The five essential components of strategic planning

From what I found online there are five essential components of strategic planning. If these components are carried out effectively, this type of planning can help reduce risk and dramatically improve long-term performance of your organization. The five key components are:

• Engaging commitment
• Setting long term strategic objectives for improved performance of the organization
• Generating strategic options
• Evaluating and deciding on strategies
• Monitoring implementation of the strategies against the long-term objectives. ("Essential components of strategic planning", 2019)

Pros of Strategic Planning:

Strategic planning provides the organization a sense of direction. Strategic planning also utilizes resources. Strategic planning can also be used to motivate the organization. Plans set performance standards therefore no one gets misled of the direction and operations of the organization.

However, strategic planning has its’ pitfalls. Plans can often prevent actions. Management can become so absorbed with the planning and focus more on the everything planning that they forget about actually implementing the strategic plan its self, this is referred to as “death by planning”. Making plans never gives any lead way to flexibility. Middle to lower level management may feel it is their duty to only follow the strategic plan even when the plan doesn’t actually work or may just need to be tweaked. Instead of reporting problems to upper managers so changes can be made, they will continue to devote time and resources to ineffective actions. ("Pros and Cons of Planning | Principles of Management", 2019)

REFERENCES:

Essential components of strategic planning. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.simply-strategic-planning.com/components-of-strategic-planning.html