Your tactical strategy is as important as the grand and operational strategies. This stage is the one that helps you identify and fill in the immediate gaps in your business. Many people are good at exploring the grand strategy but without breaking things down into achievable objectives and goals, it will all remain in the exploring stage. Now that you have your grand strategy and you have narrowed it down into mid-term goals and short-term milestones, it is time to focus on the short-term planning which covers all the current operations in your organisation. Depending on the type of business you run, you will outline general objectives on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. The tactical strategy is a critical part of your business because at this stage you start dividing your strategic plan. This means:
- Smaller projects over shorter periods of time
- Independent functions in the organisation can execute the tasks
- Tactical plans that target specific areas in the organisation
This is an amazing chance for leaders to transfer the responsibility to certain departments to execute their part of the plan. One of the benefits of tactical plans is that they are flexible and can be adapted so there is no immediate harm to the organisation if something goes wrong. Their purpose is simply to translate your short-term objectives into measurable tasks that different departments can execute and, therefore, it is crucial that these are aligned to your vision and strategic plan of the business.
Remember
Your grand strategy focuses on the big picture and it represents your vision in the long term, which means some broad goals for your business. Your operational strategy means breaking your strategy down into mid-term and short-term milestones which focus on daily, weekly or monthly processes. Your tactical strategy, however, deals with immediate requirements and sets short-term, measurable and defined steps which can be reviewed whenever necessary.
Once you evaluate the opportunities and outline the plan, the execution of the plan becomes a new direction for the management to follow to achieve the desired results. Here are some key requirements for an effective tactical strategy:
- Time - the timeline available for accomplishing for a particular goal
- Knowledge - a comprehensive understanding of the tools and resources available or needed
- Actions - defined steps required for accomplishing a particular goal
Now, while doing tactical planning, it is important to consider a couple of aspects that will make your life easier: flexibility as you have to be prepared for unexpected circumstances and effective communication between departments to eliminate message inconsistencies.
Last but not least, to keep your tactical strategy running smoothy, the methods below will come in hand:
Every year you will have a different tactical strategy. In your first year, you will have to take care of the most urgent gaps. A consultant could help you get to the bottom of those short-term goals and make them realistic and achievable, as you will read in the case study below.
A case study
A consultancy I was asked to work with had developed from a small group of peers into a medium sides business over 5 years. Their tactical approach had worked up until now, adapting as and when they contracted with a new client.
As they grew, their people were asking for clarity over the vision, career development opportunities and were complaining about the technology as it was no longer fit for purpose. They realised that they needed to invest, but had no investment strategy, or were not really certain in which direction they would grow and develop their products and services. Initially we worked on their purpose, vision and mission.
Once they had clarity on their direction, they were able to then to identify how to get from where they are now to where they want to be. It initially felt overwhelming as they listed everything they had to get done, but by creating a 5 year, operational strategy, the overwhelm morphed into excitement and direction.
Now they could see what they needed to do in the future, they worked back to what they need to do today. They created a tactical strategy that everyone in the organisation could not only work towards, but more importantly, they were able to explain why they were working on the projects.
They had purpose.
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