{"id":1387,"date":"2018-11-12T01:59:41","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T01:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2018-11-12T01:59:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T01:59:41","slug":"how-many-people-know-that-strategic-planning-starts-with-performing-a-gap-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/how-many-people-know-that-strategic-planning-starts-with-performing-a-gap-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many People Know That Strategic Planning Starts With Performing a Gap Analysis ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">While many business people understand the importance of setting formal direction for a business by preparing a Strategic Plan,\u00a0 it seems that few people know that the <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>starting point<\/strong><\/span> to prepare such a plan is actually the performance of a <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Gap Analysis<\/span><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A Gap Analysis &#8211; if done comprehensively, with the right questions being asked of a business owner (and with honest answers being given by the business owners in return) &#8211; will uncover (most importantly) the current shortcomings\/ weaknesses in the given business. By bringing these shortcomings\/ weaknesses to the fore it only then becomes possible to translate these deficits into <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&#8220;opportunities for improvement development&#8221;<\/span><\/strong> &#8211; articulated as such in the form of objectives in the Strategic Plan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">So in short, a Gap Analysis is performed to uncover potential areas of improvement for a business to focus on, which are then articulated as objectives in the resulting Strategic Plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A Gap Analysis should include questions such as these&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Operating Structure \u2013<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Broadly, how do you describe how the business operates ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What systemization is in place \u2013 and are there opportunities to introduce greater systemization ? Where and how ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How do internal stakeholders know what to do ? What guides their day-to-day activity ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What written Operating Procedures are in place ? How easy are these for the employees in the various roles to interpret and act upon ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How do you monitor the performance of the business ? What benchmarking\/ KPI reporting do you perform ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Do you have sufficient HR capacity, capability and competency to enable you to achieve your strategic objectives ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">etc<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<strong>Communications \u2013<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What communication methods and channels do you use ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How would you describe the flow of communication within your business ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When decisions are made at a senior management\/ governance level, are such decisions communicated clearly and on a timely basis to relevant subordinates ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">etc<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<strong>Workplace Culture \u2013<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What key words would you use to describe the current culture of your business ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What key words would you use to describe the kind of culture that you aspire to have in your business ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">What factors do you think are standing in your way of you achieving the kind of culture that you desire ?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">etc<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">&#8230;and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">So if you want to construct a Strategic Plan that is all-encompassing, start by performing a Gap Analysis to uncover the &#8220;good and the bad&#8221;, and then translate the &#8220;bad&#8221; into improvement objectives in your Strategic Plan. And better still, have such an analysis performed by someone who has no vested interest in your business &#8211; that&#8217;s when the opportunity for the absolute truth to come out is best created. When the truth of the matter is out on the table, a business is then given the greatest opportunity to improve (sometimes this means &#8220;survive&#8221;).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Go well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While many business people understand the importance of setting formal direction for a business by preparing a Strategic Plan,\u00a0 it seems that few people know that the starting point to prepare such a plan is actually the performance of a Gap Analysis. A Gap Analysis &#8211; if done comprehensively, with the right questions being asked of a business owner (and with honest answers being given by the business owners in return) &#8211; will uncover (most importantly) the current shortcomings\/ weaknesses&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}