Strategic Planning

The strategic planning process differs from the simpler task of writing a business plan in many ways.  A strategic plan examines as many relevant and foreseeable primary assumption changes, obstacles, material delays and other variations from the primary plan as possible.  It identifies viable solutions and evaluates the impact of the plan variations, so that the implementation of the plan is not imperiled.  The critical step for generating a strategic plan is formulating the questions which cause the planners and contributors to examine and rethink their critical path. 

Business and Project Management Plans

Business plans are often prepared as a sales tool to create credibility in the raising of venture, start-up or expansion capital.  Sophisticated investors always look for the experience of the management team, and often judge a plan by the probabilities of the management team to implement it.  To serve this purpose a plan must be methodically prepared, and demonstrate detailed knowledge of the competition and how to differentiate the plan's products and services in the marketplace.  But to really be an action plan, it must detail the human and other necessary resources, allocate major responsibilities, and include a viable timeline and critical path.  Great Circle believes that the detailed project management approach that it uses in its business plans  are critical to their use as implementation tools.