Article at a glance:

How to improve strategic planning

• Almost all large companies undertake a time-consuming strategic-planning process that leaves many executives frustrated with the results.
• Executives in the satisfied minority work for companies that go beyond budgets and financial targets to give the annual process a more important role in developing strategy.
• One approach is to start the exercise not by examining the numbers but by identifying the long-term issues facing the company; another is to ensure that strategic-review meetings involve frank conversations among the ultimate decision makers.
• Some companies use tailored strategic metrics to track the implementation of the annual plan, and others link its implementation to human-resources systems that influence the behavior of the managers who execute the strategy.