I am currently at Montreal Airport. This morning, my first flight of the day got canceled. Fortunately, I had made plans in case something like that happened, so I was able to get an earlier flight. If I hadn't, I would have pushed my entire trip a day back, which would not have worked. You may be wondering, "How does this relate to my strategic plan?"
When you and your team are doing your strategic planning, it's important to create a risk register within the strategic planning process. If all you do is create your vision, your strategic priorities, and your action items, you're missing out on a huge component of the strategic planning process which is "What can go wrong?"
Most organizations usually become so busy with the day to day happenings and the whirlwind of operations that they do not make time to do the strategic work required to be successful. Remember that the number one risk for organizations is not having the second stage of their plan laid out. If you gloss over creating a risk register and outlining the roadblocks to accomplishing your vision, you set yourself up for potential failure, even before completing the strategic planning process.
If you want to be successful in your strategic plan, do not forget to include a risk register component as part of your planning process, and leave time after the meeting to incorporate working on strategic activities, not just the operational stuff. If you do these two things, you will have a higher chance of success when implementing your strategic plan - which is what everybody wants!
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