Action plan – The action plan lists the specific actions that must be taken, by whom and by when in order to achieve an overall goal or implement a strategy. Some people include the costs of each action in the action plans, resulting in budget information being included in the action plans, as well. Action plans together are sometimes referred to as the Implementation Plan.
Activity – One of the steps required to complete a process.
Alignment model of strategic planning – Focuses especially on aligning internal operations to most effectively and efficiently work toward the mission of the organization.
Analysis – The examination and close scrutiny of data and information without the introduction of opinions, biased perceptions of the data and information, or evaluative statements.
Balanced Scorecard – A “balanced scorecard” stresses the need to monitor, measure and control strategic performance within four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Business Process, and Learning and Growth. The main value of the balanced scorecard model lies in its emphasis on forging a balanced approach to measuring and managing strategic control factors. It remains for each organization to identify its own key strategy, strategic objectives, strategic initiatives and strategic measurements.
Baseline – The organization’s actual performance level from the most recent reporting period.
Benchmark – A third-party comparison point on performance, e.g. industry standard, published statistics, peer comparison, etc.
Board of Directors – The group of people who are legally charged to oversee the operations of a corporation, whether for-profit or nonprofit.
Business model canvas – A strategic management template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm’s or product’s value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances.
Business Plan – Is focused on the development and delivery of a certain product or service and includes, for example, description, groups of customer(s) services, market(s), competitors, collaborators, pricing strategies, and advertising and promotions.
Cascading – Arranging strategic devices (objectives) to ensure collaboration and cooperation downward through all levels of the organizational system in a connected series or sequence, like a waterfall, so that the intended strategy is exhibited from leadership levels all the way to the customer-facing personnel.
Change management – The process of moving an organization, function, or process through a transformation process to a new and/or improved level of performance.
Clients – Clients are the people who directly receive the benefits from the services of an organization. Nonprofits often refer to customers as clients. They might include, for example, attendees to an art show, members of an association, citizens attending a civic event, grantees of a foundation, patients in a hospital, members of a congregation, students in a school, participants in social service programs or patrons to a library. Primary clients are the people who directly benefit from the services of the organization. Secondary, or supporting, clients are people who indirectly benefit from the services.
Communications Plan – Specification of which information from the Strategic Plan will be communicated to which stakeholder groups, who will do that communication and by when.
Competitive Positioning – Defining how you’ll “differentiate” your offering and create value for your market. It’s about carving out a spot in the competitive landscape, putting your stake in the ground, and winning mindshare in the marketplace – being known for a certain “something.”
Competitor Analysis – An organization’s activities to examine its competitors to understand how their actions might affect the organization, and how the organization should best position itself to compete. For example, identify each competitor’s products and their markets and their benefits to each market. Consider their strategies for pricing and promotions. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor’s organization. Then compare those competitors to the organization to decide how best to position the organization against the competitors.
Consensus – A group decision or action that all members agree to support, even though it may not exactly reflect an individual’s preferred choice. Consensus is possible when diverse points of view have been heard thoroughly and openly.
Conventional Model of Strategic Planning – This form of strategic planning places heavy emphasis on identifying mission, vision, values, external and internal analysis, specific strategies and/or goals, associated action plans, financial plans, documentation and implementation – usually in that order. Conventional strategic planning is in contrast to issues-based, real-time, alignment and organic models of strategic planning.
Core competency – Any area, factor, or consideration that differentiates the organization and provides for a competitive edge over its rivals.
Critical Success Factor (CSF) – An activity that is critical to undertake if other activities are to be successful. For example, a new product cannot be made available to a certain market unless the product was already developed. The factors can be scoped to working toward the mission of the organization or accomplishing a major strategy or goal in the Strategic Plan.
Cross-Functional – A process or activity that includes portions of the process or activity from two or more functions within an organization.
Customer – The person(s), or organizations who use your output. Whether your customers are internal or external to your organization, they use your output as an input to their work processes.
Customer Analysis – An organization’s activities to assess competitors to understand how their actions might affect the organization, and how the organization should best position itself to compete. For example, it could include identifying each competitor’s products and their markets and their benefits to each market. It could include considering their strategies for pricing and promotions. It could include considering the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor’s organization. Then the organization decides how best to position the organization against the competitors.
Customer Value Proposition – The intended overall value and/or benefit a customer/stakeholder will gain from your product or service in return for its costs, including money, time and effort; a marketing statement that summarizes the tangible and intangible value of a particular offering helping the customer to understand why they might want to buy a product or use a service.
Dashboard – A reporting tool that consolidates, aggregates and arranges objectives and metrics (measurements compared to a goal) and sometimes scorecards on a single screen so information can be monitored at a glance. Dashboards differ from scorecards in being tailored to monitor a specific role or generate metrics reflecting a particular point of view; typically they do not conform to a specific management methodology.
Delta – The delta is where change occurs. It is where people stop operating in the old way, learn new ways, make mistakes, mourn the loss of the old, test the new way and integrate it into ongoing operations.
Development – The results of systematic efforts to bring about structural, operational, and performance improvements, in a set of capabilities in order to enhance and/or increase outputs.
Double Loop Learning – In double-loop learning, feedback from management consequences is fed back to the action strategy development process and back into the governing variables that were used to develop the strategies in the first place.
Driving Forces – These are various, major influences, usually external to the organization, that should be considered when conducting an external analysis, especially environmental scan activity. There are numerous driving forces, and are usually organized into categories, including political, economic, societal, technological and environmental.
Environmental Assessment – A thoughtful analysis and evaluation of the strategic environment facing the organization.
Environmental Scan – A systematic review of current and/or emerging trends, events, situations, problems, and issues that are or might impact the organization, its operation, and/or its performance. A scan may be focused on either external or internal factors.
Evaluation – The process of comparing and assessing some entity or attribute using a specific criterion (or criteria), i.e., a norm, standard, regulation, or expectation.
External Analyses – An examination of the dimensions of an organization’s external environment, including the close scrutiny of those trends, events, that are having, or might have an impact on the performance capabilities of the management, resources, structure, processes, and operation of an organization.
Facilitator – The person responsible to guide and support planners through the planning process. The role can include a wide variety of activities and styles of facilitation, depending on the culture of the organization and the preferences of planners.
Financial Plan – Specifies the financial resources needed to operate the organization during one or more years of the span of the Strategic Plan, and should include financial resources necessary to address each of the strategic priorities in the Strategic Plan. Often referred to as the Annual Budget or Operating Budget.
Forecast – Usually refers to a projected value for a metric. Organizations will often create a forecast that is different than their target for a given metric. There are multiple types of forecasting methods for creating forecasts based on past data and usage of them varies widely across organizations.
Function – Specialized area of related activities within an organization that are grouped together in order to manage them effectively and efficiently, for example, finance, marketing, and operations.
Functional Management – A level of management below general management that is in charge of a given function.
Globalization – A process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process also impacts the environment, culture, political systems, economic development and prosperity, and human well-being in societies around the world. It includes investing, managing, organizing, and operating on a world-wide scale, i.e., across national boundaries and in different cultures and societies.
Goal – A long-term result to be achieved as an organization moves toward the vision.
Governance – This term refers to the nature of the activities conducted by the Board of Directors, including clarifying the overall purpose of the organization; optionally the vision and/or values of the organization; establishing broad policies and plans for how the organization operates to that purpose; and monitoring the implementation of those policies and plans.
Growth – The measurable increase in the input, throughput, or output of an organization, process, or activity.
Human Capital – A metaphor for the transition in organizational value creation from physical assets to the capabilities of employees. Knowledge, skills, and relationships, for example. Closely related to terms such as intellectual capital and intangible assets. Some experts suggest that as much as 75% of an organization’s value is attributable to human capital.
Implementation Plan – The set of activities to increase the likelihood that a Strategic Plan will be implemented, and can include all of the action plans (they specify accountabilities for implementation).
Improvement – The enhanced capability and/or performance or an organization, its functions, processes, or activities made possible by changes in their design, management, and/or operation.
Initiative – A collective endeavor, with a defined beginning and end, to reduce performance gaps and help accomplish strategic objectives.
Innovation – Introduction and adaptation of a new idea, concept, or invention to an activity or process.
Input – The materials, equipment, information, people, money, or environmental conditions that are needed beforehand.
Internal analyses – Critical examination of the internal dimensions and performance capabilities of the management, resources, structure, processes, and operation of an organization.
Issues (Strategic) – Strategic issues are very important challenges that the organization must face, often in the forms of weaknesses of the organization and pending threats to the organization. Identification of strategic issues often results from external and internal analyses, which, together, comprise the situational analysis.
Issues-Based Model of Strategic Planning – This form of strategic planning places heavy emphasis on identifying overall issues, or priorities, that the organization must address in its strategic planning. Issues-based strategic planning is in contrast to the conventional, real-time, alignment and organic models of strategic planning.
Key Driver of Success – An explicitly stated area where tangible results must be realized to achieve a desired goal(s).
Key Performance Indicator – A measure, for which the organization has data, that helps quantify the achievement of a desired strategic objective or outcome.
Lagging Indicator – A measurable economic activity that changes after the economy has established a pattern or trend. They have no predictive value, but they are useful in confirming changes that have taken place in economic activity.
Leading Indicator – A measurable economic activity that changes before the economy has established a pattern or trend. Useful in predicting changes in economic activity.
Line Manager – Person who heads a department or sub-function and is responsible for collaborating with his team to achieve a specific objective(s) via listening, learning, policy making, target setting, decision making.
Macro Environment – Forces at work in the external operating environment that can affect an organization’s ability to serve its customers and make a profit, e.g. demographic changes and economic trends.
Market positioning – The process of identifying and occupying a distinct niche or place in the market for products and services in order to achieve an advantage over competing products and services.
Measure – A quantifiable value that is used to track and manage operations or assess strategic performance.
Micro Environment – External forces close to an organization that affect its ability to serve its customers and make a profit, e.g. regulatory changes and stakeholder perceptions.
Milestone – A key activity, whether a deliverable or a decision, being completed in a project or in the development or in the operations of the organization.
Mission – Statement of purpose that provides the rationale for an organization’s existence.
Objective – A broadly defined outcome that an organization must achieve to make its strategy succeed.
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) – A critical thinking framework and ongoing discipline that seeks to ensure employees work together, focusing their efforts to make measurable contributions that drive the company forward.
Operations – The organization’s day-to-day activities with respect to all functions, processes, and departments of the organization.
Organic Model of Strategic Planning – This model of strategic planning is especially useful when working to achieve a very long-term vision and with highly diverse people involved. It can include heavy emphasis on meeting regularly with stakeholders to establish mission, vision and/or values and then identifying short-term actions that can be taken in order over a long period of time to the mission, vision and/or values.
Organization Culture – The specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization, and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.
Outcomes (Results) – Outcomes are changes in clients that result from participating in a nonprofit program. Outcomes can be short-term (usually changes in knowledge), intermediate (changes in skills) and long-term (changes in conditions). Outcomes are the real results that nonprofits aim to accomplish and that the community expects from their nonprofits.
Performance Management – The process of achieving desired organizational outcomes. It includes all organizational activities aimed at ensuring that the organization’s strategic goal(s) and objectives are met in an effective and efficient manner.
Performance Measurement – A process of collecting, analyzing and reporting information regarding the performance of a component.
Planners – These are members of the organization who are directly involved in conducting the strategic planning process. Occasionally, planners include others outside of the organization, such as funders, community leaders and program experts. Facilitators help the planners to develop and follow their own planning process.
Planning – A process of thinking and organizing activities to achieve a future-oriented goal. Planning involves forethought and forecasting.
Planning Committee (Strategic Planning Committee) – A group of people who work together to ensure a high-quality strategic planning process, for example, to select the best model of planning, select the facilitator and make sure that planners are producing useful results. The Committee is not responsible for producing content to put in the Plan.
Planning Horizon – The length of time the strategy is being developed for.
Positioning Statement – A clear and concise description of the market(s) that the organization serves and how it wants the market(s) to perceive the organization. There can be a positioning statement for the entire organization or for each product, program or service.
Priority (Strategic) – The generic term sometimes used to refer to a major activity that should be undertaken as a result of the strategic analysis, for example, a strategy, goal or issue.
Process – A sequence of steps, tasks, or activities that converts inputs to outputs. A work process adds value to the inputs by changing them or using them to produce something new. Some processes may be contained wholly within a department or function (that is, accounting, marketing). However, the critical areas of work performed by an organization usually involve processes that cross functional or departmental boundaries. These are cross-functional processes. Processes are composed of sub processes that in turn consist of a group of related activities (e.g. order entry). Activities consist of groups of related tasks (e.g. writing an order). Tasks are elementary actions of work (e.g. time stamping an invoice).
Program Plan – Focuses on the development and delivery of a certain program, usually in a nonprofit, and includes, for example, description, group(s) of clients served, competitors, collaborators, pricing strategies, and advertising and promotions activities.
Project – An undertaking with a defined starting point and ending point. It includes significant allocation of resources and has defined parameters that determine completion of the project. A project has finite or limited resources assigned to it. In the case of a new projects it includes increased levels of risk and uncertainty.
Project Management – The discipline of mobilizing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project outcomes and outputs.
Real-Time Model of Strategic Planning – Includes frequent analysis of external and internal environments, and subsequent strategic priorities. Is most useful for organizations in which the one or both environments are rapidly changing.
Risk Appetite – The broad-based amount of risk an organization is willing to accept in pursuit of its mission/vision. It is established by the organization’s most senior level leadership and serves as the guidepost to set strategy and select objectives.
Risk Tolerance – The acceptable level of variance in performance relative to the achievement of objectives. It is generally established at the program, objective or component level. In setting risk tolerance levels, management considers the relative importance of the related objectives and aligns risk tolerance with risk appetite.
SBU – A Strategic Business Unit of an organization. An internal profit center composed of discrete and independent product or market segments. An SBU may be any size, but it must have a unique mission, identifiable competitors, an external market focus, and significant control over its business functions and processes.
Scenario Planning – A discipline for rediscovering the original entrepreneurial power of creative foresight in contexts of accelerated change, greater complexity, and genuine uncertainty.
Situational Analysis – Includes conducting analyses of the environments that are external and internal to the organization, in order to identify strategic issues or goals to be addressed during the strategic planning.
Stakeholder – Individual person, group, association, or external organization that has a significant interest in, and/or impact on an organization.
Standard – Rule, norm, regulation, custom, or principle that is used as a basis for measurement, evaluation, comparison or judgment.
Strategic Alternatives – Potentially actionable options for achieving the direction of the organization. Options should be consistent with the external and internal dimensions of the organization to leverage its strengths and exploit available opportunities.
Strategic Direction – The vision, mission, values, policies, and primary goal statements of a strategic plan.
Strategic Information System – The system established to maintain an organization’s strategic focus through ongoing management and communication of information related to the development, implementation, and performance evaluation of strategy.
Strategic Management – The set of processes and competencies required to specify the goals and objectives and develop and manage the initiatives to attain them. It includes those decisions and actions that determine the long-run performance of an organization.
Strategic Operating Plan – The blueprint for strategy execution linking strategic objectives with deployable implementation plan. It is a set of marching orders detailing exactly what will be done to achieve measurable results during the upcoming operating cycles. It includes the objectives, responsibilities, measures and initiatives to be implemented and tracked in the current and next annual operating cycle.
Strategic Operational Planning – A process of converting strategic goals and objectives to tactical goals and objectives.
Strategic Plan – A long-term, comprehensive document that summarizes the outputs of longer term strategic thinking and planning. Key elements include strategic direction, key drivers and time-phased strategies, and strategic objectives.
Strategic Planning – The process of converting the results of strategic thinking as a set of potentially actionable strategies into an integrated plan of action that can be implemented.
Strategic Policy – Guidelines developed for use in an organization to influence, instruct, and specify how leaders should act when making decisions in given circumstances.
Strategic Thinking – Primarily an analytic and creative decision-making process that ultimately results in an appropriate strategic plan for the organization.
Strategy – A plan of action to achieve a goal(s).
Strategy Cadence -Strategy Cadence is the pace of moving from the present state to the desired future state.
Strategy Canvas – A central diagnostic tool and an action framework developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne for building a compelling blue ocean strategy. The canvas graphically captures, in one picture, the current strategic landscape and future prospects for a company.
Strategy Formulation – The processes required to articulate the overall strategic direction of the organization, to compile a set of feasible strategies, and to evaluate and select those strategic options that are to be included in the strategic plan.
Strategy Map – A visual representation of the cause and effect relationships among strategic objectives driving the achievement of the organization’s goal(s).
Supplier – The people (functions, departments, or organizations) who supply a process with its necessary inputs.
SWOT Analysis – An evaluation of the external environmental scan to determine opportunities or threats, followed by an evaluation of internal scan to determine strengths and weaknesses. The result of this evaluation will be the development a comprehensive understanding of the current environment and context of the organization. This, in turn, will provide the foundation for strategic thinking and planning.
Tactic – Actions taken by line management to deploy and implement corporate strategy throughout all levels and functions of the organization.
Tasks – One of the steps required to accomplish a particular process or project.
Unique Value Proposition – What an organization can concisely convey to its customers/clients about how it is fully capable of providing them a unique product, program or service that will indeed benefit them. There might have a proposition for the entire organization and for each of product, program or service.
Value Chain – The process steps by which an organization moves from the identification of its customer needs to customer fulfillment.
Values – Belief, preference, or philosophy held by members of an organization that is a primary determinant of an organization’s culture and ethical behavior.
Vision – The extrapolation of a current organizational state to a desired future state.
Work Plan – Action plans for Board Committees or top management are sometimes called work plans.
