The Perils of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning, in its accepted formulaic mode, passed its use-by date a long time ago. What’s next?

Strategic planning, in its accepted formulaic mode, passed its use-by date a long time ago. Yet it remains common practice in organisations.

Strategic planning has become a routine part of business with an associated set of beliefs and protocols that underpin its day-to-day practice. Its process has been adapted over time but remains basically unchanged. The need to plan has spawned thousands of books, countless software systems and has kept many consultants in work. Yet as Mintzberg (1994) indicates, “planning lacks a clear definition of its own place in organizations” and this conventional approach and its accompanying set of practices has now passed its use by date.

Planning is often defined as an encompassing process that captures all the tasks and processes needed to develop strategy for an organisation’s future, including scanning the environment for change, strategic thinking, strategic decision making about future options, documenting and implementing plans, and then monitoring …