Strategic planning in the BASK is four stages in a fixed order, and most of this unit is knowing the order and spotting which stage a described failure sits in.
The four stages
Formulation, goal setting, implementation, evaluation.
- Formulation creates the strategic direction. Nothing downstream is meaningful until it exists.
- Goal setting is second, immediately after formulation. It sets the targets evaluation will later measure against.
- Implementation is third: translating direction into action and changed operating behavior.
- Evaluation is fourth: judging whether the executed strategy delivered its intended outcomes.
Look-alike four-step lists are the trap:
- Analysis, design, development, implementation is four of the five ADDIE phases, from Learning & Development.
- Awareness, desire, knowledge, ability is the first four ADKAR elements.
- Initiation, planning, execution, closing is generic project management.
- Environmental scanning is NOT a stage. Scanning is done with the analysis frameworks such as PESTLE.
Diagnosing the broken stage
- Strategy approved but nothing has changed in daily operations, and managers say nobody told them what to do differently: implementation. Formulation is complete, and evaluation cannot be the failure because there are no results yet to evaluate.
- Reviewing whether last year's initiatives delivered intended outcomes and reporting to the executive team: evaluation.
Kotter's 8 steps
Kotter Inc's current order: create a sense of urgency; build a guiding coalition; form a strategic vision; enlist a volunteer army; enable action by removing barriers; generate short-term wins; sustain acceleration; institute change.
- It begins with urgency, not with the coalition. Reversing the first two is the most common wrong option.
- It ends with instituting change, after sustaining acceleration.
- Unfreeze and refreeze are Lewin's vocabulary, not Kotter's, and ADKAR has five elements, not eight.
Carry in the sequence: urgency first, institute change last.