Cooking Up Success - Strategic, Corporate and Operational Planning

Strategic planning, corporate business planning, and operational planning are three essential ingredients that guide municipal priorities and organizational success. However, understanding how these aspects fit together and how they guide decision-making can sometimes be challenging.

To shed light on how these planning tools can be integrated, let's explore a restaurant analogy.

The Dining Experience

A restaurant’s theme serves as its foundation, depicting both the cuisine and ambiance. When searching for a dining establishment, one typically looks for a particular theme. If a craving for Italian strikes, the search would focus on Italian restaurants, where various categories such as pasta, pizza, and antipasto are expected to be available.

In a similar vein, a Strategic Plan articulates the organization’s overarching vision and priority areas of focus. It tells us what the municipality is aiming to achieve to meet the needs of the community and what it will focus on to get there. Just as diners seek out specific cuisines, communities rely on Strategic Plans to gain insights into what they can expect from their municipality.

Crafting the Menu

Once you enter the restaurant, one of the first things you encounter is a menu. The menu showcases how each dish harmonizes with the theme and assures you that you have chosen the right establishment. It presents an array of options, accompanied by carefully curated sides that elevate the dining experience. Conversely, if you have a particular theme in mind and find that the menu doesn't align with your expectations, it can leave you feeling slightly bewildered, questioning how the menu relates to the overarching theme.

Likewise, the Corporate Business Plan plays a similar role as a menu.  It is an important planning tool that connects the Strategic Plan goals to the services and initiatives of the organization. It captures critical initiatives across the organization that require time, energy and resources to support the strategic direction.

It is also important to acknowledge that just like a menu can't showcase every dish, like the soup of the day, the Corporate Business Plan may not explicitly include all initiatives or staff functions. It focuses on highlighting the critical endeavors that require resources and attention to fulfill the strategic goals, much like a menu emphasizes the most appealing and sought-after offerings. Additionally, just as a restaurant accommodates substitutions when requested, the Corporate Business Plan remains adaptable, allowing for the inclusion of emerging priorities or unforeseen circumstances.

Preparing with Precision

Lastly, let’s venture into the realm of food preparation, where we encounter a crucial aspect often hidden from the menu. While the menu may not show the specific instructions, directions, or heat temperatures, the recipe book in the kitchen does.

A recipe book offers the finer details that are needed by those making the dishes. While the restaurant owner, manager, waitstaff, or bookkeeper may not need to be well-versed in these specifics, they trust in the expertise of the kitchen team to execute dishes that align with the established theme and menu.

Similarly, Operational Plans cascade harmoniously from the Corporate Business Plan. This is where you get the sugar and spice. This is also where your staff will more likely see themselves and how their work aligns with organizational goals, priorities and initiatives. Notably, in a restaurant, it is customary to inform kitchen staff of the specific dishes they will be preparing, rather than merely handing them a list of ingredients. Likewise, it remains crucial for staff to comprehend how the Operational Plan supports the Corporate Business Plan, which, in turn, enacts the Strategic Plan.

Savoring Success

By embracing this culinary analogy, we unlock a fresh perspective on strategic, corporate, and operational planning. If you are interested in learning more about how Emerge Solutions can help you in your strategic, corporate and operational planning, please contact:

Dana Garner Senior Consultant at Emerge Solutions, Inc.
dana@emergesolutions.ca
emergesolutions.ca