STRATEGIC PLANNING –ALIGNING MISSION TO PROGRAMMATIC EXECUTION
Establishing annual plans that achieve strategic goals and objectives
Challenge
M2 often works with clients that have no strategic plan, causing their organization to constantly think short-term, struggle to motivate employees, and operate in a reactive mode. We also notice that these organizations execute many projects that bring little value to the mission and in some cases duplicate products and services. In other cases, agencies draft strategic plans that are unrealistic and not measurable leading the document to become shelf-ware. M2 addresses our clients’ challenges by collaboratively developing strategic and annual implementation plans that align. Leveraging Smartsheet we develop Decision Dashboards that report real-time progress to leadership and automates workflows. Our 10+ years of Strategic Planning experience, methodology, industry trend database and strategic performance dashboards enable us to rapidly develop our client’s strategic framework.
What M2 Did
M2’s client was operating with limited funding and resources, lacked a documented strategic direction, and identified a major enterprise risk that required millions of dollars to mitigate. We worked with the organization to draft a Strategic Plan that included goals and objectives, and 50+ performance indicators that enabled the client to track progress and demonstrate improvement. Leveraging M2’s Strategic Planning methodology, we held 10+ workshops and focus groups with stakeholders in the federal government, private sector, and academia. M2 developed the messaging and communications of the Strategic Plan to Congress and are currently supporting the organization’s implementation of the Plan by developing an automated Integrated Master Schedule; allowing the client to generate an Annual Report to Congress.
Results
The client’s Strategic Plan enabled them to receive a $16M plus up from Congress and mitigate its enterprise risk. Congress cited the Plan as the reason for the budget increase. Additionally, M2’s support and the Strategic Plan allowed our client to better prepare their yearly Annual Operating Plan process and programmatic execution. We worked to link their strategic objectives to programs and projects, which helped ensure the alignment of the agency’s funding, resources, and projects.