STEP SEVEN
Designing and Validating Tactics
OVERVIEW
Identifying business outcomes and measures for tactics
Validating chosen tactics
Creating the tactical plan
Assigning executive accountability
An important part of the strategic plan is choosing the tactics. Tactics are activities you select as the appropriate means to gain the desired business results, and they are the meat of the strategic plan. A tactical plan is the documented, detailed approach for achieving those results.
In most organizations, the strategic plan has a mission and objectives that can exist without change for as long as two or three years, but tactics evolve and mature during that time. When it comes to tactics, the strategic plan should be seen as an evolving and dynamic document that communicates direction, guidelines, and expectations. You should expect to update the tactics on a regular basis, such as every six months.
In this step, we'll discuss methods and tools you'll need to choose and validate tactics. We'll cover the following topics:
identifying business outcomes and measures for the tactics
validating the finalized tactics against the original scope
creating the tactical plan
assigning executive accountability.
POINTER
Tactical plans generally are threeto five-year plans for achieving the outcomes, goals, and objectives identified earlier as the desired results of strategic planning.
Case Examples: Choosing Tactics
Here are case examples that describe how two very different companies identified tactics as part of developing their strategic plans.
Linking Tactics to Business Needs and Priorities
Tukamon is a mid-size manufacturing firm. For the first time it has completed a strategy for the entire company. Unfortunately, although the findings from the data gathering have evoked a great deal of passion from those who worked on the strategy, they don't link to the mission, vision, and objectives.
When it reached Step 6 in the strategy development process, the working group spent a lot of time discussing its priorities, the criteria for ranking them, the obstacles and risks associated with the findings, and the process for making good decisions on tactics. The group discussed what needed to change within the organization, the scope and depth of that change, and the processes and structural components required for the change. Then the team talked over the lack of alignment between the findings and the mission, vision, and objectives. Members raised the question, Should the mission, vision, and objectives be revised? After a long and heated debate, the group agreed to focus on findings that would help the organization increase revenue and improve employee and customer satisfaction.
Through this priority-setting analysis, planners and managers established internal operational goals and drew an interactive timetable that provided a bailout strategy for the new tactics that would be devised later in the planning process and a retirement strategy for existing tactics that no longer seemed valuable. They also set up an evaluation matrix to ensure that each chosen tactic would be tightly linked to the priorities that management sought to address.
Developing a Marketing Plan as a Key Tactic
SQ Medical is a medical supply and drug research company with 50,000 employees. The strategic planning work group's data gathering revealed that only a few groups within the organization understood the company's key objectives. The planners also found that customers were generally confused about the services SQ offered and about how they could access auxiliary services for a fee. To address these problems, the strategy group chose to create a marketing plan as one of its key tactics.
SQ felt it needed to be clear about the customers to whom it should market its products, services, and programs, and about what it could promise to deliver so it could avoid overcommitting. In creating the marketing plan, SQ also decided to retire certain programs and to build an ongoing needs analysis process for the programs it offered. These tactics were the foundation of their new strategy.
Identifying Business Outcomes and Measures for the Tactical Plans
An important but often overlooked component of a tactical plan is identifying the expected results for each tactic. In other words, what business outcomes will be realized as a result of effectively implementing the tactic—exactly what should happen if the action is taken? You may find it helpful to choose your expected results from the list of potential outcomes in table 7.1.
Describing and publishing business results and outcomes will provide a mechanism for you to build credibility into the tactics you have chosen. Most senior or mid-level managers are hesitant to be accountable unless they understand how something will help the organization, so you'll have to build your case for gaining their commitment and accountability. Identified business results and outcomes also help you market the plan and its tactics, and help you define the link between personal performance and business performance. It's easier to discuss why workers need to be more innovative when they can see that innovation in products, processes, and programs is part of an overall company responsibility.
TABLE 7.1
Potential Results or Business Outcomes Realized through Tactics
| Business Result | Learning Result | Customer Result | Financial Result |
| Turnover of inventory is faster | Time to proficiency decreases | Customer satisfaction increases | Revenue increases |
| Productivity increases | Errors decrease | Customer complaints decrease | Costs decrease |
| Process improvement occurs | Knowledge increases | Knowledge of customer increases | Market price per share increases |
| Innovation in products, processes, and programs occurs | Skill increases | Customer retention increases | Net profit before sales increases |
| Research and development increases | Transfer of new skill and knowledge to the job occurs | Customer product penetration increases | Net profit after taxes increases |
| Retention of employees increases | Self-confidence about skills and knowledge improves | Retention of key customers (those you really want to stay with the organization) increases | Cost per employee supported decreases |
Business outcomes often can be measured by
a count or total of something: Two hundred new prospects will be identified for product X.
a percentage of an established group: Thirty percent of the current customer base will be surveyed to ensure their needs are being met with our current products and services.
a degree of change: Waste will be decreased by 20 percent by recycling paper products in our offices.
a dollar amount: The cost of launching products will decrease through targeting customers and prospects in our new client system. This will reduce our marketing costs by a minimum of $10 million while increasing our product revenue during the week of launch by $25 million.
Worksheet 7.1 is provided as a guide to identifying outcomes and measures for your tactics. An example is provided.
Tactical plans typically fall into one of six categories. Understanding these categories will help you identify metrics for your tactics and will be useful in writing the tactical plan itself. Here are the six categories:
1. Product and service tactics: This category comprises the design and delivery of new or enhanced services, products, and programs. Examples include creating a new product as a result of customer input, redesigning a product for a new customer demographic, or localizing a product for a different country. These tactics all involve different ways of delivering the services and products that your organization provides to its clients.
2. Process tactics: During your data gathering you may discover that certain processes are not customer friendly or useful. Perhaps they're internal processes, such as an accounting system that doesn't appropriately track budgeting against previous costs. Building a better process for technology delivery, operational improvement, or mechanical support of the organization is considered a process tactic.
3. Standards and evaluation tactics: This category involves efforts to control quality. For example, you may need to develop standards to control the quality of output, such as design. Standards and evaluation tactics also can be used for HR purposes, such as a new performance management system or a leadership succession evaluation system. Standards and evaluation tactics are those plans that improve the quality of a product, service, process, or factor that you need to manage to achieve the best result and the fewest errors or defaults.
WORKSHEET 7.1
Identifying Outcomes, Metrics, and Measuresx
Instructions: In column 1, describe each tactic in your strategic plan. In column 2, describe the expected business result of that tactic. In column 3, describe the expected outcome if the business result is achieved. In columns 4 and 5, define the metric (for example, percentage, count, total, dollars) to be used and the actual measurement terms, respectively.
| Tactic | Define the Business Result | Define the Outcome | Define the Metric | Define the Measures |
| Create a new marketing launch process for new products | As a result, time to market will be quicker because we won't have to develop a new process for marketing each new product that comes out. | A completed process for marketing new products (Product Launch Process) that will decrease time to market by at least 5 percent | Percentage | Decrease time to market by 5 percent |
4. Organizational and structural tactics: This category includes tactics that address the need to support a new function or a new area of business, as well as tactics that support the ongoing business of your organization. You might have discovered a need for a marketing and communication leader to handle the development of a monthly newsletter, publish a corporate calendar, compile and distribute reports, and the like. Or perhaps you need to reorganize your human resources to better fit and support the organization's culture and structure. You might need to identify core competencies for your organization so that interviewing, placement, retention, and development can be handled more efficiently and professionally. Perhaps retention is an issue that needs a tactical plan. Any type of organizational or organization structure issues can have tactical plans associated with them.
5. Marketing and sales tactics: Ultimately, the way you manage your branding, marketing, and sales is critical to the business. Examples include developing a new sales incentive program (as a new tactical plan), creating a new look, or using a new advertising medium.
6. Customer tactics: Your customer base may be changing. You may have an aging demographic with new needs. Or you may find that revised product pricing has drawn new customer types with different needs and demands. Tactics in this category address these issues.
Categorizing your tactics can help you link these tactics back to your mission, vision, and values. By using categories you can group tactics and write one plan that focuses on several interrelated tactics that together focus on a major theme or recommendation. Categories will also help you identify measures, as seen in table 7.2. The first column lists the six categories for tactical measures. As you will see in the second column, where the tactical measures are listed, some are duplicated in several categories. This is important to pay attention to when you are identifying how you want to measure the success of your tactics. If you have several initiatives and can overlap the measurement process by using the measure several ways, you can reduce time. However, be certain that you use additional measures to identify the impact of one tactic to another. For example, if you launch a customer service campaign and lower the price of a product, you might choose to measure both tactics with product price/customer. Most likely, you'd see the price/customer fall, but which tactic was the most beneficial? You would need other measures to isolate the success of each tactic.
Validating the Final Tactics
Measures help validate tactics, but there are other criteria you should consider to validate the tactic before writing and finalizing the tactical plan. For tactics to be valid, three key criteria must be met:
1. The tactic should work to fulfill the organization's mission.
2. The tactic should be related to the goals and objectives that were identified as part of the strategy's outcomes.
3. The tactic should be measurable and its results meaningful to the organization.
A poor tactic would have no relationship to the mission of the organization, would not be related to the goals and objectives, and would be immeasurable. The following example illustrates this point.
Chrissy's Cookies is a national chain. Its mission is “to provide our customers with the finest cookie product while being sensitive to price.” One of the tactics it considered was to increase sales training so that sales of higher priced products would increase. When this tactic was evaluated against the first criterion, it was seen to be out of sync with the mission. It wasn't in alignment with what the company perceived as a value (price sensitivity) and consequently was scrapped as a tactic.
Example 7.1 provides a matrix you can use to rate your tactics against the organization's mission, vision, and values statements.
TABLE 7.2
Tactic Categories and Related Measures
Creating Your Tactical Plans
Now that you have identified whom you are going to serve and what you are going to offer, the next task is to build your tactics. Your tactical plan will be an important part of your overall strategy.
EXAMPLE 7.1
Sample Matrix for Recording Alignment of Tactics with Mission, Vision, and Values
| Tactic 1 | Tactic 2 | Tactic 3 | Tactic 4 | |
| Mission Statement | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| Mission Objective 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Mission Objective 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| Mission Objective 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Vision Statement | 2 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Values Statement 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Values Statement 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Values Statement 3 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Values Statement 4 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
By now you've thought about your tactics and how you might measure their success. But how do you get to that success?
One problem that often comes to the fore when finalizing tactics is a confusion of mission objectives and tactics. Table 7.3 explains the differences between the two and provides comparative examples.
After you have identified your tactics, you'll need to develop details for each of them. The content of your tactical plan should include the following six components:
1. Recommendations—how the tactics link or support the strategic outcomes
2. Tactics—the actions that will be implemented to support the recommendations
3. Timeline—a schedule for implementing the tactics?
TABLE 7.3
Comparison of Mission Objectives and Tactics
| Distinguishing Characteristic | Mission Objective Example | Tactic Example |
| Mission objectives evolve. Tactics support the evolution. | Develop and implement an overall evaluation strategy | Identify levels of evaluation and the tools to support them that should be a standard for the organization |
| Mission objectives do not have a clear start and stop. Tactics have a time schedule and completion date. | Improve the selection and performance management of contract instructors | Create instructor standards and implement them by the second quarter |
| Mission objectives support the mission statement and link to the business. Tactics support the mission objectives. | Create a leading-edge sales curriculum for all levels of sales staff to increase sales and decrease the time-to-close ratio | Develop a sales process leadership program and tie evaluation of it to the time-to-close ratio |
| Mission objectives define what should be the result. Tactics define how to close the gap. | Ensure that programs are on the leading edge and use front-end technology | Investigate which leading-edge technology adapts to our workplace and will promote learning effectively |
4. Metrics—the measures that will be used to determine the success of the tactics
5. Resources—the resources required to complete the tactics
6. Assigned responsibility—the leader of the action.
An example of a tactical plan is presented in example 7.2.
Assigning Executive Accountability
Successful implementation of your tactics is highly dependent on executive accountability for each tactic.
EXAMPLE 7.2
A Tactical Plan
Recommendation: To create a template for launching new products, so as to support the desired outcome of reducing time to market by redesigning our marketing approach.
Measures: Faster time to market, customer satisfaction, decrease in marketing staff development time
Assigned responsibility: Marketing promotion assistant vice president
| Tactics to Complete | Timeline | Staff |
| Develop presentation outline | Q1 | KL |
| Create Webnet strategy | Q2 | KL and RB |
| Build reusable graphics and icons | Q2 | RB and TL |
| Build ongoing communication plan | Q3 | KL and RB |
| Finalize template design | Q3 | KL, RB, and TL |
| Train staff to use template | Q4 | TL |
| Assigned accountability for tactics: J. Fulbright |
The organization's executives should have been involved in the strategic planning process from day 1, and by this point should understand they will be accountable for executing the tactics assigned to them. Executive accountability is critical because your chances for success with your strategic plan will be greatly diminished if top-down accountability is not assigned.
Example 7.3 shows you how to document tactic accountability. For each tactic, note the performance measures by which achievement will be evaluated and the executive who will be responsible for seeing that the performance measures are achieved. When accountability has been assigned and recorded, it's important to share the document with the board of directors and others who are responsible for managing executive performance.
EXAMPLE 7.3
Executive Accountability
| Tactic | Performance Measure | Executive Accountable |
| To increase product penetration with new customers in new geographic locations |  To increase product penetration by 10 percent within 18 months |
J. Fulbright, marketing director |
| To identify and expand product within one new geographic location within one year |
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| To identify two new customer groups and increase product penetration for those groups by 5 percent within one year |
||
| To decrease employee costs | To identify noncritical employee costs that can be reduced within six months |
M. Mankolof, senior vice president, HR |
| To decrease total employee costs by 4 percent within 18 months |
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| To decrease time to market | To decrease time to market by decreasing product production cycle by 10 days per manufacturing cycle within two years |
L. Crepaux, senior vice president, product research and development |
The next step focuses on methods to prioritize the tactics you've planned and the resources you need to implement them.