Whether you’re looking to align your entire team around a common vision or simply do more in less time, a strategic planning software can help you bring your plans from idea to execution. A strategic planning tool that is effective will help your team members become more productive while streamlining collaboration and workflows, as well as project management, and reporting.
The software you choose for your strategy should offer an easy-to-use interface that lets users make and edit their plans by using custom templates for various types of strategic planning processes. If you’re conducting a SWOT analysis, for example, the software should enable your team to brainstorm ideas and create an outline of all the ideas within the platform. The same applies to more structured processes such as OKRs or goal setting.
You’ll want to ensure that the software supports your chosen strategic plan methodology which includes best practice, Six Sigma or management by objectives. It should let you create scorecards from four perspectives, which will help you identify areas for improvement and gauge the performance.
Finally, you’ll want to know that your strategic planning tool can communicate with your operational systems through APIs. You can then pull information directly from your operational platforms and transfer it into the strategic tools, avoiding duplicate entry and manual updating.
A good tool for strategic planning can also help your team to assign deadlines and tasks and assign responsibility for measures, and receive notifications when tasks are delayed. It should also provide various ways to monitor and visualize progress like timelines, Gantt charts, resource scheduling, and more.