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Tactical Planning: Creating a Tactical Plan for Your Business

Tactical planning is the practical counterpoint to strategic planning, which describes the overall direction of an organization. Tactical planning tells you how to get there. It’s about execution and, therefore, critical to achieving your strategic goals.

This concept is an important part of project portfolio management (PPM) and project management offices (PMOs). Let’s dive a bit deeper into the subject and explain how it differs from other types of planning, its benefits and more.

What Is Tactical Planning?

Tactical planning describes the action steps, strategies and projects that are deployed by the different departments of an organization, such as sales, marketing, product development and others to contribute to the accomplishment of strategic goals. It breaks down the long-term strategic plans of more than two or three years into short-term plans.

In general, tactical planning is in response to an immediate issue or situation. This can apply to a business or a project team. A strategic plan is responding to where a business wants to be in a long time, but tactical planning can also be used to submit a bid by creating a viable proposal that will win your company that business.

To achieve the strategic goals of a business, tactical plans include focused goals, steps to reach these goals and a timeline in which to achieve them. To organize and manage this process, businesses employ project management techniques and tools, such as project management software.

ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has robust Gantt charts that help plan the tactical steps on a visual timeline. Our Gantt charts organize tasks, set milestones and link all four types of task dependencies to avoid costly delays. You can also filter for the critical path to identify essential tasks and then set a baseline to track project variance in real time. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Tactical planning is one of three types of planning employed by businesses. The other two are strategic planning and operational planning, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Tactical Planning vs. Strategic Planning

Tactical planning and strategic planning are two different levels in the organizational planning of an organization. Strategic plans are high-level view goals of an organization, drafted by company owners, boards of directors and the top-level management team.

Tactical planning isn’t as long-term as strategic planning. It outlines the short-term steps that need to take place to achieve the strategic goals of the strategic plan. Tactical planning is specific, short term with clear deliverables , while strategic planning identifies broader decisions, is long term and has clear goals.

Tactical Planning vs. Operational Planning

Tactical plans can be used by departments within a business to develop and measure their functionality, but it’s different from operational planning. Operational planning is done by the lower layer of management.

Operational planning directs the everyday operations of the business departments. This goes to the most specific guidelines for business processes and daily activities of employees. So if we’re talking about a manufacturing plant, it would include the different standard operating procedures for production workers.

Benefits of Tactical Planning

The longest trip starts with the first step. This applies to how strategic goals benefit from tactical planning. But there are more benefits to tactical planning, a few of which we define below.

Connects All Levels of Management in an Organization

There are three levels to any organization. The top is the board of directors, chief executive or managing director. This is the administrative or managerial level. Then there are department managers, who are the middle level, who execute the plans from the top. After that, there’s the lower level or supervisory/operational level of management. These are supervisors, foremen, etc., who assign and manage the work of the teams. Tactical planning is the string that ties all these levels together and ensures that they’re working collaboratively.

Breaks Down Long-term Strategic Goals Into Actionable, Short-term Projects

As noted, strategic goals are long-term goals that a business wants to accomplish. Once defined, however, they need to be broken down into smaller projects or tasks that, step-by-step, will let the business reach that future target. Tactical planning takes the aspirational goals of the business and makes a practical roadmap that gets the business from where it is to where it wants to be.

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Helps Decision Makers Allocate Organizational Resources Strategically

Organizations have limited resources and each department within the organization is likely competing for those resources. Strategic and tactical planning makes it easier to decide what money should be spent on marketing, production and sales as well as other resources. Resources should be spent on the areas that contribute the most to the completion of strategic goals. That’s the criteria to prioritize them when making tactical plans.

What Is a Tactical Plan?

Now that we know what tactical planning is and why it’s beneficial, it’s time to look at the elements that make up a tactical plan. While creating a tactical plan varies from one business to the next depending on their goals, any successful one will have these key elements.

SMART Tactical Goals

Before you can plan to achieve your goals you have to have them. As the top-level management starts to think about what their long-term goals are, they should make sure they’re SMART. That’s an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Next, you need to establish a timeline . That is, create a deadline and work backward to make a timeline in which you’ll be able to plot the tasks or steps that will get you there. This will improve your chances of reaching that end goal.

Action Steps & Projects

Those tasks are also called action steps, which take you from where you are to where you want to be by your deadline. However, bigger strategic goals and bigger organizations not only require action steps but actual projects, which are more involved. You’ll have to think about risk management, resource management , task management, etc.

Related: 8 Free Risk Management Templates for Excel

Deliverables

Deliverables describe the quantifiable goods or services that are provided throughout and after a project. You’ll want to identify these deliverables, which can be done by using a work breakdown structure . Once you have your deliverables identified, you can also identify the tasks needed to get them.

Resources are anything you’ll need to execute your tactical plan, such as materials, workforce, equipment, finance, outsourcing products and more. Managers need to identify the resources they’ll need and use the timeline to schedule those resources when they’re needed.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once you execute your tactical plan you’ll need a ruler by which to measure its success or lack thereof, which is what KPIs are. Some KPIs are revenue, new customers, etc.

Tactical Planning Example

Let’s imagine a large appliance manufacturing company that has drawn the following strategic goals for the next two to five years. In this example, we’ll illustrate how those high-level views of strategic goals can be translated into more specific tactical plan goals and action steps .

Strategic Goals

Increase our net revenue by 20 percent and profit margin by 10 percent
Cut manufacturing costs by 15 percent
Improve our customer satisfaction level by 25 percent

Tactical Plan Action Steps per Department

Here are the action steps for key departments of this company. All of these activities work together cohesively to achieve the strategic goals outlined above.

Production & Procurement

Find suppliers that offer raw materials and components at a lower price
Outsource and/or offshore a portion of the production process overseas to reduce production costs and increase the profit margin
Use the excess production capacity to create new products to open new markets and support the objective of increasing revenue
Optimize the production line to increase its resource capacity
Purchase machinery to automate the production process and cut down labor costs

Marketing & Sales

Find new market opportunities for new products through market research tactics
Create a website to attract customers online
Partner with online vendors to open new distribution channels
Create a mobile app that customers can use to learn more about our product and contact our support team

Customer Service

Open physical locations where users can bring or send their products for maintenance
Improve the responsiveness of the customer service department by hiring more customer service representatives
Use the website as a new way to respond to customers by creating a chatbot that answers the most commonly asked questions and directs customers to human customer service representatives

Product development

Develop products that target new niches as recommended by the market research findings
Develop new models that are cheaper to produce but retain most of the positive attributes of the current products
Creating more energy-efficient models which has been known to be a recurring issue for existing customers

To execute each of these tactical action steps, the tactical-level managers will need to define a timeline, estimate the resources that will be required and establish key performance indicators and the tools that will be used to track them.

As discussed above, whenever you create a tactical plan for a business department you must make sure that it aligns with the larger strategic plan of your organization. This free strategic plan template for Word is a great tool for gathering the key elements that will help you define the overall direction of your business in the future, such as its operations plan, marketing plan and business objectives.

How ProjectManager Helps You Track Your Tactical Plan

Project management software can help you with tactical planning, executing those plans and then tracking them. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that can plan, manage and track your tactical plan in real time. Not only does our software have powerful Gantt charts, but multiple project views, such as kanban boards, task lists, sheet and calendar views. That means teams can collaborate across departments in the same tool with the live data to keep them on the same page.

Allocate Resources and Track Resource Utilization

Being able to plan, allocate and track your resources is vital if you want to deliver on your strategic goals. Our software lets you set the availability of your team, including PTO and global vacations, which makes assigning them to tasks easier. You can track how much work they’re doing and labor costs on our secure timesheets. Then go over to the workload chart to see if anyone is overallocated. If they are, balance the team’s workload from the chart to keep them productive and working at capacity.

Track Costs With Real Time Dashboards

Whenever you need a high-level overview of your project, toggle over to our real-time dashboard. It automatically collects live data and displays it in easy-to-read graphs and charts that show KPIs, such as time, cost, workload and more. There’s no time-consuming setup required as in lightweight alternative products. It’s a status report whenever you want one. If you need a status report, portfolio report or reports on workload, timesheets and more, visit our reporting features. You can filter all reports and easily share them to keep stakeholders updated.

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Definition of Tactical Planning in Business

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What Is the Sales Sequence?

Tactical planning is an important element in business, and it varies somewhat from common strategic and operational planning methods. The tactical planning process happens in real-time, pursuing short-term outcomes. Having a tactical methodology in place enables the business to make nimble maneuvers to excel within the respective market.

">Strategy vs. Tactics

Strategic planning, operational planning and tactical planning are all very different. Strategic planning focuses on the long term, big-picture plan. It involves the company brand, market penetration tactics and the structure built around the strategy.

The operational planning is very much focused on the day to day processes. It involves communication processes, manufacturing processes and the nuts and bolts operations that make the business run.

Tactical planning is much different from the latter two methods. In the tactical phase, the business is responding to immediate realities. For example, a business seeking a contract against other competitors must build a proposal using a tactical advantage. This requires differentiating the offering from the competition by offering a lower price point or a more customized, premium service.

In the tactical world, this example is common. It does not fall within the big picture planning associated with the business but rather acts as a response to the specific scenario. A tactical plan can work for a once off situation or a short term business plan that may last a few months or even a year.

Implementing Tactical Planning

Time is of the essence for tactical planning and unlike big picture and operational strategies, decisions must be made rather quickly. In business, decision making processes are often well defined and operational procedures are followed. Implementing a tactical diversion plan will help to identify opportunities and pivot as necessary.

When an employee identifies a short term opportunity that requires a plan that is not necessarily coherent with normal operations, encouraging a report to management will help move that idea through the system. Managers can then meet to assess the value of that opportunity and determine if a short term, tactical plan is the best course of action.

At this point, the determination is made and the tactical plan can develop quickly. Implementing that plan is a matter of following the new direction until the desired result is achieved. The key is bringing the opportunity to managers before it passes. The managers and executives are most often responsible for approving any tactical strategies implemented by the business.

Common Tactical Plans

Tactical planning is exceptionally common among departments that are performance driven. Static job roles with recurring tasks like bookkeeping and production rarely require a tactical plan because consistent is the highest value outcome in these job roles.

In sales and the executive world, tactical decisions are very common. An executive makes decisions like buying and selling assets that are tactical in nature. For example, an executive might sell a piece of company owned real estate and use the income to hire a short term workforce to double production for the holiday season. This is a short term, tactical move that can pay off if the returns exceed the value of the investment.

In sales, tactical planning includes strategies to fill a pipeline with leads, build a competitive proposal and to close deals. While long term strategic sales plans are important, real-time decision making is common and often necessary to close down important deals while driving revenue to the business. In this sense, a sales individual or team sets tactical goals on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis to achieve results.

Semeron: Strategic and Tactical Business Planning
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Zach Lazzari is a freelance writer with extensive experience in startups and digital advertising. He has a diverse background with a strong presence in the digital marketing world. Zach has developed and sold multiple successful web properties and manages marketing for multiple clients in the outdoor industry. He has published business content in Angling Trade Magazine and writes white papers and case studies for multiple corporate partners.

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Planning for Success: A Guide to Tactical Planning in Business

Let’s take a look at what tactical business planning is, why it matters, and how to use it to improve your business outcomes.

When it comes to running a successful business, planning is key. But how do you make sure your plans are effective and achievable?

That’s where tactical business planning comes in. Tactical planning focuses on the “how” of getting things done. It’s the difference between having an idea and making it happen.

What’s the Difference Between Strategy and Tactics?

Have you ever heard someone talk about strategy or tactics in business, and wondered what the difference was?

It is actually simpler than it might sound:

In a nutshell, strategy refers to your big-picture plan, while tactics are more focused on your day-to-day implementation of that plan.

Let’s take a look at each of these concepts and how they work together.

Strategy: The Big Picture

A strategy is an overarching plan that guides your decisions and helps you achieve your goals.

It is created by looking at your current situation, evaluating the potential outcomes, and determining how best to achieve your desired results.

Strategy should be based on data and research, as well as an understanding of past successes and failures. A good strategy will set out specific objectives, identify key stakeholders, outline potential risks, and provide an actionable timeline for success.

Tactics: The Nitty Gritty Implementation

Tactics are the ways you go about executing your strategy. They are specific actions taken to achieve desired results.

Tactics can include anything from developing marketing materials to launching a new product or service. A tactic could be a specific way your team sells your product, or a certain method you've created to support your customers, or even a growth hack you use to grow your business.

Tactics should always be tailored to meet the needs of your business as well as those of your customers or clients. When creating or implementing tactics it's important to consider the impact on both your short-term goals (such as increasing sales) and your long-term goals (such as building brand awareness).

Tactical plans should also include measurable metrics so that progress can be tracked over time.

Strategic vs. Tactical Planning?

When it comes to planning, there are two main approaches — strategic planning and tactical planning .

Both involve setting goals, assessing progress, and making decisions that will help you reach those goals.

But what exactly is the difference between these two types of plans, and how can understanding their differences help you make better decisions for your business?

Let's take a closer look.

What Is Strategic Planning?

At its core, strategic planning involves looking at the big picture.

This type of planning focuses on long-term objectives and goals, taking into account any external factors that could impact your progress.

A key part of strategic planning is considering which strategies could be implemented in order to achieve your "big picture" goals, and which factors might influence the success or failure of those strategies.

For example, when creating a strategic plan for your business you might consider factors like market trends, potential growth opportunities, and the competitive landscape, in order to determine which actions should be taken in order to reach your desired outcome.

What Is Tactical Planning?

Tactical planning is focused more on short-term objectives than long-term ones.

A tactical plan looks at specific tasks that can be completed in order to achieve a goal or objective within a certain time frame, and it focuses on utilizing resources efficiently in order to complete those tasks successfully.

For example, if you wanted to launch a marketing campaign for your business within the next month, your tactical plan might involve creating an actionable timeline with steps such as researching target markets, creating content assets for the campaign, and budgeting for your project, in order to ensure everything is completed before the desired deadline.

What is Tactical Planning in Business?

Tactical planning in business involves developing an actionable plan using available resources, while at the same time attempting to minimize the risk levels associated with the different options.

Let's break that down.

A tactical plan starts by identifying measurable goals or objectives related to specific outcomes (such as increasing revenue or improving productivity).

Then, one develops the steps required to reach those objectives within a predefined time frame. A tactical objective is usually something achievable within a short period of time, say 1–6 months.

When building a tactical plan for your business it's important to take into consideration any potential obstacles or roadblocks that might get in the way. By predicting challenges and coming up with solutions for overcoming them, continual progress can be made towards completion of the goals set out in your tactical plan.

It's also important to establish performance measures so that progress can be tracked over time in order to determine if key objectives are being met.

Why Does Tactical Planning in Business Matter?

Tactical planning is an essential tool for businesses and organizations wanting to succeed (which most certainly is all of them).

Without a comprehensive plan of action, well-defined goals, clear strategies and a focus on implementation, it becomes difficult to accomplish anything worthwhile, and many organizations fall into the habit of foregoing tactical planning.

Tactical planning forces managers to regularly assess their operations — making sure they don't become complacent while also encouraging them to be creative in finding new opportunities. It also helps with decision making and aligning to future objectives.

All this promotes growth and progress, helping organizations reach their full potential as efficiently as possible. It's easy to see why tactical planning matters!

How to Build a Tactical Plan

As they say, " failing to plan is planning to fail. "

And it's true — you can't hope to reach your goals without having a plan in place.

Whether it's for personal or professional reasons, there are some core steps you should always keep in mind when creating a tactical plan.

Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Objectives

The first step when creating a tactical plan is to identify your goals and objectives.

This includes both short and long term goals, as well as measurable milestones that indicate progress along the way.

It's important to be realistic when setting your goals — if they are too ambitious, you may end up burning yourself out before you even get started! Instead, break down the larger goal into smaller, achievable tasks that can be completed over time.

Step 2: Assess Your Resources and Capabilities

Once you have identified your goals, take an honest look at your resources and capabilities. Do you have enough time? Money? Knowledge? Skills ?

If not, consider how you can act on those resources and capabilities in order to make progress towards your goal. Also consider any external factors that could affect the outcome of your plan, like for example, if there is new legislation coming into effect that could impact the success of your project.

Step 3: Create an Action Plan

Now it's time to start putting together an action plan.

This includes outlining what tasks need to be done in order to achieve each goal or milestone within the timeline set out in the previous steps.

Make sure each task in your tactical action plan is detailed with specific deadlines and assigned roles so everyone knows exactly what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. It's also important to include contingency plans in case something goes wrong along the way; this will ensure that any disruptions are minimized as much as possible.

Step 4: Monitor Progress and Adjust As Necessary

As with any project, monitoring progress is key if you want it to succeed.

Be sure to regularly check in with team members and adjust plans as needed. This will help ensure that everything stays on track and no one gets left behind or overwhelmed due to lack of direction or guidance from leadership .

Step 5: Celebrate Successes!

Once all of your hard work has paid off and all of the planned tasks have been completed successfully, don’t forget to take some time to celebrate your successes!

Whether it’s sending an email thanking everyone involved, or inviting your team to a celebratory dinner, taking some time out from all the hard work is essential for staying motivated.

Executing a successful tactical plan isn't easy. It takes coordination, communication, and commitment from all parties involved in order for it to work properly.

But if done correctly, tactical planning can yield amazing results for your business.

By following the steps of defining your strategic goals, identifying tactics, and then executing the plan, you'll have everything you need to succeed.

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: The What, When, & Why

Published: March 01, 2022

Whether you've set personal or business goals, you likely created a plan to achieve them. Without clearly defined steps, it can be difficult or even discouraging to tackle the goal you've set.

One example of a situation where planning and strategy come in handy is during a job search . Let's say you've spent weeks or months scouring the internet for a new sales job, but none of the job postings seem to match your skill set or career interests.

Have you taken a step back and thought about a specific type of sales job you want? And did you consider the most important qualities you're looking for in an employer or career?

Your online job search will become less tedious and disheartening if you have a clear set of objectives to follow. While you might get more search results for "sales manager", you'll find jobs that are a better fit for you if you clarify by searching for "senior sales manager - medical devices."

With your new search strategy, you've identified a seniority level and the industry you'd like to work in. The next steps you set for yourself are to periodically repeat this search and only apply to the roles that seem like the best fit for you and your career aspirations.

Thinking strategically helps you narrow down your search and use your time more effectively. Plus, you'll increase the likelihood of landing a job that's a great fit for you.

Once you aced your interviews and landed the perfect sales job, you'll find that these types of planning, strategic and tactical, are used by many businesses and sales teams to set themselves up for success.

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning

Strategic planning lays out the long-term, broad goals that a business or individual wants to achieve. And tactical planning outlines the short-term steps and actions that should be taken to achieve the goals described in the strategic plan.

Your strategic plan provides the general idea of how to reach a goal, and the tactical plan is where you lay out the steps to achieve that goal.

Since the objectives set in the strategic plan are more general and are evaluated over a longer period of time, strategic planning typically occurs at the beginning of a year, quarter, or month. These plans should be reviewed every quarter.

Tactical planning occurs after the strategic plan is outlined, and the tactical plan can be reexamined on a more frequent basis — if need be.

Details how the purpose, duration, and output differs between Strategic and Tactical Planning in black and light grey

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Here are some high-level examples that touch on the difference between the two types of planning.

Strategy vs. Tactics

Let's consider the perspective of a hypothetical company analyzing different strategies to improve different aspects of its sales operations.

1. Sales Recruitment

Strategy — We want to develop repeatable evaluation criteria for hiring the right salespeople.
Tactics — We will narrow down the specific qualities the company wants out of its salespeople, draft appropriate interview questions to shed light on those qualities, and train recruiters to conduct interviews based on those key tenets.

2. Smarketing

Strategy — We want to improve sales and marketing alignment.
Tactics — We will clearly define the qualities of an SQL so that marketing can fous their efforts on those, encourage collaboration between departments on the creation of sales content, and hold interdepartmental retrospectives after each marketing campaign.

3. Technological Infrastructure

Strategy — We want to build a more sound, technological foundation for our sales operations.
Tactics — We will adopt a CRM, incorporate a conversational intelligence tool for improving sales calls, and make virtual sales enablement resources available to our reps.

Taken together, the strategies and tactics a sales organization employs — like the ones listed above — comprise what are known as sales plans.

Sales Plans

A sales plan encompasses both strategic and tactical planning and contributes to an organization's overarching sales strategy . It outlines the broad goals your sales team and reps should strive for, and it creates an action plan to reach them.

The strategic plan sheds light on the mission, objectives, and future goals of the organization or individual. Managers, VPs, and executives typically create strategic plans for an organization, but this type of plan can also be used by individuals to achieve personal or professional goals.

These are the key components to include in a strategic plan:

Mission and background of the business or situation: Where do you currently stand? And where do you want to be in the future?
Goals and objectives: What would you like to achieve?
DRIs (directly responsible individuals): Who are the people responsible for these goals?

Strategic planning and tactical planning provide guidelines for businesses, teams, and individuals to follow. And the tactical plan outlines exactly how they'll achieve the final result.

Strategic Goals vs. Tactical Goals

A major part of planning, whether it’s strategic or tactical, is setting goals. You should actually set goals for both your strategic planning and your tactical planning. Having those objectives clearly laid out helps push your plans into direct action. Your strategic goals should be broader while your tactical ones should be more specific.

For example, a strategic goal may be to develop a company culture that encourages growth and retention. A tactical goal may be to survey all existing employees to gain information on why they weren’t retained. If your tactical planning and your strategic planning are related, then the goals for each should also have a connection between them.

Strategic Planning

A strategy is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time.” So, strategic planning is meant to achieve something for the bigger picture.

Tactical planning includes the immediate actions that feed into the larger purpose outlined by a strategy. These plans are carried out in the long term and incorporate big, impactful changes. There are nine strategic planning models your business can use as a starting point.

South Dakota Mines strategic plan with vision and mission statements in blue and white.

Strategic Planning Examples

IT company's strategic business initiatives in blue, orange, and white

Since tactical planning is more direct, it’s often more specific to your team or business. Strategic plans, however, are often broad enough to be applied to a whole niche or industry. For instance, strategic planning for sales could involve some similar goals across different companies, but their tactical plans may be unique. Here are a few examples of strategic plans that could apply to different businesses.

Acquire 50% more clients by the end of the year.
Improve SEO rankings by 20%.
Expand the customer service team where satisfaction is lacking.

Tactical Planning

Tactical planning occurs after a business, team, or individual has created a strategic plan that outlines general goals and objectives. A tactical plan describes the steps and actions that must be taken to achieve the goals from the strategic plan.

Once you've created your strategic plan, it's time to determine the tactics you'll use to reach your goals. This is where the tactical plan comes into play.

It's used to outline the steps a business or individual will need to take to accomplish the priorities that have been set. Here are a few things to consider when developing your tactical plan:

What is the timeline for achieving these goals?
Are there tools or resources that are necessary to accomplish these objectives?
What specific actions should be taken to achieve the intended outcome?

Your tactical plan will provide the answers to these questions to help you meet the objectives of the strategic plan.

So, what do strategic and tactical planning look like in practice?

Tactical Planning Examples

While strategic and tactical plans can vary by company or industry, there are some that can apply to many sales organizations and teams.

Here are a few examples that are common for sales teams and reps. The strategic plans are numbered, and the tactical plans are outlined below.

1. Fill my pipeline with more leads over the next two weeks.

Spend an hour prospecting each day.
Leverage social selling, and join five LinkedIn Groups that your prospects belong to.
Attend an industry networking event.

2. Close more enterprise deals each month.

Enroll reps in a hands-on training session in your Enterprise product offerings.
Set a goal for each rep to schedule at least three demos with enterprise-level prospects this quarter.
Create an incentive for those that close the most Enterprise deals in the month.

3. Hire 20 more entry-level sales representatives by the end of Q1.

Create a hiring profile that candidates should meet.
Develop a LinkedIn outreach campaign to find and attract new talent.
Attend career fairs at 15 local universities.

Your Business Needs Both Strategic and Tactical Planning

There is a purpose to both strategic and tactical planning. Each moves your business’ progress closer to larger goals and objectives. With a solid strategic plan and a detailed tactical plan, you'll be well-equipped to grow your business.

Editor's note: This post was originally published on February 28, 2019, and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Tactical planning: what, when, and why.

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When facing a business challenge, entrepreneurs can approach the given situation in many ways – and that’s where tactical planning is the most valuable.

Sometimes making a quick decision is necessary. Suppose you run an eCommerce business that provides customized corporate gifts. All of a sudden, your primary supplier of packaging materials closes.

You can’t deliver customized corporate gifts if you’re out of packaging materials or your stock runs low. Accordingly, your supply manager needs to make a quick business decision — find a new supplier in a matter of days (if not hours), so the business can proceed as usual.

Creating a tactical plan and carefully thinking through your next steps is often a better problem-solving approach. Tactical planning means having a written outline of your actions to achieve a goal or address a problem.

So, if we go back to the example where you suddenly face a substantial business-related problem, you know what to do the moment the issue occurs – all because you already have a plan in place.

This could mean your supply manager has several backup suppliers lined up, or you change how you deliver your product.

Whatever the case, the big picture is that you know what to do and how to act when an unexpected situation occurs.

Tactical planning is a crucial element in business, and it differs from strategic and operational planning methods in many ways. The process happens in real-time, pursuing short-term outcomes and solutions.

Having a tactical methodology in place enables your business to make nimble maneuvers and excel within a respective market.

Below, we explain this advanced thinking technique, how it differs from strategic planning, what tactical plans entail, and everything else you need to know to enhance your business operations.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat - Predictable Profits

What is Tactical Planning?

Tactical planning entails systematically determining and scheduling all activities required to achieve strategic planning objectives. Such plans are typically shorter than strategic goals, and independent departments usually execute this type of preparation.

As a rule, tactics are usually flexible. This contrasts with strategic plans, which, when they fail, can do great harm to a company. Tactical plans are changeable and do minor damage to the organization if things go wrong.

If the strategic plan is for five years, then the tactical plan may be for one year. The exact time depends on the type of business and the required pace of change. Strategic plans are also different from operational plans because tasks are usually carried out by small teams, which then contribute to a company’s overall strategic and tactical objectives.

Again, the main characteristic of tactical plans is flexibility. These plans should adapt to the changing needs – and emergencies or contingencies – faced by a company.

For instance, if a company is a manufacturer of motorcycles and the CEO makes it a top strategy to increase production in the upcoming year, tactical plans are required for each manufacturing plant. These plans should accommodate uncertainties like cuts in supplies, machinery failure, a strike by employees, etc.

Strategic vs. Tactical Planning

Some 2,500 years ago, the famous Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of War,” one of the world’s most influential books on military strategy. He states, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

In war and business, strategy and tactics are not at odds with one another– they’re on the same team.

When we talk about strategic versus tactical planning, here’s how we define these two nouns in terms of business:

Strategy determines your long-term goals and how you plan to achieve them. Put differently; your strategy gives you the path toward achieving your company’s goals and missions. Some of the principal characteristics of the strategic planning process are:

Usually long-term – 3-5 years out
Broad goals and tasks
Represent the “why” behind your work
Stable and don’t change much

Tactics are more concrete than strategy and are often oriented toward smaller steps and shorter time frames. They involve resources, specific plans, best practices, and more.

These plans break up the goals you set in your strategic management objectives into workable tasks.

Involve short-term goals – 1-2 years
Bring narrow and focused goals.
Explain how you’re going to reach the strategic plan goals
Can be changed and modified quickly

Goal, Objective, Strategy, Tactic: What’s The Difference?

While we’re on the topic of differentiation, let’s briefly discuss these four commonly interchanged terms in media and marketing: goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A goal is a broad primary outcome. Goals are high-level descriptors of the outcome you wish to create.
An objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a strategy. These specific outcomes define your goal, often described in specific quantitative measures.
A strategy is a high-level approach you take to achieve a goal.
A tactic is a tool you use in pursuing an objective associated with a strategy. These are specific actions you will take to achieve your goals.

To help make things clear, let’s throw in an example from Forbes :

Goal: “Make our Core PC microprocessors a category leader in sales revenue by year X.”
Objective: “ Retain 70 percent or more of the active worldwide PC microprocessor market, according to Passmark’s CPU benchmark report.”
Strategy: “ Persuade buyers that our Core processors are the best on the market by associating with large, well-established PC manufacturers.”
Tactic: “Through creative that underlies our messaging, we will leverage hardware partner brand awareness to include key messages about the Intel Inside program.”

How to Create a Tactical Plan

Next, let’s go through the steps of creating an actionable tactical plan that helps your company achieve its business goals.

Pay Attention to Your Company’s Vision

Since tactical plans are more or less based on strategic business plans, employees need to understand your company’s overall vision and goals. As soon as they recognize the “big picture,” and how their respective roles contributes to accomplishing this vision, they’re more likely to work harder. Use your plan to encourage your employees to contribute new ideas that can save your company time and money.

Set Goals and Objectives

The best tactical plans are founded on measurable objectives. Consider your workforce’s current workload and productivity level before prioritizing your goals based on what your organization needs most. Here are a couple of examples:

Decrease churn rates by 5% in the next six months
Create five original video ads per week
Get 50 people to leave honest reviews on your website

Note that these short-term goals may change depending on the results of your team’s efforts and other factors.

Assign Actions to Objectives

To help your employees achieve your tactical planning objectives, it’s wise to assign concrete actions to each goal. After all, easy-to-follow actions can eliminate the risk of confusion.

For instance, if your objective is to decrease your company’s churn rates by 5% in the next six months, you need to take specific steps to make it happen. You may begin by asking ex-clients for feedback so you can gain valuable insight for building your objective.

Establish KPIs

Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) helps employees know when they’re making progress with objectives. You can then evaluate them monthly or quarterly to determine the success of their efforts.

The KPIs you set should depend on your industry and business model. Choose KPIs that support your objectives, or you risk getting irrelevant information.

Examples of KPIs include profit, cost of goods sold, sales by region, customer satisfaction scores, customer lifetime value , quality assurance, and so on.

Make Use of Tools and Resources

For your team to accomplish tactical goals, they must have access to adequate tools and resources. As you develop your tactical planning, note what you need and deliver those tools and resources to your employees as soon as possible. Your team may need access to specific software, platforms, or even training to better understand your plan’s concept.

Assign Work to Specific People

Specific departments follow through with objectives better when they know who’s responsible for each task. While you create your tactical plans, delegate work to the most qualified people to get the job done. Even if many people are involved with a single task, it’s essential to stay clear about each person’s responsibilities.

Allow and Embrace Flexibility

You will always run into variables that hinder your team’s progress. For this reason, we recommend building, allowing, and embracing flexibility into your plan. You can think of it as a backup plan that permits changes to your methods or simply gives you more time.

When developing a tactical plan, do only what works best for your specific business needs. Each company has a unique story with different goals, employees, and resources. At the end of the day, what works for one company may not work for another.

Final Thoughts

Setting suitable objectives and identifying strategies or opportunities are vital to growing a business. Nevertheless, you need to turn your ideas into actions if you want to achieve your end goals.

Tactical planning builds on your expertise and research to let you make educated decisions about your business. With a tactical plan in place, you’ll know which assignments you can appoint to your employees and what needs to be done to reach your business goals.

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Strategic vs. tactical planning

Whether you need to create a new product or service, build and execute a hiring plan, or take on a company rebrand, achieving your goals calls for some serious planning. That’s where strategic and tactical planning come in. While strategic planning involves big-picture thinking, tactical planning covers the nitty-gritty of turning strategy into action.

Read on to learn more about:

What a strategic plan is and how you can benefit from one
What a tactical plan is and key benefits of tactical planning
The difference between tactical and strategic planning

What is a strategic plan?

Companies create a strategic plan to lock in long-term business objectives and goals. An effective strategic plan outlines the actions needed to reach specific goals. Once completed, it’s a useful tool to communicate a company’s overall direction to the wider organization.

A strategic plan answers such key questions as:

What’s the state of your business, product, or service? What goes into running and turning a profit on your business in the current landscape?
Where do you want your business, product, or service to go? Where do you see your business in three to five years?
What does your organization have to do to achieve this? Which teams, what timelines, and what budgets are necessary?

Strategic planning doesn't have to be hard

FigJam's free strategic planning templates make it easy to get started. Get started today.

Benefits of successful strategic planning

Effective strategic planning is an ongoing process that:

Gives clear direction , aligning all team members and key stakeholders around the same objectives and goals.
Curbs subjective decision-making by using data and diverse points of view to inform and validate the strategic plan.
Allows teams to gauge and improve performance , adjusting strategies to succeed in an ever-changing economy.

Strategic planning in 6 steps

Strategic planning typically spans six steps:

Market assessment. Analyze top competitors, customer demand, supply-chain issues, and regulatory trends.
SWOT analysis. Pinpoint your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the marketplace. FigJam's SWOT analysis template helps you identify them.
Mission and vision definition. Upper-level management and key stakeholders align the mission and vision with a SWOT analysis. Use FigJam’s template to define or redefine your mission and vision .
High-level goal-setting. Leadership identifies overall business goals related to the mission and vision.
Team-level objectives. Teams come up with objectives to hit the high-level goals.
Resourcing. Hammer out overall requirements for financing, staffing, and other resources, such as technology investments.

What is a tactical plan?

A tactical plan is a roadmap that breaks down your long-term strategic plan into smaller, actionable steps — including daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and deadlines to help you meet key milestones. Tactical planning fills in the practical details of your day-to-day business operations, outlining who specifically is on the hook for each task or set of tasks.

Benefits of effective tactical planning

A thorough tactical plan can:

Make it easier to achieve strategic goals by translating a lofty strategic plan into specific, easy-to-understand tasks.
Boost employee engagement and performance by assigning clear roles and responsibilities.
Keep teams on the right track , supporting the company’s mission and vision.

5 tactical planning basics

Tactical planning typically includes five key activities:

Strategy validation. Map all the steps in a tactical plan to your strategic goal.
Planning. Project managers work with team leaders to divvy up the plan into shorter phases. FigJam’s Gantt chart maker can help you plot out your plan.
Assignments. Tap the right teams and team members for each task.
Resource allocation. Assign budgeted strategic plan resources to teams and individuals to get the work done.
KPI definition. Key stakeholders come up with KPIs (key performance indicators) to monitor progress against short-term objectives.

Differences between tactical and strategic planning at a glance

Strategic planning is:

Big-picture. High level and conceptual by nature, strategic planning defines ways to deliver on the company mission and vision.
Long-term. Companies set up three- to five-year strategic goals, sometimes extending plans to 10 years.
Top down. Planning starts from the top. Upper management leads on strategy, pulling in key stakeholders along the way.
External- and internal-facing. A good strategic plan relies on a solid understanding of both external market forces and internal operations.

Tactical planning is:

Detailed. Tactical planning focuses on the specific day-to-day actions that drive business strategy.
Short-term. A tactical plan includes short-term objectives and goals, covering a couple months to a year.
Bottom up. Managers set tactical goals that teams execute on to support overall strategic goals.
Internal-facing. Tactical planning is all about organizing internal teams so that they can meet deadlines and milestones.

Start planning your strategy and tactics with FigJam

Fire up your strategic and tactical brainstorm sessions using FigJam’s online collaborative whiteboard and ready-made templates . Then start building out your plans:

To nail down strategy , FigJam’s strategic plan template helps you outline essentials. Then you can refine plans with FigJam’s library of strategic planning templates .
To map tactics , use FigJam’s work plan , SMART goals , and KPI dashboard templates—and hit the ground running.
To get everyone on board with your plans , check out these best practices on collaborating in FigJam .

Go to next section

[1] https://balancedscorecard.org/strategic-planning-basics/

[2] https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/why-is-strategic-planning-important

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgedeeb/2018/12/04/the-top-6-steps-of-strategic-planning/

[4] https://predictableprofits.com/tactical-planning-what-when-and-why/

[5] https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/tactical-planning

[6] https://leaders.com/articles/executives/tactical-planning/#h-how-to-create-a-tactical-plan

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How to Use a Tactical Business Plan to Reach Goals

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Execution" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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What is a tactical business plan? How can a tactical plan help you turn your business goals into reality?

Identifying your business goals is important, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a plan to execute those goals. In their book Execution, business leaders Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan teach you how to make a tactical plan to bring your business goals to fruition.

Here’s how to create a tactical business plan.

Create Tactical Plans That Work

In this article, you’ll learn how to translate your business strategy into reality using a tactical business plan . We’ll discuss the factors that make a tactical plan work well and the basic steps to follow when putting it together.

The Key Elements of a Tactical Plan

Your tactical business plan specifies both short-term and long-term goals aligned with your strategy and describes how you’re going to reach those targets. Bossidy and Charan explain that it includes the major programs and projects that are lined up for the coming year, such as a new marketing initiative, a product release, or a sales force reconfiguration.

(Shortform note: Whereas Bossidy and Charan speak of tactical plans generally, some people distinguish between two main types of tactical plans . A single-use plan is designed for a special project that’s not likely to be repeated, whereas a standing plan is used multiple times for projects that occur regularly.)

There is no strict formula for creating a tactical plan. It requires deep engagement, rigorous truth-telling, critical thinking, and much give-and-take between team members . That said, the general flow in creating your tactical plan, according to Bossidy and Charan, is fairly straightforward. Implement the following steps to create a plan that is ambitious and realistic—and that facilitates learning and relationship-building with key players in your company:

Step #1 : Give leaders from each segment of the company the big-picture targets (for example, revenue and operating margin). Then, let each leader develop a tactical plan for their particular division to help the company reach those targets.

Step #2 : Convene everyone to stress-test the assumptions built into each plan . For example, if you increase prices, will it turn customers away? Is demand for this product merely a short-term trend, or is it worth additional investment? The authors instruct that you—as the leader—must engage everyone by asking pointed questions to determine what’s most likely to produce the intended outcomes.

Step #3 : Revisit and adjust plans based on how they fit with every other part of the company. Bossidy and Charan explain that everyone must constantly assess what give-and-take is necessary in the pursuit of big-picture goals. Devoting attention and resources to one opportunity or business unit inevitably comes at the expense of another. For instance, if you allocate additional resources to your European market, then you need to cut expenses elsewhere. Does it make more sense to do that in your North American market or your Asian market? After this vigorous back-and-forth discussion among the key players, the basic tactical plan is set.

(Shortform note: Although some give-and-take is inevitable when creating a tactical plan, as when a company must choose how to allocate limited financial resources, recent developments have made some trade-offs less significant . For example, Just-in-Time production—a method in which a company produces just enough goods, precisely when customers require them—can help reduce lead times while also sustaining high quality, thereby reducing the usual trade-off between efficiency and quality.)

Step #4 : Identify contingency plans that can accommodate shifting circumstances . For example, if the European market goes cold, you’ll need to make up that anticipated revenue another way. Where will it come from? Robust contingency plans, Bossidy and Charan contend, can accelerate decision making and help you avoid costly delays.

Step #5 : Wrap up discussion and secure commitments from everyone to ensure alignment with the tactical business plan.

Step #6 : Follow up after the meeting with the key players, just as with the strategic plan. The authors recommend sending a memo that summarizes each person’s commitments and short-term benchmarks.

Step #7 : Assess progress toward those benchmarks at quarterly review meetings .

———End of Preview———

Like what you just read read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of larry bossidy and ram charan's "execution" at shortform ..

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What execution in business is and why it matters
The three core functions that leaders must perform to execute well
The three important qualities leaders must have to execute well
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Hannah Aster

Hannah graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English and double minors in Professional Writing and Creative Writing. She grew up reading books like Harry Potter and His Dark Materials and has always carried a passion for fiction. However, Hannah transitioned to non-fiction writing when she started her travel website in 2018 and now enjoys sharing travel guides and trying to inspire others to see the world.

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One thought on “ how to use a tactical business plan to reach goals ”.

Hey there, Shortform Blog team! 👋 I just finished reading your article on creating a tactical business plan, and I must say, it’s an absolute gem for entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts like myself. Your concise yet comprehensive guide provided practical insights that are crucial for anyone looking to develop a solid roadmap for their business.

I really appreciate how you emphasized the importance of aligning strategy with action. Your step-by-step breakdown of the tactical business planning process was incredibly helpful in understanding how to translate high-level goals into actionable tasks. From defining objectives and identifying key initiatives to setting clear timelines and assigning responsibilities, your article covered all the essential elements of a well-structured business plan.

Furthermore, your emphasis on adaptability and flexibility was spot on. In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, being able to adjust and pivot is essential for long-term success. Your tips on regularly reviewing and revising the tactical plan to accommodate new information and market dynamics were invaluable. It’s clear that you understand the need for businesses to be agile and responsive in order to thrive.

Thank you for providing such valuable guidance on creating a tactical business plan. Your expertise and insights are highly appreciated, and I’m confident that many readers, myself included, will benefit greatly from your advice. Keep up the fantastic work, and I’m excited to explore more of your content in the future!

Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: Which One is Better?

At a business meeting, management has set an ambitious goal of new sales to hit by the end of the year. The salespeople are excited, and company leadership is eager for their organization to achieve new heights. The question remains: How will they reach this new goal? That’s the dilemma many organizations struggle with as they seek to grow their businesses. Anyone can set goals and objectives, but achieving them is another matter. Planning your strategy and tactics is essential. Knowing the difference between tactical vs. strategic planning is often the difference between succeeding or failing to reach those goals.

What is a Strategic Plan?

What is a tactical plan, what is the difference between strategy and tactics, examples of strategic and tactical planning, how to create a strategic plan, how to create a tactical plan, be both a strategic and tactical leader.

Few people doubt the importance of planning ahead before tackling any project. A study published in the Journal of Business Venturing found that planning impacts a business’s overall performance in a positive way. A business plan helps companies grow as well. Research has found that organizations that plan grow up to 30 percent faster. For this reason, businesses need to prepare in advance to remain competitive and successful. Recognizing where strategic and tactical business planning come into play makes a difference. In this article, find out the difference between strategy and tactics and how to create each type of plan.

Key Takeaways

Strategy and tactics are key aspects of business planning.
Strategic planning is the process of mapping out what a business wants to achieve in the long term.
A tactical plan describes how the business will achieve its strategic goals.

A strategic plan explains what organizations want to achieve by looking at the big picture to set goals. The strategy businesses adopt maps out the long-term plans they intend to follow. This can also apply to individuals seeking career advancement and professional development. Strategic planning for this purpose outlines the overall goals, identifying the destination you want to reach in the future.

A tactical plan describes how a business will accomplish its goals. Tactical plans focus on the steps, tasks, and specific actions needed to achieve goals set by the established strategic plan. In this way, the tactical business planning process emphasizes short-term measures that contribute to a larger business strategy. Whether used for corporate planning, team planning, or individual plans, this type of planning is necessary for following through on strategic objectives.

Strategic planning represents the long-term view of an organization. Strategic plans mainly deal with broad goals and objectives. Many strategic plans have time frames of months or even years. They also involve looking at what resources the company has available and what kind of people can tackle the project.

The tactical planning process, on the other hand, is far more specific than strategic planning. Much of the time, tactical planning looks at the day-to-day activities required for reaching broader objectives. A tactical plan should consist of milestones and deadlines that help companies know if they’re on track with their strategic plans. This type of planning also emphasizes execution, ensuring that things don’t just get done but done well.

With those differences in mind, let’s take a look at some examples that highlight how strategic and tactical planning work. A strategic plan might say something along the lines of “recruit highly skilled individuals to form a capable and talented team.” That’s a goal with some broad strokes, but a tactical plan will get into the specifics. In this instance, tactical or corporate planning would include steps such as conducting surveys of current employees to find out what they like and don’t like about their jobs. It may also include attending job fairs, creating effective exit interviews to figure out why some talented people leave the company or developing a training program to improve leadership skills . All of these tactical steps will contribute to the strategic plan.

Here’s how strategic and tactical planning might appear, with the strategic plan listed on top and the tactical plans shown underneath:

Goal: Double sales by the end of next year.
Hire ten new salespeople before the end of the current quarter.
Create and send out client surveys to determine where the company can improve.
Adopt new CRM software to handle an increased workload.
Reach out to past clients to find out why they left and if they have an interest in returning.

That’s just a brief example of how strategic and tactical planning might look. Leaders can also write each part of the tactical plan in smaller steps if that’s what the company wants. The more details worked into the plan, the easier it will be to follow and measure progress.

1. Identify a Big Picture Goal

What ultimate destination do you want to end up at? That’s the question every business and individual must ask when making a strategic plan. Do you want your company to become the leader in their industry? Do you want to head up a new innovative company? The big picture goal should be lofty and aspirational, even if it’s not too specific.

2. Evaluate Your Current Position

Take the time to look closely at where the company is now. Try using SWOT analysis, which is a strategic planning tool that analyzes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For example, ask questions like:

How does the business compare to competitors?
What recent successes has it had?
Where has it failed in the past?

By evaluating your current position, you can get a good idea of how much distance the company must cover to reach its long-term goals. If the distance is short, then maybe the goal isn’t big enough.

3. Align Goal With Company Values

Whatever goal companies choose, they must make sure it aligns with their values. Every organization should have a mission statement , so a goal that runs contrary to that mission statement should be thrown out. Take your values and convictions into account as you are strategic planning, as they can often inform you if the destination you’ve identified is actually where you want to end up.

4. Determine How to Monitor Progress

The goal set by the organization is likely many months or years into the future. Progress may appear slow at times. Because of this, determine early on how you should measure that progress. For example, with a marketing plan, what would you like to see six months from now? Where should sales be by the end of the quarter? By doing this, you’ll know if you need to course-correct before you’ve gone too far off the path.

1. Keep Strategic Goals in Mind

Strategic planning provides the destination and general outline of what the company wants to achieve. Create every piece of the tactical plan with that overall goal in mind. Operational planning like this gets into the nitty-gritty details, so it’s easy to become bogged down in unnecessary information. Note why each step of the tactical plan exists, and if it doesn’t make progress toward the goal, eliminate it.

2. Divide the Plan

When you know your ultimate destination and the approximate time frame needed to reach it, break up that goal into individual steps. Start with where you want to arrive at the end of each month, then each week, and then each day. These steps represent your progress and help teams keep track of where they are. Breaking up larger projects like this enables you to visualize how you’ll reach long-term goals.

3. Organize Teams

Once all the steps of the tactical plan have been established, note how many teams you need to achieve success. Then organize those teams to handle the different elements of the tactical plan. When engaging in corporate planning like this, you should have a good idea of what kind of expertise you have on staff. Based on the skills of the available personnel, you can determine where to place each person, so they have the best chance at success.

4. Determine Resource Allocation

At the same time, companies can also divide up the available resources, so each team has what they need to succeed. Everyone should know that these resources aren’t limitless, so make sure to explain why they get the amount you’ve allocated. This step can involve difficult choices, but with a firm tactical plan in mind, you’ll have a good idea of where your resources need to go.

5. Measure Progress

Determine how to measure progress for a tactical plan. Measuring progress for this plan will happen more frequently, such as at the end of each day or week. Determine how well you and each team did during the day and see if you need to make any changes to keep on schedule. If changes need to be made, make sure they address the problems you encounter most often.

Focusing too much on one side of strategy or tactics will lead to frustration and failure in operational planning. The best practices in a business involve both strategy and tactics. As you lead others, note the importance of having both strategic and tactical plans at the ready. Aim high with your strategies, and pinpoint the details with your tactics. The best leaders will use both to take their organizations to where they want to go. The result will be a company that experiences business growth and success.

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Transformational Leadership: Inspiring Positive Change

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Search Leaders.com

Tactical Planning: Meaning And Examples

Tactical planning is an important management concept. Decision-making can become more cohesive and effective by learning more about tactical planning,…

Tactical planning is an important management concept. Decision-making can become more cohesive and effective by learning more about tactical planning, reading case studies and adopting best practices. In this article, we will explore the basics of tactical planning and the impact it has on the performance of individuals as well as organizations.

What Is Tactical Planning?

Benefits and importance of tactical planning, how to make tactical planning successful, confluence of strategy, tactical and operations planning, what is tactical planning .

How do organizations fulfill their long-term goals? They break up the master plan into shorter ones.

Tactical planning is the strategy by which specific short-term tasks are defined and executed. All types of entities adopt it, be they businesses, non-profits or government organizations.

Tactical planning is one of three planning functions usually performed in an organization. These are strategic, tactical and operational. In this blog, we will explore the meaning of tactical planning and see some examples of tactical planning . However, because all these strategies work toward a common goal, we must briefly understand all three kinds of planning.

Many people are involved in running a business. Senior management, middle management and workers want their responsibilities defined to do their job well. Whether setting sales targets for the year or awarding performance incentives for executives, decision-making is required at all levels and functions. Broadly, there are three areas in which decisions are made: strategic, tactical and operational.

To better understand the scope of tactical planning, we need to understand all planning functions.

Strategic Planning

Founders, CEOs, CXOs, investors and strategy consultants make the organization’s most crucial decisions. These concern investing, mergers and acquisitions, values, annual targets, product launches, hiring budgets and so on.

An example of strategic planning is WhatsApp Payments, which was launched as a competitor to various other payment apps. While the workforce could be divided over whether to start such a service or not, the ultimate decision rests only with the founder and the core team. This kind of decision, which is to be taken only by the higher-ups, is a strategic planning decision.

Operations Planning

Accounts, taxation, office timings, attendance, office administration are critical for an organization’s success. These are operational decisions in which investors and strategy consultants don’t usually get involved. These are day-to-day activities without too much scope for decision-making that would impact the organization’s vision.

An operational planning decision is how desks will be allotted to those who join a Facebook India office. The founder of the organization may not visit this office, and even the regional head would probably not have time to arrange chairs. So, this work is allocated to those who lead operations.

Tactical Planning

What is tactical planning ? COOs, vice-presidents and senior managers decide monthly sales targets, hire sales executives or programmers and address business development leads. Founders and CEOs impact this process by finalizing key annual targets and resource allocations and assigning responsibilities for each tactical task.

An example of tactical planning is deciding how many Indian users should be encouraged to adopt WhatsApp Payments for the country office to meet the annual target set for them. Tactical planning will implement the vision that has been created by strategic planning. Tactical planning will split the annual goals into monthly and daily goals. Tactical planning will create a reporting system to monitor these targets on a daily basis and address any deviation from them. They will decide how to incentivize users to begin using it within limits set by strategic planners.

There are many reasons why tactical planning is important:

Delegation: A founder or a CEO can’t do all the work. No matter how dynamic or competent, they have to delegate tasks. After setting the year’s strategic goals, an organization head can let the sales director develop their own tactics to meet them. These could include creating monthly targets and hiring salespersons.
Harnessing the workforce’s intelligence: A wise leader would want to tap into the intellectual potential of his team. Jack Ma says he likes to hire people smarter than him. Giving employees the freedom to make some decisions is one way to make the best of their intelligence.
Scalability: Most fast-scaling organizations need the CEO and their core team to work only on strategic vision, long-term goals and big-ticket deals. They let their employees become leaders and give them freedom within a defined goal to execute plans. This is a common scenario in start-ups. In fact, scalability should be one of the main incentives for a CEO to develop a strong tactical management process.
Quick response: Private equity and investment banking organizations usually have small teams working closely. There isn’t much need to delegate decision-making. However, if the business is big, such as an FMCG, everyone must act fast to capture short-term opportunities. The same goes for e-commerce. If one website discounts a product, others must respond quickly to stay in the competition. This is a tactical planning decision, where you can’t wait for a nod from the promoter/founder.
Flexibility: Tactical planning allows all the cogs to move smoothly because management doesn’t control all decisions. Many corporate houses are slow to respond to situations because of weak tactical planning processes and concentration of decisions into the management’s hands.
Better for CEO’s mental health: A CEO or a founder’s life can be very stressful. Breaks are few and far between. However, those who allow employees some autonomy tend to stay more relaxed. Smart CEOs provide a strategic direction to the organization and form a sound tactical management system so that they have adequate time in hand to focus on the larger picture.
Grooming proteges for strategic roles: Many organizations identify top performers and accelerate their growth in the firm. Tactical planning and execution responsibilities are a good test of an employee’s competence and a learning experience for them. Proteges are expected to learn by managing annual and monthly targets before they’re allowed to set the strategic vision of the organization.

As we’ve established, there are many reasons that show why tactical planning is important. Now, let’s move on to effectively execute tactical planning.

Tactical planning in management is deeply important for the successful execution of the organization’s goals. Now that we’ve understood the meaning of tactical planning , let’s see how we can make it successful:

Resources: Your teams will need adequate resources to carry out their tactical plans. Ensure that you’ve allocated enough resources for tactical planning decisions. For example, if a life insurance company has set an annual sales target, it has to make sure that there is adequate budget to hire the workforce necessary to reach the target and give the team enough office space to work.
Hiring smart: You can’t expect good tactical planning from freshers. But you can’t only hire seasoned executives. When hiring a young team, assess their tactical planning potential. Including a test that gauges the planning aptitude of an employee in the hiring process can be a possible solution.
Motivate and inspire: While a founder or a CEO may be driven by a corporate vision, those who work below such ranks have different motivations in life. Persons in strategic positions should motivate and inspire those undertaking tactical tasks. Most global corporations have bonuses, promotions and rewards awaiting those who complete their tasks.
Timelines : When the strategic heads and tactical planners sit together, they should mutually decide timelines for various goals and tasks. This allows the team dealing with tactical implementation to deliver on goals and timelines. The strategic vision has to be broken down into several small parts, each with a timeline. An annual sales target has to be split into weekly and monthly targets.

Keeping these points in mind will help you implement tactical planning in the best way possible.

After viewing these examples of tactical planning , are you wondering how different forms of planning come together? These three forms do merge and overlap. Each of them is vitally important in the success of an organization. So is the coordination among them.

A product development activity going on as per tactical planning could be of strategic interest.

In times of a pandemic, operations might call for a strategic response. How education will transition from the offline to online mode is a strategic decision. How students interact with faculty and one another—usually a tactical decision—became a strategic one.

Going back to the WhatsApp Payments example, the number of users to be acquired in a year will be a strategic decision in a start-up. How social media is used to reach that target will involve tactical planning. Operations planning will handle the everyday social media posts.

Good talent exists at all levels of an organization. It’s a common occurrence that while the strategy team may underperform, the tactical management keeps the organization ahead in the market. For example, an organization may flounder on innovation and new product launches, but the sales force may do an exceptional job of selling existing products and, thereby, make up for the lack of innovative thinking at the top. Thus, leaders at all levels within an organization can make a difference.

As an organization grows, it can rely on some successful tactical planning processes to achieve better results. Several business leaders want to delegate their decision-making. However, they are unable to do so because of a lack of knowledge. Understanding delegation better can substantially help a business leader scale-up their ambitions. There is much to gain for students, working professionals, founders and business leaders by understanding planning processes thoroughly. Harappa’s Creating Solutions course will help you make the best decisions for your business, and also teach you how to delegate and build stronger teams.

Tactical vs Strategic Planning: Benefits, Examples, & Templates

Some links included here may be affiliate links, meaning we may earn a small monetary bonus from referring you to them. In no way does this increase the price you pay.

Today’s Business Task: Create a tactical plan that helps keep you on track towards reach that SMART business goal ( and yes, I have templates for you) .

Tactical Planning Template

Grab the template for this tactical planning exercise so you can build this as you go through the post.

Tactical Planning vs Strategic Planning

This was one of the most important pieces I learned during a business class I took recently. It’s part of the business model canvas ( which I recommend looking into after you understand this ) and something I currently have hanging on my wall.

Before we dive into building this thing, we need to understand what a tactical plan is.

This sounds like an uber-boring topic, eh? Once you get the hang of it, you won’t think that anymore. This is really powerful stuff for business owners.

Here is how Business Dictionary explains these two:

Strategic planning is a ”systematic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.”

Tactical planning is “a systematic determination and scheduling of the immediate or short-term activities required in achieving the objectives of strategic planning.”

Now that we got the very technical definitions out of the way, here is how I think of these two:

Strategic planning is figuring out what you want the future to look like, and breaking that into goals. If you want to grow a business that brings in 3 million in revenue, what business goals do you need to accomplish to get there?

Characteristics of a Strategic Plan:

Long-Term – 3-5 years out
Broad Goals
The why behind your work
More stable and don’t change much

Tactical planning is breaking up those goals into workable tasks that we can start scheduling into our task management system and calendar. We take the goals from above and put together specific plans for how to reach those.

Characteristics of a Tactical Plan:

Short-term: 1-2 years
Narrow and focused goals
How you are going to reach the strategic plan goals
These can be changed quickly

The Steps to Tactical Planning

One of the more powerful things I learned was that of a Tactical Improvement Plan, or Tactical implementation plan as I’ve found it’s also called. I like the latter name better, because it reminds you that it’s about getting sh*t done, as opposed to improving.

Either way, this plan consists of 6 pieces:

These are not just any goals, we want to use SMART goals . They are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound, AND include “why” you are working towards them.

Real Life Example:

My first goal for this plan was to “Develop a set of key packages for clients that bundle relative services based off the scope of work by 10/15, in order to increase efficiency of the sales process.”

These are the strategies you are going to be using to achieve the goal above. These tactics are not the actual tasks you’ll accomplish, but the kinds of things you’ll be doing to reach that goal.

Taking the goal above, my tactics were:

Take inventory of everything I’m currently doing and categorize them
Put together a comprehensive packaging of those services
Implement the new packages

These don’t have dates, they aren’t ready to be put in my task management system yet, so let’s move on to the action steps that I’ll need to get these done.

3. Action Steps

As I alluded to above, action steps are specific tasks you can put into your task manager and schedule a date for completion.

Think of this part as building your “to-do list” to make sure you achieve those tactics.

For this tactical plan example, here are the action steps (in bold) for each of the tactics listed above:

Create a list of all services offered (what it is, why it’s done, etc.)
Categorize each service into buckets based on necessity to the core package and type.
Decide on a core package offering that stands alone but is also a lead into upselling other services.
Put together a full breakdown of what’s included in the core package
Determine “tier 2” packages for customers
Come up with an a la carte menu for other add-ons and services
Creates a sales proposition (copy, who it’s for, etc.)
Identify appropriate pricing structure
Add new packages to the website
Reach out to existing clients and put them into a package

4. Resources

Next, we’re going to determine resources needed for each of those tasks, so we know what we’ll need to have in order to start the work.

Resources can include things like financial resources, materials, software, equipment, current employees, new employees, and outsourcing work.

Sometimes, the resource is as simple as your time. For others it might be another person, tools you need to acquire, etc. My resources are in bold below:

Resources Needed: Past client files and proposals
Resources Needed: My time
Resources Needed: Past client files and time
Resources Needed: list of services and time
Resources Needed: time and copywriting help
Resources Needed: computer, time, and research
Resources Needed: computer and time
Resources Needed: computer and phone calls

5. Deadline

Next, we are going to determine a deadline for each of these tasks in the tactical plan. Without the time piece, you’re going to get bogged down in trying to figure out what is due first and when you’re actually going to have this goal done.

6. Person Responsible

The last step is figuring out who you are going to make responsible for each of those steps . This helps us tremendously when we do add each action step to our task manager because we know who to assign it to., and who to follow up with if that part is falling behind.

I’m not going to re-paste my steps here, because all of mine rely solely on me to get them done. If you have a team, please make sure you’re not skipping this step.

I hope you see how helpful taking the time to break down everything into manageable steps can be in reaching your goals. A tactical plan can help you achieve your business goals

You can download this template to use to set your goals and create a full tactical plan.

Tactical Planning - Meaning & Definition

What is tactical planning.

Tactical planning is done for setting short term goals and action plan in order to achieve the long term goals set by the strategic planning in a company. The horizon is hence shorter than the strategic plans and this type of planning is generally executed by independent departments or company functions. Thus the tactical planning is the prerogative of Middle/departmental level managers in an organization.

Tactics are generally flexible in nature according to the strategy of the company and less risk is associated with the failures of the tactical plans. Unlike the strategic plans which when fail, do great harm to the company, the tactical plans are changeable from time to time and thus do less harm to the company if gone wrong. If the strategic plan of a company is for 5 years then the tactical plan may be for one year or may be for a few months, depending on the type of business and the required pace of change. They are also different from the operational plans which are made by front line managers to show the direction to small teams to contribute towards strategic and tactical objectives of the company.

Flexibility is the main characteristic of the tactical plans. They should be adaptable to the changing needs and emergencies or contingencies faced by a company. Also the market conditions like change in prices, economic slowdowns, changes in interest rates and inflation are common things. Tactics need to be flexible enough to bear these changes.

Example: If a company is a manufacturer of automobiles and company makes a strategy of increasing its production level in the coming year, then it will make tactical plans for each of the manufacturing plants. Now those tactical plans should be able to accommodate the uncertainties like failure of machinery, strike by employees, cut in supplies, electricity failures etc.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Tactical Planning along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team . It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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Artificial intelligence in strategy

Can machines automate strategy development? The short answer is no. However, there are numerous aspects of strategists’ work where AI and advanced analytics tools can already bring enormous value. Yuval Atsmon is a senior partner who leads the new McKinsey Center for Strategy Innovation, which studies ways new technologies can augment the timeless principles of strategy. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, he explains how artificial intelligence is already transforming strategy and what’s on the horizon. This is an edited transcript of the discussion. For more conversations on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform .

Joanna Pachner: What does artificial intelligence mean in the context of strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: When people talk about artificial intelligence, they include everything to do with analytics, automation, and data analysis. Marvin Minsky, the pioneer of artificial intelligence research in the 1960s, talked about AI as a “suitcase word”—a term into which you can stuff whatever you want—and that still seems to be the case. We are comfortable with that because we think companies should use all the capabilities of more traditional analysis while increasing automation in strategy that can free up management or analyst time and, gradually, introducing tools that can augment human thinking.

Joanna Pachner: AI has been embraced by many business functions, but strategy seems to be largely immune to its charms. Why do you think that is?

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Yuval Atsmon: You’re right about the limited adoption. Only 7 percent of respondents to our survey about the use of AI say they use it in strategy or even financial planning, whereas in areas like marketing, supply chain, and service operations, it’s 25 or 30 percent. One reason adoption is lagging is that strategy is one of the most integrative conceptual practices. When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking too far ahead—at AI capabilities that would decide, in place of the business leader, what the right strategy is. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy that could significantly improve outcomes.

I like to use the analogy to virtual assistants. Many of us use Alexa or Siri but very few people use these tools to do more than dictate a text message or shut off the lights. We don’t feel comfortable with the technology’s ability to understand the context in more sophisticated applications. AI in strategy is similar: it’s hard for AI to know everything an executive knows, but it can help executives with certain tasks.

When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking too far ahead—at AI deciding the right strategy. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy.

Joanna Pachner: What kind of tasks can AI help strategists execute today?

Yuval Atsmon: We talk about six stages of AI development. The earliest is simple analytics, which we refer to as descriptive intelligence. Companies use dashboards for competitive analysis or to study performance in different parts of the business that are automatically updated. Some have interactive capabilities for refinement and testing.

The second level is diagnostic intelligence, which is the ability to look backward at the business and understand root causes and drivers of performance. The level after that is predictive intelligence: being able to anticipate certain scenarios or options and the value of things in the future based on momentum from the past as well as signals picked in the market. Both diagnostics and prediction are areas that AI can greatly improve today. The tools can augment executives’ analysis and become areas where you develop capabilities. For example, on diagnostic intelligence, you can organize your portfolio into segments to understand granularly where performance is coming from and do it in a much more continuous way than analysts could. You can try 20 different ways in an hour versus deploying one hundred analysts to tackle the problem.

Predictive AI is both more difficult and more risky. Executives shouldn’t fully rely on predictive AI, but it provides another systematic viewpoint in the room. Because strategic decisions have significant consequences, a key consideration is to use AI transparently in the sense of understanding why it is making a certain prediction and what extrapolations it is making from which information. You can then assess if you trust the prediction or not. You can even use AI to track the evolution of the assumptions for that prediction.

Those are the levels available today. The next three levels will take time to develop. There are some early examples of AI advising actions for executives’ consideration that would be value-creating based on the analysis. From there, you go to delegating certain decision authority to AI, with constraints and supervision. Eventually, there is the point where fully autonomous AI analyzes and decides with no human interaction.

Because strategic decisions have significant consequences, you need to understand why AI is making a certain prediction and what extrapolations it’s making from which information.

Joanna Pachner: What kind of businesses or industries could gain the greatest benefits from embracing AI at its current level of sophistication?

Yuval Atsmon: Every business probably has some opportunity to use AI more than it does today. The first thing to look at is the availability of data. Do you have performance data that can be organized in a systematic way? Companies that have deep data on their portfolios down to business line, SKU, inventory, and raw ingredients have the biggest opportunities to use machines to gain granular insights that humans could not.

Companies whose strategies rely on a few big decisions with limited data would get less from AI. Likewise, those facing a lot of volatility and vulnerability to external events would benefit less than companies with controlled and systematic portfolios, although they could deploy AI to better predict those external events and identify what they can and cannot control.

Third, the velocity of decisions matters. Most companies develop strategies every three to five years, which then become annual budgets. If you think about strategy in that way, the role of AI is relatively limited other than potentially accelerating analyses that are inputs into the strategy. However, some companies regularly revisit big decisions they made based on assumptions about the world that may have since changed, affecting the projected ROI of initiatives. Such shifts would affect how you deploy talent and executive time, how you spend money and focus sales efforts, and AI can be valuable in guiding that. The value of AI is even bigger when you can make decisions close to the time of deploying resources, because AI can signal that your previous assumptions have changed from when you made your plan.

Joanna Pachner: Can you provide any examples of companies employing AI to address specific strategic challenges?

Yuval Atsmon: Some of the most innovative users of AI, not coincidentally, are AI- and digital-native companies. Some of these companies have seen massive benefits from AI and have increased its usage in other areas of the business. One mobility player adjusts its financial planning based on pricing patterns it observes in the market. Its business has relatively high flexibility to demand but less so to supply, so the company uses AI to continuously signal back when pricing dynamics are trending in a way that would affect profitability or where demand is rising. This allows the company to quickly react to create more capacity because its profitability is highly sensitive to keeping demand and supply in equilibrium.

Joanna Pachner: Given how quickly things change today, doesn’t AI seem to be more a tactical than a strategic tool, providing time-sensitive input on isolated elements of strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: It’s interesting that you make the distinction between strategic and tactical. Of course, every decision can be broken down into smaller ones, and where AI can be affordably used in strategy today is for building blocks of the strategy. It might feel tactical, but it can make a massive difference. One of the world’s leading investment firms, for example, has started to use AI to scan for certain patterns rather than scanning individual companies directly. AI looks for consumer mobile usage that suggests a company’s technology is catching on quickly, giving the firm an opportunity to invest in that company before others do. That created a significant strategic edge for them, even though the tool itself may be relatively tactical.

Joanna Pachner: McKinsey has written a lot about cognitive biases and social dynamics that can skew decision making. Can AI help with these challenges?

Yuval Atsmon: When we talk to executives about using AI in strategy development, the first reaction we get is, “Those are really big decisions; what if AI gets them wrong?” The first answer is that humans also get them wrong—a lot. [Amos] Tversky, [Daniel] Kahneman, and others have proven that some of those errors are systemic, observable, and predictable. The first thing AI can do is spot situations likely to give rise to biases. For example, imagine that AI is listening in on a strategy session where the CEO proposes something and everyone says “Aye” without debate and discussion. AI could inform the room, “We might have a sunflower bias here,” which could trigger more conversation and remind the CEO that it’s in their own interest to encourage some devil’s advocacy.

We also often see confirmation bias, where people focus their analysis on proving the wisdom of what they already want to do, as opposed to looking for a fact-based reality. Just having AI perform a default analysis that doesn’t aim to satisfy the boss is useful, and the team can then try to understand why that is different than the management hypothesis, triggering a much richer debate.

In terms of social dynamics, agency problems can create conflicts of interest. Every business unit [BU] leader thinks that their BU should get the most resources and will deliver the most value, or at least they feel they should advocate for their business. AI provides a neutral way based on systematic data to manage those debates. It’s also useful for executives with decision authority, since we all know that short-term pressures and the need to make the quarterly and annual numbers lead people to make different decisions on the 31st of December than they do on January 1st or October 1st. Like the story of Ulysses and the sirens, you can use AI to remind you that you wanted something different three months earlier. The CEO still decides; AI can just provide that extra nudge.

Joanna Pachner: It’s like you have Spock next to you, who is dispassionate and purely analytical.

Yuval Atsmon: That is not a bad analogy—for Star Trek fans anyway.

Joanna Pachner: Do you have a favorite application of AI in strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: I have worked a lot on resource allocation, and one of the challenges, which we call the hockey stick phenomenon, is that executives are always overly optimistic about what will happen. They know that resource allocation will inevitably be defined by what you believe about the future, not necessarily by past performance. AI can provide an objective prediction of performance starting from a default momentum case: based on everything that happened in the past and some indicators about the future, what is the forecast of performance if we do nothing? This is before we say, “But I will hire these people and develop this new product and improve my marketing”— things that every executive thinks will help them overdeliver relative to the past. The neutral momentum case, which AI can calculate in a cold, Spock-like manner, can change the dynamics of the resource allocation discussion. It’s a form of predictive intelligence accessible today and while it’s not meant to be definitive, it provides a basis for better decisions.

Joanna Pachner: Do you see access to technology talent as one of the obstacles to the adoption of AI in strategy, especially at large companies?

Yuval Atsmon: I would make a distinction. If you mean machine-learning and data science talent or software engineers who build the digital tools, they are definitely not easy to get. However, companies can increasingly use platforms that provide access to AI tools and require less from individual companies. Also, this domain of strategy is exciting—it’s cutting-edge, so it’s probably easier to get technology talent for that than it might be for manufacturing work.

The bigger challenge, ironically, is finding strategists or people with business expertise to contribute to the effort. You will not solve strategy problems with AI without the involvement of people who understand the customer experience and what you are trying to achieve. Those who know best, like senior executives, don’t have time to be product managers for the AI team. An even bigger constraint is that, in some cases, you are asking people to get involved in an initiative that may make their jobs less important. There could be plenty of opportunities for incorporating AI into existing jobs, but it’s something companies need to reflect on. The best approach may be to create a digital factory where a different team tests and builds AI applications, with oversight from senior stakeholders.

The big challenge is finding strategists to contribute to the AI effort. You are asking people to get involved in an initiative that may make their jobs less important.

Joanna Pachner: Do you think this worry about job security and the potential that AI will automate strategy is realistic?

Yuval Atsmon: The question of whether AI will replace human judgment and put humanity out of its job is a big one that I would leave for other experts.

The pertinent question is shorter-term automation. Because of its complexity, strategy would be one of the later domains to be affected by automation, but we are seeing it in many other domains. However, the trend for more than two hundred years has been that automation creates new jobs, although ones requiring different skills. That doesn’t take away the fear some people have of a machine exposing their mistakes or doing their job better than they do it.

Joanna Pachner: We recently published an article about strategic courage in an age of volatility that talked about three types of edge business leaders need to develop. One of them is an edge in insights. Do you think AI has a role to play in furnishing a proprietary insight edge?

Yuval Atsmon: One of the challenges most strategists face is the overwhelming complexity of the world we operate in—the number of unknowns, the information overload. At one level, it may seem that AI will provide another layer of complexity. In reality, it can be a sharp knife that cuts through some of the clutter. The question to ask is, Can AI simplify my life by giving me sharper, more timely insights more easily?

Joanna Pachner: You have been working in strategy for a long time. What sparked your interest in exploring this intersection of strategy and new technology?

Yuval Atsmon: I have always been intrigued by things at the boundaries of what seems possible. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s second law is that to discover the limits of the possible, you have to venture a little past them into the impossible, and I find that particularly alluring in this arena.

AI in strategy is in very nascent stages but could be very consequential for companies and for the profession. For a top executive, strategic decisions are the biggest way to influence the business, other than maybe building the top team, and it is amazing how little technology is leveraged in that process today. It’s conceivable that competitive advantage will increasingly rest in having executives who know how to apply AI well. In some domains, like investment, that is already happening, and the difference in returns can be staggering. I find helping companies be part of that evolution very exciting.

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4 Common Types of Team Conflict — and How to Resolve Them

Randall S. Peterson,
Priti Pradhan Shah,
Amanda J. Ferguson,
Stephen L. Jones

Advice backed by three decades of research into thousands of team conflicts around the world.

Managers spend 20% of their time on average managing team conflict. Over the past three decades, the authors have studied thousands of team conflicts around the world and have identified four common patterns of team conflict. The first occurs when conflict revolves around a single member of a team (20-25% of team conflicts). The second is when two members of a team disagree (the most common team conflict at 35%). The third is when two subgroups in a team are at odds (20-25%). The fourth is when all members of a team are disagreeing in a whole-team conflict (less than 15%). The authors suggest strategies to tailor a conflict resolution approach for each type, so that managers can address conflict as close to its origin as possible.

If you have ever managed a team or worked on one, you know that conflict within a team is as inevitable as it is distracting. Many managers avoid dealing with conflict in their team where possible, hoping reasonable people can work it out. Despite this, research shows that managers spend upwards of 20% of their time on average managing conflict.

Randall S. Peterson is the academic director of the Leadership Institute and a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. He teaches leadership on the School’s Senior Executive and Accelerated Development Program.
PS Priti Pradhan Shah is a professor in the Department of Work and Organization at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. She teaches negotiation in the School’s Executive Education and MBA Programs.
AF Amanda J. Ferguson is an associate professor of Management at Northern Illinois University. She teaches Organizational Behavior and Leading Teams in the School’s MBA programs.
SJ Stephen L. Jones is an associate professor of Management at the University of Washington Bothell. He teaches Organizational and Strategic Management at the MBA level.

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Putin orders tactical nuclear weapon drills to deter the West

Medium Text

Russian President Putin inspects an exercise to test delivering a massive retaliatory nuclear strike, via a video link from Moscow

Russia to hold military drills
Drills to include tactical nuclear weapon scenario
Russia says move in response to threats from West
Russia and West facing off over Ukraine
Ukraine says Russia is using nuclear blackmail

NUCLEAR RISKS

Editing by Nick Macfie and Sharon Singleton

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Thomson Reuters

As Moscow bureau chief, Guy runs coverage of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Before Moscow, Guy ran Brexit coverage as London bureau chief (2012-2022). On the night of Brexit, his team delivered one of Reuters historic wins - reporting news of Brexit first to the world and the financial markets. Guy graduated from the London School of Economics and started his career as an intern at Bloomberg. He has spent over 14 years covering the former Soviet Union. He speaks fluent Russian.

Aftermath of a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv

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Vietnam's Communist Party has named police minister To Lam as the state president, the government said on Saturday, and also nominated a new head of the parliament in a major leadership reshuffle.

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China's agriculture minister is being investigated for suspected violations of law and discipline, the country's anti-graft watchdog said on Saturday.

IMAGES

Tactical Planning PowerPoint Presentation Slides
What Is Tactical Planning? Definition And Benefits (2023)
What Is Tactical Planning? Definition And Benefits (2023)
Tactical vs Strategic Planning: What’s the Difference?
What is Tactical Planning? Definition, Key Steps, Examples, Process and
The Importance Of Tactical Planning In Business

VIDEO

Integrated Tactical Planning vs Sales & Operations Execution
Q&A #3: Difference Between Strategic, Operational, & Tactical Planning
Strategic and Tactical Planning
Tactical planning
May Newsletter- DEF-OFF TRANSITION-TACTICAL PRINCIPLES
DEVELOPING STRATEGIC PLAN TACTICAL AND OPERATIONAL PLANS

COMMENTS

What is Tactical Planning? Definition, Key Steps, Examples ...
Tactical planning helps organizations bridge the gap between their long-term strategic vision and the day-to-day operations required to achieve their goals. It ensures that specific actions are taken to move the organization forward while allowing for adaptability and responsiveness in a dynamic business environment. Tactical Planning Advantages
Tactical Planning: Creating a Tactical Plan for Your Business
As discussed above, whenever you create a tactical plan for a business department you must make sure that it aligns with the larger strategic plan of your organization. This free strategic plan template for Word is a great tool for gathering the key elements that will help you define the overall direction of your business in the future, such as ...
What Is Tactical Planning? Definition and Benefits
Tactical planning is the step taken after a business or team creates a strategic plan to break that plan into smaller objectives and goals. A tactical plan is used to define goals and determine how they will be achieved through actions and steps. Most tactical plans outline specific steps or actions that will be taken to meet the goals of the ...
Tactical Planning Overview [with Examples]
Since tactical planning is the process of breaking down your strategic plan into distinctive, concrete short-term plans, then that's exactly what you should do: 1. Consider the Overall Vision. Since your tactical plans are influenced heavily by your overall strategic business plans, it's important that you keep these in mind when creating ...
What is Tactical Planning? Definition, Key Steps, Examples, Process and
Planning for Success: A Guide to Tactical Planning in Business. 5. Project. Tactical planning requires one clear timeline to ensuring everyone has clear or aligned expectations. Following deadlines, creating project boundaries, and forming a timeline used all tasks to finish in will provide teams with a solid cadence and clear priorities going ...
Definition of Tactical Planning in Business
The tactical planning process happens in real-time, pursuing short-term outcomes. Having a tactical methodology in place enables the business to make nimble maneuvers to excel within the ...
Planning for Success: A Guide to Tactical Planning in Business
Tactical planning in business involves developing an actionable plan using available resources, while at the same time attempting to minimize the risk levels associated with the different options. Let's break that down. A tactical plan starts by identifying measurable goals or objectives related to specific outcomes (such as increasing revenue ...
How To Create A Tactical Plan To Execute Your Business Strategy
Here are the components of your tactical plan. How To Create A Tactical Plan To Execute Your Business Strategy. DepositPhotos. Objectives. Once you've created your strategic plan, you will have ...
Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: Understanding the Differences
Supports long-term goals. Are broad, general ideas. Is big-picture thinking. Tactical planning: Supports short-term goals. Focuses on specific actions. Involves detailed deliverables. Now that we compared strategic vs. tactical planning, let's look at how you can use both to execute on strategy.
Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: The What, When, & Why
Strategic vs. Tactical Planning. Strategic planning lays out the long-term, broad goals that a business or individual wants to achieve. And tactical planning outlines the short-term steps and actions that should be taken to achieve the goals described in the strategic plan. Your strategic plan provides the general idea of how to reach a goal ...
Setting Tactical Goals: Examples for Your Business
Without clearly defined, measurable goals, you and your team will be unlikely to achieve tactical success. If your goal is to increase profits, you might want to focus on tactics that will help you to: Cut costs. Increase sales. Improve customer retention. Gather new leads. On the other hand, if your goal is to gain market share, you might want ...
Tactical Planning: What, When, and Why » Predictable Profits
Tactical planning is a crucial element in business, and it differs from strategic and operational planning methods in many ways. The process happens in real-time, pursuing short-term outcomes and solutions. Having a tactical methodology in place enables your business to make nimble maneuvers and excel within a respective market.
Strategic vs Tactical Planning
Differences between tactical and strategic planning at a glance. Strategic planning is: Big-picture. High level and conceptual by nature, strategic planning defines ways to deliver on the company mission and vision. Long-term. Companies set up three- to five-year strategic goals, sometimes extending plans to 10 years.
How to Use a Tactical Business Plan to Reach Goals
Step #5: Wrap up discussion and secure commitments from everyone to ensure alignment with the tactical business plan. Step #6: Follow up after the meeting with the key players, just as with the strategic plan. The authors recommend sending a memo that summarizes each person's commitments and short-term benchmarks.
Complete Guide to Tactical Planning (Plus Benefits and FAQs)
Tactical planning is a method of achieving short-term goals and objectives through a clearly defined set of actions. The aim of a tactical plan may be to solve a problem, such as a decrease in customer traffic or to meet a new objective, such as increasing your monthly production of goods. A tactical plan typically has a short-term focus ...
Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: Which One is Better?
Tactical plans focus on the steps, tasks, and specific actions needed to achieve goals set by the established strategic plan. In this way, the tactical business planning process emphasizes short-term measures that contribute to a larger business strategy. Whether used for corporate planning, team planning, or individual plans, this type of ...
Tactical Planning: Meaning And Examples
Tactical planning is the strategy by which specific short-term tasks are defined and executed. All types of entities adopt it, be they businesses, non-profits or government organizations. Tactical planning is one of three planning functions usually performed in an organization. These are strategic, tactical and operational.
Strategic vs Tactical Planning: Definitions and Differences
The differences between strategic and tactical plans. Strategic planning and tactical planning actually complement one another. The main difference is that strategic planning happens first. You need to look at your larger objectives and see what you want to accomplish overall. Then, once you have this outline, you can use tactical planning to ...
Tactical Planning
It works on all levels and helps you to sustain the system in the organization. The advantages and benefits of tactical planning are: It is flexible and can be changed according to the need of time. It acts as a pedestal to achieve long-term goals in the short term. It provides an action plan to the team.
Tactical vs Strategic Planning: Benefits, Examples, & Templates
Strategic planning is a "systematic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.". Tactical planning is "a systematic determination and scheduling of the immediate or short-term activities required in achieving the objectives of ...
Tactical Planning
Tactical planning is done for setting short term goals and action plan in order to achieve the long term goals set by the strategic planning in a company. The horizon is hence shorter than the strategic plans and this type of planning is generally executed by independent departments or company functions. Thus the tactical planning is the prerogative of Middle/departmental level managers in an ...
Tactical Planning
Learn the definition of tactical planning, how it differs from strategic planning, and how to set tactical goals with examples. Updated: 11/21/2023 Table of Contents
AI strategy in business: A guide for executives
We look at how new AI tools can help executives develop a business strategy that uses data insights to avoid biases and make crucial decisions more quickly. ... Only 7 percent of respondents to our survey about the use of AI say they use it in strategy or even financial planning, whereas in areas like marketing, supply chain, and service ...
4 Common Types of Team Conflict
The first occurs when conflict revolves around a single member of a team (20-25% of team conflicts). The second is when two members of a team disagree (the most common team conflict at 35%). The ...
Strategic vs. Tactical Work: Definitions and Differences
Tactical work refers to the tangible and quantifiable tasks you perform daily in your role or organization. Tactical work involves an action that works to generate income or improve business operations. Departments, roles and operations related to finances, production, manufacturing, distribution and customer service qualify as tactical work ...
Putin orders tactical nuclear weapon drills to deter the West
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Tactical Planning: Creating a Tactical Plan for Your Business

What Is Tactical Planning?

Tactical Planning vs. Strategic Planning

Tactical Planning vs. Operational Planning

Benefits of Tactical Planning

Connects All Levels of Management in an Organization

Breaks Down Long-term Strategic Goals Into Actionable, Short-term Projects

Strategic Plan Template

Helps Decision Makers Allocate Organizational Resources Strategically

What Is a Tactical Plan?

SMART Tactical Goals

Action Steps & Projects

Deliverables

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Tactical Planning Example

Strategic Goals

Tactical Plan Action Steps per Department

Production & Procurement

Marketing & Sales

Customer Service

Product development

How ProjectManager Helps You Track Your Tactical Plan

Allocate Resources and Track Resource Utilization

Track Costs With Real Time Dashboards

Related Organizational Planning Content

Deliver your projects on time and on budget

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Definition of Tactical Planning in Business

Examples of Marketing Duties

">Strategy vs. Tactics

Implementing Tactical Planning

Common Tactical Plans

Related Articles

Planning for Success: A Guide to Tactical Planning in Business

What’s the Difference Between Strategy and Tactics?

Strategy: The Big Picture

Tactics: The Nitty Gritty Implementation

Strategic vs. Tactical Planning?

What Is Strategic Planning?

What Is Tactical Planning?

What is Tactical Planning in Business?

Why Does Tactical Planning in Business Matter?

How to Build a Tactical Plan

Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Objectives

Step 2: Assess Your Resources and Capabilities

Step 3: Create an Action Plan

Step 4: Monitor Progress and Adjust As Necessary

Step 5: Celebrate Successes!

What is an Organigram?

Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: The What, When, & Why

Free Strategic Planning Template

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning

Fill out the form to document your planning process.

Strategy vs. Tactics

1. Sales Recruitment

2. Smarketing

3. Technological Infrastructure

Sales Plans

Strategic Goals vs. Tactical Goals

Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning Examples

Tactical Planning

Tactical Planning Examples

1. Fill my pipeline with more leads over the next two weeks.

2. Close more enterprise deals each month.

3. Hire 20 more entry-level sales representatives by the end of Q1.

Your Business Needs Both Strategic and Tactical Planning

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