Joe Strategy

Strategic planning best practices should never be static.  After all, how many SWOTs can you stomach?  While the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) exercise has been a useful part of many strategic planning models, the fact is that when you do the same thing too many times, you come up with the same answers.  That’s when it’s time for a new tool.

Joe Strategy’s advice for small businesses is that when the SWOT starts to produce the same old “to do list”, it’s time to engage in the Vann Group’s own strategic planning tool called “CORE” to trigger fresh thinking that stretches your comfort zone and is never tainted by “conventional wisdom”.  CORE frames the small business strategic planning discussion in a fresh and more productive manner.   It works like this:

1. Challenges – Take a step back and be brutally honest and objective about the areas of your company and industry that can adversely impact your short and/or long-term performance.
2. Opportunities – Stretch your mind and think broadly about the upside of the current circumstances for your company and industry.  Think about what you need to do more of to capture that upside and also what you can do less of or eliminate all together.
3. Realities – These are the undeniable facts that impact your company. They are self evident.
4. Expectations - Given the reality of the challenges and opportunities, this is the essential understanding of the company’s prospects.  Complete clarity about these prospects should foster a fierce focus on pursuing them while shedding all extraneous activities.

Check back often for more strategic planning best practices.