HR Strategic Planning Flashcards
Strategy
A long-range plan of action oriented to achieving defined goals.
Strategy=Goals
Levels of Strategy
Three levels of strategy:
Organizational: focuses on the future of the orgz as a single unit
Business: how and where the orgz will focus to create value
Operational: orgz and business unit strategies are translated into action at the functional level
Strategic Planning
Process of setting goals and designing a path toward a competitive position
Strategic Management
Actions that leaders take to move their orgz toward the goals set in strategic planning and to create value for all stakeholders.
Critical Success Factors for Strategic Planning and Mgmt
- Alignment of effort
- Control of drift
- Focus on core competencies
Everyone should be rowing in the same direction
Strategic Planning and Management Process
- Formulation: leaders gather/analyze internal/external information to determine orgz current position/capabilities/opportunities
- Development: create strategic goals that will optimize success
- Implementation: put in place your tactic, which will require clear communication
- Evaluation: evaluate the results to ensure activities maintain strategic focus.
Systems Thinking
Systems Thinking recognizes that orgz are composed of interacting and sometimes interdependent parts that together create a dynamic internal environment.
*Everything works together, one dept affects another.
(External: government, society, culture, economics)
(Internal: Ops, Finance, Sales, HR, Leadership).
Organization as a System
External Environment: Government, Society, Culture, Economics
Ex: Leadership, Operations, Finance, Facilities, Sales, HR–everything works together, and one department affects another.
IPO (Input-Process-Output)
Input: all the factors that can affect the outcome.
Process: all the methods the orgz can apply to maximize its opportunities and manage its constraints.
Outputs: the desired strategic effect, what you hope to do.
Environmental Scanning
A process of systematically surveying and gathering data, from both internal and external sources, that can be analyzed to identify opportunities and threats to strengthen strategic plans and goals.
*PESTLE/SWOT/Growth Share Matrix/Scenario Analysis
PESTLE (All External) Process
Political, economic, social, tech, legal, and environmental.
Process:
- List of possible events that exist or could happen (focus groups/expert)
- Identify the potential impacts (positive or negative)
- Research the impacts (causes)
- Assess the importance of impacts (strength of data, important data)
SWOT (Internal and External
Simple and effective process for assessing an orgz strategic capabilities in comparison to threats and opportunities
S: internal strengths
W: interla weakness
O: external opp
T: external threats
Growth Share Matrix
Uses data to find where the greatest value in the orgz resides:
Stars: a business line that is growing and has a dominant share
Cash Cow: a static but dominant business line
Question Marks: could be winners or losers; their future is unclear
Dogs: consuming resources without offering strong value or future growth
Mission Statement
specifies what activities the orgz intends to pursue and what course management has charted for the future.
AKA your purpose
Vision Statement
a vivid, guiding image of the orgz desired future–the future it hopes to attain through strategy.
AKA illustration of the future
Organizational Values
beliefs that are important to an orgz and often dictate employee behavior
Setting Strategic Goals
These goals are influenced by the deeper understanding of the orgz and its surroundings and start moving the orgz and its people in the intended direction.
- Goal setting process must be repeated on unit or functional level
- For HR: Find the value drivers, the actions, processes, or results needed to deliver a desired result.
Balanced Scorecard
an approach to identify an orgz’s KPIs and to make sure that the objectives used to measure performance are strategically aligned to the various sources of value to the orgz and are balanced.
KPIs by Kaplan and Norton are identified here:
- Finance
- Customers
- Internal business processes
- Learning and growth
*To check your progress overall
Purpose of a Balanced Scorecard
To achieve balance in 3 key ares:
- between financial and nonfinancial indicators of success
- between internal and external constituents in the orgz
- between lagging and leading indicators of performance
Leading vs. Lagging Indicators
Your balanced scorecard will have either:
Leading Indicators: is predictive in that action in this area can change future performance
Lagging Indicators: describes effects that have already occurred and cannot be changed
SMARTER Goals
Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timebound Evaluated Revised
Benchmarking
Compares performance levels and/or processes of one entity with those of another to identify performance gaps and set goals aimed at improving performance.
Benchmarking process includes these steps:
- defining KPIs
- measure current performance
- identifying appropriate benchmarks
- identifying performance gaps
- setting objectives and implementing
Strategic Fit
The compatibility of an orgz strategy with its external and internal environments, especially with regard to the goals and values it chooses and the resources and capabilities that can be deployed toward strategic goals.
Ask yourself ‘does the strategy make sense based on SWOT and PESTLE’?
Porter’s Competitive Strategies
Cost Leadership: capturing market share by virtue of lowest price.
Differentiation: charge a higer price by offering something different or by creating the perception that a product is different through superior marketing.
Growth Strategy Options
Strategic Alliance: companies agree to share assets
Joint Venture: 2 or more companies invest together in forming a new company
Equity Partnership: 1 firm acquires partial ownerhsip through purchase of shares (LLC)
Greenfield: a company builds a new location
Brownfield: a company repurposes a property
Divestiture
The selective ‘pruning’ of parts of the orgz that are underperforming or that are no longer in line with the orgz strategy.
Aligning Budgets with Strategies
The HR budget has 2 parts:
- Operational budget: funds ongoing activities
- Strategic budget: funds projects that are aligned with the orgz startegic goals **Compete for extra budget, might need a business case
Communication Strategy
5 elements for effective implementaiton of strategy:
- Communication outward to the entire team
- Communication inward to leaders
- Leadership support of decisions made by subordinates
- Free flow of information across orgz boundaries
- Enough information to allow team members to connect their work to the strategy.
Project Stages ‘Planning’
During planning stage, the PM:
- Works with stakeholders
- Defines the projects deliverables
- Creates a project schedule
- Critical path analysis: uses info about start and end dates, the logical relationship of tasks, and the length of each task to find the earliest completion date
- Gantt chart: represents the scheduling of tasks visually, showing the length and timing of specific activities.
Project Stages ‘Executing’
During executing stage, the PM:
- Establishes channels of communication
- Provides leadership
- Clears away obstacles to progress
- Manages internal and external stakeholders
- Monitors and controls progress
Project Stages ‘Closing’
- Evaluate the project investment
- Do we have desired results
- Was the project managed efficiently
Project Management Approaches
- Lean project mgmt: focuses on eliminating waste
- Six Sigma: derives from quality principles–remove errors
- Agile project mgmt: the project focuses on iterations of the deliverables–completing one iteration and then using customer input to plan the next.
- Critical chain project mgmt: used when resources cannot be increased to meet deadlines, strict time table
- Kaizen: business processes, try to meet customer needs
- Design Thinking: thinking about the end user and make that product better
Mistakes To Avoid in Strategic Planning
- Taking shortcuts
- Little follow through
- Over-reliance on the comfortable and familiar
- Insufficient commitment from mgmt
- Insufficient involvement of the rest of the orgz
- Inadequate communication
Scenario Analysis
Identifies environment factors that have the greatest potential for +/- impact.
Business Strategy
External Changes: Compete by adapting in the external environment
Internal Changes: Compete through change, innovation, and reinvention
HR Involvement in Growth Strategies
Greenfield Ops: HR areas of risk analysis, staffing, working w local authorities, implementing HR policies
- HR policies may require adjustment to meet local laws, business practices and culture
- HR may be asked to audit workplace practices
HR Involvement in Divestiture Strategy
- Identify the candidate for divestiture (SWOT, identify risks)
- Identify a target buyer (provide info of the value of the workforce)
- Restructure (develop strong leaders)
- Execute the deal (assemble a transition team)
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Measuring Strategic Performance
- Effectiveness
- Efficiency
- Impact
Evaluating Strategic Results
The final stage of strategic mgmt
- Requires developing tools to collect data
- Investigate discrepancies between planned and actuals