Introduction

The strategic planning process

We use the Organized Change management process for strategic planning, now incorporated into Consensus Builder™, our proprietary software to assist our clients in collaborative decision-making. For more details on this software around this process, please view https://www.organizedchange.com/consensus-builder.htm.

The cycle for this process is above. We help organize the effort, gather and present data, provide for individual input, look at group summaries of those inputs, faciltate discussion, help the client brainstorm solutions and come to agreements. This process cycles through scenarios, SWOT(strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), goals, mission, measures, strategies, and plans for change. For a more detailed overview of this process, please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kgjUQFGwtw&feature=youtu.be. It is also described in Dr. Chaudron’s book, Nailing Strategy to Your Business Tree, available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=nailing+strategy+jelly+to+your+business+tree

It should be noted we use this process in a way that different strengths and weaknesses may appear in different scenarios, which may require our clients to develop several plans for change. In this case, four scenarios were developed and presented by Organized Change, and four strategic plans developed. After the process was partially completed, commonalities in good investments across all scenarios were choseen, and other investment areas chosen should a scenario come about.

Four “design teams” were created, each having representatives of various stakeholder groups. One design team was assigned to each scenario.

A schedule for these tasks are below. Some tasks are kept summarized for brevity.

Assessing issues in organizational climate and culture

For a larger, more complex organization that has existed long enough to establish common climate and culture among its employees, an employee survey is a vital part of organizational change. If culture is not thoroughly assessed, senior management may be blindsided when attempting to implement a strategic plan.

Management agreed to conduct such a survey. We used the Organized Change Survey System (OCSS), which allowed us to develop a customized survey with text and numerical answers. Drill-down graphs and charts allows to quickly summarize and understand the data. For more information on OCSS, see https://www.organizedchange.com/survey-system.htm

Issues appearing in the employee survey

Listed below are some of the survey categories(subscales) that showed at least “needs some improvement” based on the numeric survey data.

There were a number of additional issues that were specific to each geographical and organization. Some of these were severe enough that the head of one organization was forced to leave.

Recommendations based on the culture survey

• Re-organize by customer, with minimal residual functions, and functions rarely used providing service to all customer-service organizations
       • Deals with between team issues, improves customer focus, allows easier implementation for multiple scenarios
       • “functional” organizational structures are mainly for organizations with standardized customer requirements with standardized needs, and standardized processes

• Facilitate a discussion with each functional organization, especially a couple, on survey data

• For senior management, realize and change approaches to implementation
       • Technical issues may be worse than you think
       • Develop comprehensive plans for a technical/process change, with substantial input from employees
       • Realize consequences to technical/process changes have ripple effects that must be addressed

Results and discussion

Management was surprised that the implementation of technical changes in an organization full of computer-savvy people was not perceived at being handled well. There were a number of procedural/process changes to deal with these issues.

In addition, it was noted above that some issues in one location were severe enough that the manager of that location was asked to leave.

The recommendations to re-organized the organization were not implemented. As a result, between-group communication and coordination did not improve.

In regards to the scenario and strategic planning process, the most senior of management had not considered previous to this the effects that net neutrality (or the lack of it) might have on its business model. Until this point, they had made no effort to influence that national discussion on this, nor try to lobby the federal government to their advantage.