Strategic Planning: 40 Useful Performance Feedback Phrases

Strategic Planning is organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations while guaranteeing that employees and other stakeholders are working towards common goals.

Strategic Planning: Exceeds Expectations Phrases

• Encourages the key people to interact with the employees and customers about their perception of the company future and brings those views to the table
• Allows for open and free discussions regardless of each person's position within the company but does not let one person dominate the session
• Hires an outside facilitator or someone who doesn't have any stake in the company's success in order to free up conversations
• Designs a plan that clearly articulates goals, responsibilities, and specific deadlines and makes sure that everyone understands the plan and his/her individual role in it
• Clearly states next steps after every strategic planning session and makes sure everyone understands who is responsible for what
• Reviews the strategic plan for performance achievement as often as possible and holds people accountable for unapproved missed deadlines
• Pulls together a diverse, yet appropriate group of managers or leaders from each area of the company to make up a planning team
• Examines the factors outside the company that affects its performance before starting a strategic planning meeting in order to discuss assumptions about the future
• Focuses on opportunities, strengths, weaknesses, and threats while planning for the future
• Designs plans that allow one to adapt changes in the marketplace and is not afraid to change them as necessary

Strategic Planning: Meets Expectations Phrases

• Defines or redefines the company's mission in order to enable the key people to share the same view of the company's philosophy, goals, and future direction
• Organizes the company's objectives into key areas in order to process and prioritize them easily and allocate resources
• Considers the potential impact of the company's objectives on both revenues and expenses in order to prioritize and reflect them in future budgets
• Gives each employee sufficient time to accomplish the specific objectives assigned to him/her
• Anticipates problems that may arise and quickly develops an effective backup plan
• Always has objectives, timelines, a budget and the right people to develop an effective strategic plan
• Sets clear deadlines to ensure that a timeline is being met and that the participants prioritize the process properly during the time that is required to complete it
• Involves experts who have experience with implementation and operations and ensures that the strategic plan is analyzed critically by them
• Holds communication sessions with different stakeholders in order to present the plan and involve them in its implementation, operation, or review
• Pays attention to the human resources required for the plan to succeed

Strategic Planning: Needs Improvement Phrases

• Looks at only a part of the company but not as a whole during a strategic planning meeting
• Lacks a universal understanding of what a strategy is and how it differs from other planning terms such as mission, vision, etc.
• Fails to think before one plans and doesn't take the time or invest in tools to generate new insights
• Makes a strategy a once a year activity instead of an ongoing conversation and does not care to monitor the already implemented strategies
• Does not refresh the plans frequently to keep them from becoming stale and keep the energy energized on their execution
• Defines goals that cannot be managed or measured throughout the layers of the company
• Fails to make employees aware of the goals and therefore the employees do not understand what is expected of them
• Develops plans that leave too much room for interpretation thus employees misinterpret the plans and miss the intended mark
• Selects the wrong people for strategic planning instead of people who are able to analyze the current company's state and develop achievable future states
• Develops a plan without aligning it with the budget thus makes it hard to transform the plan into action

Strategic Planning: Self Evaluation Questions

• What are the steps and methods you have used to define a vision for your position or department?
• How does your current position affect the overall goals of your company? What have you done to improve your ability to set the company's goals?
• What are your long-term and short-term goals? What have you done to achieve them effectively?
• Can you describe a time when you have anticipated the future and made changes to current operations to meet future needs?
• If you were assigned a new project, what are the steps you would take to get the project moving and on track?
• Describe a time when you have cooperated in the planning of a project. What was your role?
• What goals have you set for your career? What is your plan to achieve them?
• What tips would you offer anyone who is taking a role that involves strategic planning and accountability for decisions?
• Can you describe the techniques or methods that you have used to develop a strategic plan for your company or department?
• What factors do you consider when selecting the right people for your strategic planning team?