Module: Strategic Planning

Introduction
All organisations need to plan. In addition, all organisations need to be clear about their
strategy. This module looks at strategy and broad strategic planning in very general
terms. It will help radio stations to develop broad strategy and to plan how to achieve
that strategy.What's missing is the detailed planning of day-to-day progamming and
broadcasting.

Broad Aim
The aim of this module is to clarify the link between mission, strategy and plans, and to
give participants a view of the strategic planning process.
The hidden agenda in this module is to do some strategic analysis and strategic thinking
about community radio stations and the sector as a whole. It is really important to
challenge 'sloppy' thinking and easy answers in this module.

Training outcomes
By the end of this module, participants will be able to:
• Review the mission of the organisation
• Conduct a SWOT analysis
• Identify the critical strategic issues facing the organisation
• Choose from among a set of alternative strategies
• Set SMART objectives
• Plan how to implement the objectives

Process guidelines
This workshop is most useful when run in-house as part of a planning process. If you
are planning to use the workshop to conduct an actual planning session, then you will
probably need three days to run the planning workshop. If you wish to use the planning
workshop as a learning experience, then you will need to discuss the steps and methods
you are using and reflect on them with the group as you go through the workshop. For
example you would remind people where you've been: "In our first session we re visited
the mission, now we are doing the first half of the SWOT analysis - which is the analysis
of the Strengths and Weaknesses of the organisation."

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Using this material in a purely training situation is more difficult, especially where you
have a group made up of different organisations. In this case, you should either have
people working with colleagues from their own radio station, or you could suggest that
small groups focus on one station only for the workshop on planning.
Please make sure that you are familiar with the material before you tackle this module, it
is not easy!

 Total time required for this module: Minimum time 12h30 min -
chosing selected activities as suggested below. To work through the
whole module would take three to four days

 Materials required for this module:

• Flip chart
• Permanent Markers for the facilitator
• Prestick
• 1 set of notes/ manual per person

Session Time Notes and suggestions

Activity 1: What is 15 min Do a brief introduction on strategy, then ask participants
strategy? to buzz in pairs and answer the questions on strategies.
The kinds of answers you are looking for:
Stations target different groups: e.g. youth/ middle aged,
economic classes, etc
Stations focus on education, music, talk shows, etc
Stations are public broadcasters (supported by the state) or
commercial (supported by advertising) or community - mix with
some funding.
Stations have different approaches to advertising etc

Activity 2: The 'right' 45min Ask people to work in groups and develop a list of
strategy criteria.
If people do not understand the concept of criteria, ask them to
think about what they look for when they are buying a new car
(e.g. price, size of engine, age, speed etc), or if they were to
chose a husband (age, temperament, economic status, health
etc) Point out that the criteria should be prioritised and then
applied.

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 Session Time Notes and suggestions
Activity 3: What is 15min Brief input on strategy, and overview of the flow chart.
strategic planning?
You may not have time to do all the stages of strategic planning in a training workshop. The
following are some of the important activities that you could usefully cover even with a group
made up of people from different stations.
Stage 2: 1h30 min The SWOT analysis - strengths and weaknesses. Do this
in small groups, with each group focusing on one radio
SWOT 15 min
station, or on a 'typical station'. You could have one or
intro, 1h in
two groups looking at a rural station, and one or two
groups, 30
looking at urban stations. You can get a full report on the
- 60 min
discussion - which will raise useful issues, or you could
plenary
simply ask groups share their experience of doing the
discussion
analysis. Point out that the more honest people are, the
more useful this kind of analysis is. If we hide the
problems from ourselves, we cannot find solutions.
Make sure that people don't use glib judgments like: 'lack
of commitment' or 'people are not serious' - encourage
them to keep asking "But Why does this happen?" The
analysis must unearth root problems (which may be
internal or external) not just surface symptoms.
Stage 3: SWOT 2h 30 min Stakeholder Analysis - you could do this for the
community radio sector as a whole, as a way of
illustrating it. It is quite useful to do in plenary. Start with a
brainstorm of all stakeholders. Give each person two or
three coloured cards and ask them to write one
stakeholder per card, and then come and stick them up
on the wall. Categorise them and then prioritise the 5
most important stakeholders.(Remember that the term
'stakeholder' does not imply either a positive or negative
relationship: some stakeholders are friends, some are
clearly competitors, and many are groups or people
whose support and co-operation we could gain.)
Put people into 5 small groups with one stakeholder each
to analyse. The group will need to answer the questions
on page 11, and report on them to the big group.
Remind them that the stakeholder analysis must be
concluded with identifying the Opportunities and Threats
for the sector or the station.

Example of headings for a wall chart analysising stakeholders

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 Stakeho Their What What we Problem
lder aims (in they want s/
general) want from commen
from us them ts

Advertise To sell a Large Money Our

rs lot of audience listeners
their s of are not
products people high
who will income -
buy their so we are
products not seen
as
attractive
by many
advertise
rs

Note that in this example, I have used a broad category (advertisers), in fact to do a
good stakeholder analysis, you need to name and analyse all potential advertisers (i.e.
all the actual companies that you may want to approach for advertising). Your analysis
must be as specific as possible, and may require you to do some in-depth research. In
real life, you would do the brainstorm and prioritising of stakeholders in one session.
Then allocate stakeholders to different people, who will go and do research and prepare
their analysis for the next session.

Setting Objectives 4 - 5 hours Input and exercises : 30 - 45 min: Give a brief overview
of what an objective is and why you need them.
Then discuss 'SMART' objectives and do the exercise in
buzz groups "are these SMART objectives?" (Activity 4
page 21). It is worth spending time doing this properly, as
people really need to learn to write good objectives.
Some people teach you to always write objectives in a
set format. The format is not important, what is important
is that the objective must describe the outcome that you
are working for. The objective must give you a really
clear picture of what you intend to achieve not what you
will be doing! (So avoid objectives like: "we will run three
workshops" and rather describe the outcomes of the
workshops " … as a result of our education activity,
workshop participants will be able to fix a transmitter
without the help of outside technicians."

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 Group work on setting objectives (1 to 2 hours in
groups, 1 hour plenary)
Put people into groups and ask them to set objectives for
a radio station that one group member belongs to. (e.g.
objectives for an education campaign, a health
campaign, a fund-raising campaign, a year plan for the
station as a whole etc.) Let them pretend to all be
members of that radio station.
Make sure that the Objectives they develop describe
outcomes (what will be different at the end of the
campaign, or year) not activities (not 'holding three
events!). Events are part of the action steps, not the
objectives.
If you can see that groups are struggling, get them back
into plenary, chose one objective that a group is working
on and get the whole group to help you develop it into a
SMART objective.
Get them to present their objectives to the group for
comment - and invite critical comment about the
'SMARTness' of the objectives.
Planning Minimum Group work on planning:
of 1 hour
Then suggest that each group does planning, using the
in
planning tool (page 24) on one or two objectives. Again
groups, 1
present this to the whole group for comment.
hour in
plenary
Planning to plan 45 min This is a good concluding activity: Do it in small groups,
and then have a plenary report from one group only.

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