Is strategic planning a worthwhile effort in a learning organization?
IMHO, it's not the plan that matters but the PLANNING. I, too, have
worked in organizations where upper management spent hours working out
agreement on a document that was then locked away and never seen again -
i.e., until the next strategic planning meeting.
I guess the real benefit of doing the planning process at all is to build
capacity among the people to think and act strategically. I agree with
John O'Neil that ideally, strategic planning is something that goes on all
the time. But not necessarily as a separate activity. We get into
trouble, I think, because we view planning as a separate mental activity
(another way we've fragmented our world, heh?).
The specific planning model is less important - again, IMHO - than the
mutual understanding the users have of its purpose, its implications, its
definitions (word usages, etc.), and its limitations. It makes a world of
difference when folks engaged in the planning activity are really "on the
same wavelength".
-- Lois Baseler lbaseler@students.wisc.edu