Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Selecting Your Planning Team

The values and vision of your organization are embedded in the strategic framework. As a result, involving the whole organization in at least part of the planning process is vital. Although everyone can't be involved in every part of the process, each person plays a role. In the following sections, I give you some guidelines for the different people in your organization and who should be involved when.

Getting everyone involved

Yes, you want everyone involved (at certain times). The next few sections show you how to include everyone in a way that isn't a recipe for disaster. As you begin your planning process, you first need to identify who will be on the planning team. From there, you can begin determining who will be department leads (if your organization structure calls for this level), and what team members to include.

The role of the CEO

The CEO naturally assumes a prominent role on the planning team, setting the vision, driving that vision, and enforcing results. If strategic planning isn't the CEO's passion, it'll never happen. Only the CEO has the force to drastically change the company's alignment. However, during the strategy development part of the planning process, the CEO should remain in the background so other members' ideas can emerge.

You can't overemphasize the visibility of the CEO in the strategic management process. The CEO should ...