The Planning Process

National Organisational Development Network

The planning process

An organisation may produce separate documents for strategic, operational and supplementary plans for presentation purposes particularly if it is a large one. It is important to recognise that the organisation in fact, should have one planning process to achieve a common strategic direction.

Steps involved in an effective planning process

1 Pre-plan Obtain a pre-plan position for the organisation. This is a combination of the position: information in the annual report and annual review, which should include various financial, statistical and background information for both the internal operations and external influences of the organisation. This will help objectively describe the current position of the organisation.

2 Strategy One of the key activities will be either to review or identify the vision, mission formulation: and objectives for both long and short term and the key performance indicators to form the strategic plan. This stage should be derived from an inclusive approach with key stakeholders to assist with buy-in from them during the implementation stage.

3 Strategy To ensure a planning document is relevant to the people within the implementation: organisation using it as a management tool. The detail of what, who, when, where, how and the financial implications will need to be worked through. This is particularly important to help formulate the fully costed annual operational plan.

4 Strategy Commonly the most neglected stage of the planning process is the evaluation: monitoring, evaluation and review of the plan. If you cannot monitor something, then how can you manage it? Monitoring systems need to be put into the plan to enable management to evaluate and review the progress of the organisation’s planning documents).

The planning process should be seen as a continual process rather than compiling documents that once finished remain on the shelf untouched. The organisation’s strategic and operational plans should be documents that are referred to regularly, and reviewed and changed at various times in the future as internal and external influences change and various objectives are achieved. Figure 3 shows the role of the four steps in formulating the strategic versus the operational plan.

of 4 Figure 3

So although strategic plans may be developed for four or more years and operational plans for one year, Figure 3 clearly indicates the cyclical nature of planning. The strategic and operational plans are documents that should be evaluated regularly against each other to ensure they remain relevant to the organisation. For example, the annual review of the operational plan may determine that some of the strategic priorities in the strategic plan need to be modified to enable the organisation to be responsive to change. Good plans are dynamic by nature and not etched in stone, as a lot can change in four years. Therefore, the annual review of the operational plan should feed back into the strategy formulation on an annual basis, rather than once every four years, to ensure the strategic priorities for the organisation are current, and to check if modification is required. This is why the process is described as one process rather than separate processes for the organisation’s strategic plan versus the operational plan. Figure 4 represents an overall planning process and aims to help develop and review the organisation’s planning documents as one plan.

of 4 1. Pre-plan position Annual Report and review of previous plan 1. Pre-plan position Annual Report and review of previous plan

2. Strategy formulation Internal analysis External analysis 2. Strategy formulation Internal analysis External analysis

Develop vision/mission and values Develop vision/mission and values Strategic planning Strategiclevel planning Formulate long-term objectives, strategic level Formulatepriorities long-term and rationaleobjectives, strategic priorities and rationale

Generate Key Performance Indicators Generate Key Performance Indicators

3. Strategy implementation Identify the short-term priorities and links to 3. Strategy implementation Identify thethe short-term strategic priorities plan and links to the strategic plan

Develop the fully costed operation plan and Developany the supplementary fully costed operation plans plan and Costed planning any supplementary plans Costedlevel planning level

Adopt and implement plans Adopt and implement plans

4. Strategy evaluation Evaluate performance 4. Strategy evaluation Evaluate performance

Figure 4

Step 1: Pre-plan position

Without an accurate assessment of the organisation’s pre-plan position, it is difficult to establish a starting point for the development of a new plan. This section forms the introduction by providing facts and figures about the current status of the organisation that should be derived from the annual report. It is a snapshot of the organisation showing critical information on the standing of the organisation at the commencement of the plan. For example key quantitative measures may include: • high performance results • participation numbers (that is, members, coaches, officials and volunteers) • key financial indicators and results.

Review of the previous year’s plan

This section should list the tasks that were proposed for the previous year, identify the extent to which they were completed, state the reasons for failing to achieve any of the performance targets and identify the implications of this for future years. This can be presented in a tabular form, following a similar structure to the plan itself, and can be complemented if necessary by a more detailed discussion in the text of any of the more important issues facing the organisation. The review should include a financial summary for the previous year that shows the income and expenditure items and an indication of actual financial performance against projected budgets for the previous 12-month operational planning period. This review, which is based on the annual projected operating budget, will assist the organisation in its financial planning for the coming year.

of 4 This review of the operational plan is not the same as an annual report. The review relates specifically to the operational plan, and should be tightly presented to limit itself to this function. The annual report and audited statements may cover some of the same points but their scope will be wider and the context broader. The annual report and audited statements should be seen as complementary and consistent with the annual audit and analysis of the previous year’s operational plan.

Current staffing structure

A staffing structure is a flow chart showing the reporting relationships within a sporting organisation and clearly identifying the people that are responsible for the various activities the organisation undertakes. The chart should include and identify both paid and unpaid positions.