Evaluation of strategic choices is important. The methods for selecting strategic alternatives help leaders organize significant issues to support decision making. However, it is important that the techniques do not make the decision. Rather, leaders should use the techniques to reveal the inherent situation and to organize their thought processes. This assessment provides you with an opportunity to evaluate and apply some of the techniques for successful strategy development and implementation.
Note: You will use your care setting environmental analysis as the basis for developing your strategic plan in this assessment.
The feedback you received on your care setting environmental analysis has been positive. Consequently, you have been asked to select one of the potential improvement projects you noted in your analysis and create a full, 5–10-year strategic plan to achieve the desired quality and safety improvement outcomes. You will develop your strategic plan, using either an AI approach (addressing the design stage), or by building on your SWOT analysis and applying a strategic planning model of your choice.
How you structure your plan should be based on whether you are taking an appreciative inquiry approach or using a specific strategic planning model. Regardless of the approach you choose, the requester of the plan has asked that you address the key points outlined below in the strategic plan requirements. In addition, your plan should be 5–8 pages in length.
Note: As you revise your writing, check out the resources listed on the Writing Center’s Writing Support page.
As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.
Strategic planning models aid in setting goals, establishing time frames, and forging a path toward achieving those goals. Consider the strategic planning models you are familiar with:
- Which model would you choose to create goals and outcomes that could address the area of concern you identified in your Assessment 1 SWOT analysis?
- Why is this model the best choice among alternatives?
- How does goal setting through appreciative inquiry provocative propositions differ from goal setting in the strategic planning model you selected?
- Develop strategic goal statements and outcomes that reflect specific quality and safety improvements for your care setting. You should have at least one short-term goal (just-in-time to one year) and one long-term goal (five years or longer).
- Determine realistic timelines for achieving your goals.
- Explain how your short-term goals support your long-term goals.
Note: For plans based on an AI approach, the goal statements and outcomes are provocative propositions that may be refinements of the positive, yet attainable, goals that you proposed during the dream phase of your inquiry. For plans based on a SWOT analysis, the goal statements and outcomes are specific, measurable, and applicable to the area of concern in your analysis for which you proposed pursuing improvements.
- Justify the relevance of your proposed strategic goals and outcomes in relation to the mission, vision, and values of your care setting.
- Analyze the extent to which your strategic goals and outcomes, and your approach to achieving them, address:
- The ethical environment.
- The cultural environment.
- The use of technology.
- Applicable health care policies, laws, and regulations.
- Explain, in general, how you will use relevant leadership and health care theories to help achieve your proposed strategic goals and outcomes.
- Consider whether different theories are more applicable to the short-term or long-term goals of your strategic plan.
- Evaluate the leadership qualities and skills that are most important to successfully implementing your proposed plan and sustaining strategic direction.
- Identify those leadership qualities and skills that are essential to achieving your goals and outcomes and sustaining strategic direction.
- Identify those leadership qualities and skills that will have the greatest effect on the success of your plan.
