For all who are interested in issues of strategic planning I would like to recommend a new article from TheMcKinseyQuarterly. It is now available online without being a premium member of their web services.

Core statements are

• Only 45 percent of survey respondents said that they were satisfied with their existing process for strategic planning
• Only 23 percent of survey respondents agree that important strategic decisions were made within these planning processes

To improve the process Renèe Dye and Olivier Sibony highlights the following ideas:

• the organisation should identify the long term issues facing the company instead of just examining numbers
• bring together the ultimate decision makers within the strategic review meetings for strategic conversations
• adapt planning cycles to the needs of each business
• implement a strategic-performance management system

The article can be found on this website (pdf-file)