Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams

Develop or Update Strategic Plan (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—LLNL)

This case study shows how the LLNL Safety and Security Division (SSD) defined their strategic thrusts and turned each into LogFrame execution plans.

The services provided by this organization became even more important after 9/11. The organization’s responsibilities ranged widely from physical security (guns, gates, and badges) to computer security to protection of vital nuclear assets on site. Division leadership recognized the need to upgrade their strategic plans in order to increase operational effectiveness.

To give you a feel for how an outside process consultant can catalyze an organization’s strategic planning efforts, read about what happened when I was invited to facilitate SSD’s planning sessions. My consulting support consisted of a one-day preparation session with eight top leaders, a two-day training session with 30 senior leaders and supervisors, and a one-day follow-up session with all participants.

On the morning of the preparation session, I met with their key leaders to understand the context of and constraints on the effort. In the afternoon, an 18-person management team brainstormed possible strategic Objectives by pulling from related strategic plans. The list of some 40 Objectives was refined into logical categories, which were later re-chunked into four LogFrame Strategies.

These four selected strategies form a useful acronym (CLIM), which stands for:

1. Communicate Effectively ...