The Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award

2017 Application

The deadline to submit this application is March 24, 2017.Please contact Rachel King at with any questions.

By submitting this award application on behalf of my organization, I understand that: The Association for Strategic Planning (ASP) staff and members of the selection committee for the Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award will review this application. ASP may require the applicant organization to provide additional information in support of this application; this application and any attachments become the property of ASP; application materials cannot be returned and may be publicized, referenced and/or included in ASP publications and resources with suitable masking of the proprietary/confidential strategic information that may pertain to the applicant organization (in such an event ASP will review the specific version of the document with the organization and obtain their acceptance prior to it being used for broader dissemination); ASP will expect one recipient from each award winning organization to participate in a (non-travel/internet-based) webinar – or a similar activity/event – to showcase their exemplar strategic planning performance and educate participants & members.

Authorized signatory of Applicant Organization:______

Print Name

1.0About Your Organization

Identify the award category for your application:

(Select ONE only)

Large for-profit enterprise or division of a large for-profit enterprise.

Small or Mid-sized for-profit enterprise

Non-profit or academic organization

Governmental organization (National)

Governmental organization (non-National, e.g. State, County, Local)

Organization Name:
Organization Size
-Annual Revenue
(or budget*):
-# of employees:
-Geography (e.g. footprint):
Street Address:
City, State & Zip Code:
Country:
Contact Name:
Title:
Phone:
Email:

*In case of some government organizations revenues may not be available and budget can be used as a proxy of financial size.

Provide a brief (75 word maximum) description of your organization does (include high-level mission and strategic aspiration).

Application Guidance

Applications must be submitted in Microsoft Word format and must not be no longer than fifteen (15) pages.

Applications may include supplemental materials/documents, media coverage, metrics only if they are highly pertinent and expressly help in communicating an exemplar practice, tool, technique or business outcome. Please make reference to specific materials in the body of your response to questions contained in pages 3 & 4. Please do not include elements of the application into the supplementary materials/document files. Submit supplementary materials in PDF format only with no single file over 5 MB in size.

Application Deadline

All entries must be received no later than March 24, 2017. Please email your application, in Microsoft Word format, and all supporting materials in PDF format to: . Please caption the subject line as 2017 Richard Goodman Award Application.

CORE APPLICATION INFORMATION

A)Overall Rationale

Why do you believe your organization is deserving of the 2017 Richard Goodman Strategic Planning award? Whys is your application unique and particularly exemplar (e.g. industry-leading, revolutionary)?

B)Strategy Formulation, Portfolio & Realization

Please articulate your top-level (corporate) strategic aspirations? What are the specific business objectives/goals that the aspirations entail? Across what time-horizon do you aspire to achieve the strategic objectives/goals?

What are the key strategies you have designed/selected to target attainment of the strategic vision/aspirations? Which trade-offs/alternatives did you relinquish in favor of the selected strategies and why?

What are some of the key assumptions that were surfaced to underlie the selected strategies? What “early warning signals” system is in place to facilitate rapid response to changing events? How have you tracked/validated the veracity of the selected assumptions?

How have these strategies specifically helped you to leverage your competitive advantages (e.g. core competencies/capabilities) and refine/enhance your competitive positioning? How have the strategies directly contributed to differentiating your value-proposition from others in the marketplace?

Please characterize in detail how the selected strategies have contributed to your organization winning in the marketplace (or in making radical progress towards achieving your mission)? What hard numbers (specific performance gains/”needle movements”) would you attribute to each strategy? Please provide both quantitative and qualitative performance shifts.

C)Strategic Analysis (e.g. Internal & External, Trend) Rigor & Relevance

What were some of the most pressing strategic (underlying) questions that were necessary to answer in order to inform development of assumptions and design of strategies? What were the key learnings/insights from such strategic analysis and how were the findings integrated into strategy formulation/design or selection?

How do you identify drivers of disruption or game changing forces capable of materially impacting industry/organization performance (e.g. transforming competitive dynamic)? How do you map the implications of rapid/potential “power shifts” in your value-chain and the emergence of new opportunities & threats?

What are your organization’s top competitive advantages? How have you ascertained the relative strength (versus marketplace) of these competitive advantages? What are you doing to sustain the “moat” (e.g. prevent erosion) of your competitive advantages?

What are some of your best examples of highly innovative/insightful use of internal/external data analysis (please describe framework, methodology, approach and/or tools and their specific impact on making decisions and enhancing strategic performance)?

D)Operationalizing the Strategy

Describe the practices used to translate your strategy into action? Specifically, which critical capability gaps were successfully addressed to achieve the strategic aspirations?

What was particularly unique and effective about the way your organization achieved synchronized alignment of resources (e.g. funding, human resources, IT, change) to enable execution?

Which areas of the strategy were critically dependent on IT capabilities? Specifically, which IT solutions were delivered and how did they enable required strategic capabilities?

How you cascade your organization’s strategic imperatives down to the front-line levels? How does each front-line staff understand/articulate how their day-to-day work contributes to the execution of the strategy?

E)Strategic Practices Optimization

Describe a strategic planning practice or activity that you have discontinued, given you have identified it as being obsolete or less relevant in today’s business operating environment?

Describe a strategic planning practice or competency that you would particularly like to incorporate/leverage during your next strategic planning efforts? What are you seeking to enhance be adopting this practice?