Leadership - Strategy
Strategy
What is it?
Once you have presented a vision and confirmed that people have bought into it you will want to formulate some plans to try to achieve it.
This will begin with formulating a strategy.
Below is a definition of strategy and of tactics.
| Strategy | The art or science of the planning and conduct of a war. The mode of executing tactics. |
| Tactics | The art and science of the detailed direction and control of movement or manoeuvre to achieve an aim or task. |
The strategy outlines your tactics to achieve your aim.
It’s about how you get to where you want to go.
In Lewis Carol’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Alice wanted to know where to go and asks the Cheshire Cat.
| Alice: | “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” |
| Cat: | “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” |
| Alice: | “I don’t know where.” |
| Cat: | “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” |
Like all similar activities a strategy should be clear and must obviously meet with the aims of the vision.
We saw earlier [see The vision] that one part of a ‘mission statement’ is the strategy in broad terms, the ‘How’.
If you implement a strategy and you find it is not having the desired result then you will have to learn from the experience and change it.
Identifying a strategy
Alternative strategies lead to different solutions of the problem.
In this case we are looking for the overall strategy to achieve our vision.
A brainstorm could be used so that the team can consider:
You will need to consider the impact, issues and expectations derived from speaking with a number of different persons.
Managers, staff.
External expectationsCommunity, stakeholders, customers, suppliers, creditors, technology advances, legal developments etc.
DataOld data, current data, future forecasts and trends.
Having considered the above the project team will be in a better position to put forward one or more strategies to achieve the vision.
Remember, this is an overview of ‘how’ you will reach your vision and, at this stage, does not go into the detail of a project plan which will come later.
Each of these can then be assessed via the SWOT analysis technique.
This will allow the team to identify where the team can consolidate strengths, improve weaknesses, take advantage of opportunities and minimise threats.
Having considered all of these the team should now be in a position to clarify the list of strategies, eliminate those that are unsuitable leaving and agreed strategy.
The project plan
The project plan usually encompasses all aspects of the project, for example, mission statements, problem statements, documentation and not just the schedule.
The schedule is a series of tasks showing timings and dependencies.
When drawing up a strategy and finalising a schedule remember that what may work in one environment may fail in another.
The overall plan should not reflect a ‘glory or bust’ approach.
If the project is long, break it down into parts that will show steady gains. This will improve morale.
The formulation of a strategy leads to the requirement of a plan.
The plan will contain a series of tasks, with dependencies and including milestones and decision points.
These are discussed in much more detail in ‘The Complete Project management package’.