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 Creating strategic filters - When you go to create your strategic filters, it's an exercise very similar to the exercise you'll do to create your vision and your mission. You're going to look to get the right people in the room, the manager of the organization, their direct staff, people from functions that support the team, and look for people from multiple levels of the organization to be involved. Take a look back to the organization's core competencies that you defined.  Look at your vision, your mission, your goals and your guiding principles because those are all going to be filters that help keep you going in the right direction. When you generate your filters look for qualitative and quantitative filters. You'll want things that say this is what we are as an organization, and some of those quantitative filters to say these are the metrics that are important to us. And then you're going to get everybody in the room and conduct the same whiteboard exercis...

- When you set direction for your organization as part of the strategic planning process, there are four elements to doing so: Articulating your mission, your vision, your guiding principles, and your goals. A mission is: Why does your organization exist? What is its purpose in the world? The vision is then saying: If we're fulfilling that purpose, at some point in time, where are we going to be? What do we want to achieve? What do want the organization to look like at some future point? Your guiding principles are the rules you want your team to live by. How do you want people in the organization behaving, especially when the boss isn't around? What are the lenses you're going to look through as you try to evaluate decisions?  And lastly, your goals. Try to quantify these. It may be X number of customers by a certain date, or dollars of revenue, dollars of profit, a margin percentage, being able to put out hard numbers by a certain point in time to orient the organization ...

 Assessing the market - As you begin your strategic planning process, it's important to assess the market you're competing in. A classic tool for doing so is Porter's five forces. Dr. Michael Porter, who's a professor of strategy, came up with this set of five forces to evaluate all the different dynamics that can affect your organization.  First, look at competitive rivalry, how many competitors are in the marketplace? How do they behave? How are they distributed by market share? How do they go to market, what are their core competencies? Second, look at the threats of new entry. So there's the existing set of competitors or there are new competitors who will enter the market. Evaluate how much does it take to get into the market? Will I have to build huge factories or can I just launch a website to compete against you? So understanding those threats of new entry. Next, look at the threat of substitution. You have your products, what other products could meet that ...

 Understanding the principles of strategic planning - What is a strategic plan, and why is it important? A strategic plan defines what your organization stands for. It defines the market where you compete, and how you compete in that market. It's the definition of the goals you're going to pursue and, more importantly, the initiatives you're going to pursue to achieve those goals. It's also going to help you allocate your very limited resources to pursue those initiatives and reach those goals. Why is a strategic plan so important?  First, it provides focus for your efforts and your limited investments. It gives your team something to rally around and be excited about. And lastly, it helps you identify the risks and opportunities you're going to face in the market, and then plan for those risks or exploit those opportunities.  There are three principles of strategic planning that you should follow. First, set a clear direction and stay in your lane, versus meanderin...