If your answers are “Yes”, then you need to confront that reality and update your plan immediately.

In response to these concerns, Giraffe is now offering a new 1 day program – “Update Your Strategic Plan”. This update approach is intended for any entity that has a strategic plan currently in execution and is struggling with implementation and focus.

In order for your organization to benefit from our update...
Read more]]> Are you experiencing a gap between your Strategic Plan and what is happening at your company today? Are you struggling with how to get back on track and build new growth?

If your answers are “Yes”, then you need to confront that reality and update your plan immediately.

In response to these concerns, Giraffe is now offering a new 1 day program – “Update Your Strategic Plan”. This update approach is intended for any entity that has a strategic plan currently in execution and is struggling with implementation and focus.

In order for your organization to benefit from our update program you need to be able to identify the following in your current strategic plan:

• the objectives, all of which should be measurable and of which there should be six or fewer.

• the strategy statement that describes how you differentiate yourself.

• the initiatives, projects or tactics you are executing to deliver you strategy to your customers.

To find out more about this exciting new program please download the white paper below, “How to Update a Strategic Plan”, or call John Delany at (312) 560 6873 to discuss.

The whitepaper outlines the agenda for updating a plan, highlights the update workbook that you complete before the workshop and then provides an outline of the one day program itself. The Guide concludes with a summary of the deliverables from the workshop and next steps for getting back into strategy implementation.

To get your company back on plan for strategic growth download this whitepaper NOW!

This fascinating whitepaper, “How to Update a Strategic Plan”, outlines how your company can reinvigorate your strategic plan whether or not it was developed with Giraffe.

Fill out the form below to receive a download link via email.

One of the very first things we do when beginning to work with a new client is show them what a strategic plan looks like. So doing creates a common set of expectations about what the program delivers and helps our workshop participants envision why we do the things we do.

All of our Strategic/Growth plans have a three year planning horizon. They are 20 – 25 pages long, including objectives, strategy, tactics, financials, risk assessments, demand assessments, competitive analysis, benefits and assumptions. There is a lot of white space on all of the pages. We strive for a...
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One of the very first things we do when beginning to work with a new client is show them what a strategic plan looks like. So doing creates a common set of expectations about what the program delivers and helps our workshop participants envision why we do the things we do.

All of our Strategic/Growth plans have a three year planning horizon. They are 20 – 25 pages long, including objectives, strategy, tactics, financials, risk assessments, demand assessments, competitive analysis, benefits and assumptions. There is a lot of white space on all of the pages. We strive for a level of precision that tells a compelling story to a board of directors, an executive committee or an outside investor such as a private equity company.

Below is an example of how we model a tactical or project plan:

Note the three year planning time line in the middle of the diagram, projects appear across the top, by year, corresponding results across the bottom. Note too, we model projects and results. The results across ALL execution plans must total to the Strategic Objectives to be achieved by the end of year three. A typical strategic plan has four of these execution plans and each fits on one page.

The Giraffe strategy program delivers a plan like this in about four to six weeks.

In our next blog, we talk about how to assemble your growth planning team.

We appreciate all comments and questions. We also welcome suggestions for upcoming blog topics. Please submit your thoughts to johnd@giraffellc.net .

If you are interested in taking your organization in a new direction, this is the most important download you will make today.

Fill out the form below to receive a download link via email.

Well, that’s what we’re kicking off with this blog: “How to Build a Strategic Plan.” In the course of writing the “how to...
Read more]]> For all of the books and articles written about strategic planning and growth planning, there are few places that actually give any pointers, tips, and recipes for how to build one from scratch. It’s hard to even find an example of what a good finished product looks like; you know, a plan that you would present to an Executive Committee, a Board of Directors or a private equity company from whom you are looking to raise capital.

Well, that’s what we’re kicking off with this blog: “How to Build a Strategic Plan.” In the course of writing the “how to manual” we’ll respond to questions as followers submit them, looking to get answers posted for pressing issues as quickly as we can.

The source for most of the “how to” is the Giraffe Strategy Program, which you can preview on our site, giraffellc.net . Click on the programs tab then click on the Strategy program tab. We’ve done nearly 200 growth plans in the last two plus year with this strategic planning methodology. We’ve done them for businesses: big ones, small ones, family owned businesses, publicly traded as well as privately held, businesses spanning categories from fashion to meat processing. And we’ve done them for a host of non-profits.

The goal of the blog is to make improved business and non-profit performance more accessible to more businesses and non-profits through better strategic thinking and growth planning.

In the next several blogs we’ll introduce our overall philosophy and approach, the nine essential activities, a glossary, how to form a team, how to select a venue and a facilitator and then get into how to execute each of the nine strategic planning activities. Once through all that, we’ll begin writing about how to implement your plan.

We also want this to be an interactive blog where followers can submit issues for blogging and dialogue by blog followers. So even though we are just beginning, if anyone has a pressing question related to how to develop and implement a strategic plan or a growth plan, please submit it. We’ll tee your topic up as a separate blog and get a dialogue going to help you meet your challenge. Submit any topics to johnd@giraffellc.net .

We intend to begin referring our clients to the Professor Simons’ article, along with two others to which we point them in preparation for a strategic planning workshop (“What is Strategy?” by Michael Porter, HBR, November-December, 1996 and “Can You Say What Your Strategy is?” by David Collis and Michael Rukstad, HBR, April 2008.)

Read...
Read more]]> Giraffe has facilitated two strategic planning workshops in the last two weeks and both of them have been improved by the participants having read Robert Simons’ recent HBR article, “Stress-Test Your Strategy: The 7 Questions to Ask,” HBR, November 2010.  Click here for the article.

We intend to begin referring our clients to the Professor Simons’ article, along with two others to which we point them in preparation for a strategic planning workshop (“What is Strategy?” by Michael Porter, HBR, November-December, 1996 and “Can You Say What Your Strategy is?” by David Collis and Michael Rukstad, HBR, April 2008.)

Read the seven questions, then read the article, then ask yourself: Do we have a simple, executable strategy? Is execution on track?

Here are the seven questions (see pp. 94-95, HBR, Nov., 2010)

1.    Who is your primary customer?

2.    How do you core values prioritize shareholders, employees, and customers?

3.    What critical performance variables are you tracking?

4.    What strategic boundaries have you set?

5.    How are generating creative tension?

6.    How committed are your employees to helping each other?

7.    What strategic uncertainties keep you awake at night?

Now read the article. Take it and the lessons Professor Simons shares from other organizations to heart. The participants in our workshops came in asking really good questions after they did.

About 95 years ago, William B. Meyer, a family-owned business, began as a residential and commercial moving company. They have now expanded into records management, logistics, specialty moving (e.g. libraries) and order fulfillment, doing business across a large geography.

When we began working with them in the summer of 2008 (just before the economy collapsed), they were frustrated by their inability to meet long term growth objectives and stay on track in pursuit of their achievement.

In the words of their chief strategy officer Joe Pesticci, “We had grandiose long range goals, but always seemed to get distracted by...
Read more]]> www.williambmeyer.com

About 95 years ago, William B. Meyer, a family-owned business, began as a residential and commercial moving company. They have now expanded into records management, logistics, specialty moving (e.g. libraries) and order fulfillment, doing business across a large geography.

When we began working with them in the summer of 2008 (just before the economy collapsed), they were frustrated by their inability to meet long term growth objectives and stay on track in pursuit of their achievement.

In the words of their chief strategy officer Joe Pesticci, “We had grandiose long range goals, but always seemed to get distracted by short term issues and results. Our operational can do attitude made it difficult to say no to opportunities not on critical path. Since we had no strategic roadmap to keep us on track to our three and five year objectives, managing daily issues for non-critical businesses became the majority of our focus. Before we knew it, another year had passed and we were extending out previous growth targets to the next period. We were disjointed in our brainstorming, which made it extremely hard for us to backup and reevaluate. In hindsight, we tried to make too many things work, thereby diluting valuable company resources.”

Since that summer, our client has done one three day Strategy in a Boxsm workshop (2008) that produced their initial three year growth plan. Since then, we have facilitated them through two Strategy Update workshops (2009, 2010).

With over two years experience with Giraffe’s planning tools, concepts and glossary the company is confident they know how to define key initiatives, set up tactics around these initiatives, and go about what is needed to execute them. To summarize their performance improvements by working with Giraffe: everyone speaks the same language; they know how to identify opportunities that fit their strategy, they know when to say “no,” they have a plan that translates from the CEO out to everyone in the organization and a plan that cascades right into operating budgets.

Two of their biggest performance improvements have been the development of a common language for evaluating growth opportunities and the advent of score-boarding for more objective decision making.

Lastly, one of their original strategic initiatives from the summer of 2008 is now in full execution, a service quality initiative which brought about a labor management system delivering cost savings to both the company and it’s customers. Since inception, the initiative has delivered over 6% margin improvement. It came right out of their strategic plan in the summer of 2008, was well planned and now is being well executed.

Their industry is complex, highly regulated and crowded to the point of oversaturation. That said, our client was growing fast and building an enviable reputation. However, they lacked a crisp and differentiating value proposition, one that with investment over time would set them apart from the competition. Without that central organizing value proposition, prioritizing their resources, training their growing staff and sending consistent messages to clients were growing challenges.

Exacerbating the differentiation problem was the economic disaster of 2008...
Read more]]> DiMeo Schneider, a Chicago based investment advisory firm, provides conflict-free investment consulting to retirement plans, nonprofit organizations and wealthy individuals.

Their industry is complex, highly regulated and crowded to the point of oversaturation. That said, our client was growing fast and building an enviable reputation. However, they lacked a crisp and differentiating value proposition, one that with investment over time would set them apart from the competition. Without that central organizing value proposition, prioritizing their resources, training their growing staff and sending consistent messages to clients were growing challenges.

Exacerbating the differentiation problem was the economic disaster of 2008 which extended into 2009. DiMeo Schneider wanted to avoid getting caught up in all the “noise” and instead attempt to be proactive and forward focused on their clients and their business.

We facilitated a 3-Day Strategy in a Box workshop under an extra added pressure: one of the founding partners bet that we could not capture their complex business in a One-Breath strategy of 25 words or less.

We won the bet by the afternoon of workshop day two. Furthermore, by the end of workshop day three, we had defined four execution plans, complete with the major projects that would propel the firm away from the competition.

Within six months, DiMeo Schneider had redesigned their Web site around their One-Breath strategy, featuring the client promises from their execution plans. All of the firm’s associates went through training on the new strategy and how to deliver it to a client. The new Web site is also paying dividends in recruiting new talent and clients.

Now 18 months into strategy implementation, business is growing faster than ever. They’ve won several industry awards for their outstanding performance and are positioned for profitable growth.