy in a box” tool is complete, ensure it is used as the only planning tool so that everyone in the company knows this document is the only truth regarding plans. At Elaway, we go through this document from top to bottom every other week with the extended management group. That may seem a bit much, but I can guarantee that everyone involved knows our long-, medium, and short-term goals, vision, mission, values, value propositions, strategies, objectives, key results, and initiatives without looking at their screens.
If you are new to objectives and key results, you will be pleased to know that I will release a video guide with examples from Netflix and other well-known companies next week. Make sure you sign up to be notified when this video is released, and if you need help before then, ping me on Linkedin, and I will be happy to jump into a short video session to guide you.
The “Strategy in a box” tool is a work in progress, and I will update all my subscribers when a new version of the model is uploaded.
Want to try the “Strategy in a box” tool?
Ping me on Linkedin or send me an e-mail, and I'll send you the “Strategy in a box” tool template.