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“FIR on Strategy with Andrea Vascellari” is part of the “ FIR For Immediate Release Podcast Network”.

Many of you found out about “FIR on Strategy” thanks to FiR – the main show. But many other listeners found out about “FIR on Strategy”, from my updates on social media, my newsletter or because they are already subscribed to my blog.

So the updates that I shared on the main “FIR” show didn’t reach them because they didn’t necessarily listened to For Immediate Release – FIR. I didn’t think about this because I’ve been a faithful listener, contributor and member of the community since 2005, but then I realized this thanks to some conversations with listeners of “FIR on Strategy”.

This is why I thought to add to “FIR on Strategy” some periodic updates. They are not going to be frequent but it will help to keep everyone in the loop.

With this first update I want to share with you how I will structure future episodes and the rational behind it.

I analyzed some of the most successful “FIR on Strategy” episodes and I discovered some interesting stats.

For example the Context Analysis episode was played 1,511 times and the show notes were viewed 4,421 times that’s 3 times more!

Now the interesting thing is that I’ve noticed similar trends also on other episodes, so I cross analyzed this data with the number of played episodes, the new/returning visitors and time spent on site.

I drew some correlations and found some insights:

1. After listening to an episode of “FIR on Strategy”, 1 out of 6 listeners comes back to check the show notes.
2. Listeners spend on average 5 to 6 minutes on pages where I published episodes and show notes.
3. Episodes and show notes are played and checked not only right after they have been released but especially in the long tail.

So how do these findings affect the current format of the show?

• I will reduce the show from an average of 18 minutes to 5 minutes: Scientists began to identify how long most people can pay attention before they tune out and 18 minutes seemed to be an ideal length – long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention. The length of TED Talks is based on this insight. But what I didn’t think in first place, and I’ve learned now, is that you listen to the show for different reasons and with a different mindset than when you listen to a TED Talk while commuting to work. So I will aim at an average of 5 minutes per episode.
• A reduced length will have an effect also on the content: Currently I’m analyzing more data and I will share with you another update in regards to how the actual content of the show will evolve. The challenge here is to decide what to leave out when exploring each topic. So I will probably release episodes that are going to be more basic and other more advanced but what’s not going to change is the nature of the content. I will keep creating evergreen content – people keep finding value in it not only when it’s released but especially in the long run.

That’s it for this for “FIR on Strategy” update. I encourage you to keep sharing feedback and suggestions like you’ve always done, and I… well I will keep doing my best to offer you valuable content that will help structure your communications more effectively and efficiently.

Andrea @vascellari
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This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage strategy programs more effectively and efficiently.

Each podcast of this series comes with show notes that briefly summarize the discussed topics. For the full commentary you will have to listen to the audio.

“FIR on Strategy with Andrea Vascellari” is part of the “ FIR For Immediate Release Podcast Network”.

As a strategist, planner or leader in your organization, you are tasked with casting a vision. You are the one that sets the strategy, and defines how it will have to be executed. But in order to create a strategic communications initiative you need an operative structure, you need a plan.

In this episode we’ll understand “what’s the plan”, why it’s important and then I’ll share with you 5 key questions you should be asking yourself when you start to work on a communications plan.

“What’s the plan?”

When you start to work on a new project it feels almost natural to say “so, what’s the plan?”. This is what we are going to talk about today, it’s about “planning the plan”. In this cast we look at an “operative framework” you should use when starting to work on a new communications plan.

Why it’s important to have a plan?

There are main reasons why having a plan is important but I would highlight two that I find particularly relevant:

• Having a plan is about making sure you have thought about all the key things you need in order to craft your communications strategies.
• It helps you define the structure of what’s going to be your vision, your mission, your narrative and the values that support your communications.

How do we plan?

These are 5 key questions you should be asking yourself:

>> play audio for full commentary

1. What are the key deliverables? What are we going to create. A key deliverable is an item – either tangible or intangible – produced as a part of the project.
2. What are the milestones? Focus on steps. What steps do we have to take along the way in order to achieve our outcome – not’s sure about what I’m referring to as outcome? See episode #21 about “the project scope”.
3. What are the checkpoints? By when you estimate these deliverables and milestones need to be done. Maybe you have 4-5 deliverables till you get to the final outcome of the project. This has to be more a rough guess rather than a precise timeline. 
4. What are the priorities? Define them. What comes first, what comes last, what comes next.
5. Who are players? Plan ahead for any external resources and coordination you need.

Having a plan for your projects not only allows to focus on what needs to be done but it also gives you the opportunity to define the operative structure of how you are going to ultimately position and grow in the competitive landscape once the project will be up and running.

Over to you

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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The post The Project Plan appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

Download the MP3 file (5.5Mb, 11:26) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage strategy programs more effectively and efficiently.

Each podcast of this series comes with show notes that briefly summarize the discussed topics. For the full commentary you will have to listen to the audio.

“FIR on Strategy with Andrea Vascellari” is part of the “ FIR For Immediate Release Podcast Network”.

Defining a clear scope it’s critical to a project’s success. In today’s episode we will understand what the scope is, why it’s so important and how to define the scope of your projects.

I’ll share with you an actionable methodology that you can use to define the scope of your projects so that you’ll walk away with an actual tool that you can use to execute your projects more effectively and efficiently.

What is the scope of a project

The scope defines the work that needs to be done in order to successfully accomplish our project’s objectives… >> play audio for full commentary.

Why is execution so important

1. It guides your team by framing the “why” of the project.
2. Without defining the scope of the project we can not estimate either cost or time.
3. Lack of clarity in the scope generates issues that can compromise the successful achievement of the objectives.

To find out more about these 3 points >> play audio for full commentary.

How to define the scope of a project

These questions will help you frame the project and outline what needs to be discussed with your team in relation to the scope during your kickoff meeting.

Let’s jump right into it:

1. What’s the project’s objective/s – Need help with your objectives? >> Here’s a full guide to for you…
2. What’s the background
3. Who are the internal/external targets – Not sure how to define them? >> Here’s an episode on Audience Analysis that I’m sure you will find interesting…
4. What is the outcome
5. What is the outcome responsible for
6. What’s the deadline
7. What’s the size
8. What is the budget – Need practical tips to optimize your budgets? >> No problem, here you go…
9. What’s the impact
10. What are the resources involved

On “FIR on Strategy” I aim at giving you actionable recommendations that you can start implementing right away to execute your initiatives more effectively and efficiently. If you want to find out more about what I shared in this part of the podcast >> play audio for full commentary.

Over to you

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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The post The Project Scope appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

Download the MP3 file (5.9Mb, 12:16) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage strategy programs more effectively and efficiently.

Each podcast of this series comes with show notes that briefly summarize the discussed topics. For the full commentary you will have to listen to the audio.

“FIR on Strategy with Andrea Vascellari” is part of the “ FIR For Immediate Release Podcast Network”.

In this episode you will understand:

• What is the execution phase?
• Why it’s so important?
• And then I’ll share with you an actionable methodology to kickoff your execution phase more efficiently.

What is the execution phase?

The Execution phase is what actually brings the strategic plan to fruition.
It’s the result of the planning decisions made by the organization and its team. This is the phase that consumes the most time, energy and the most resources in a project’s life cycle… >> play audio for full commentary.

Why is execution so important?

A great plan without solid execution is useless. As I said, execution is the most demanding phase in a project life cycle but to that I would also add that is the less linear… >> play audio for full commentary.

How to execute your projects efficiently?

Start executing your plans with an hour long meeting during which you will look at these 4 key points:

• Scope
• Plan
• Operations
• Tasks

On “FIR on Strategy” I aim at giving you actionable recommendations that you can start implementing right away to execute your initiatives more effectively and efficiently. If you want to find out more about what I shared in this part of the podcast >> play audio for full commentary.

Over to you

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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The post The Execution Phase appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

The “planning” phase of your strategic communication plans is about aligning the resources and prioritizing the actions of an organization as it strives to achieve its goals. Whether you are working on a PR or a marketing initiative, a good plan is meant to serve as a roadmap.

A solid communication plan will make it possible to target your communication accurately in the short and long term helping you map out how to raise the profile of an organization over time. A plan makes your communication more efficient, effective, and lasting. Here’s a summary of the posts and podcast episodes that explore the planning phase of the Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework.

• Context Analysis
• Environmental Scan
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Audience Analysis
• Objectives
• Strategy
• Tactics
• KPIs
• Budgets

I hope you find this useful. If you do or if you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know.

Andrea @vascellari

The post Digital Strategy – Planning appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

Download the MP3 file (6.4Mb, 13:21) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

A budget is an invaluable tool to help us prioritize our spending and manage our finances. Simply put, a budget is a detailed summary of likely income and expenses for a given period. It provides a concrete and organized breakdown of how much money we have coming in and how much we are letting go.

If you are listening to this episode you probably work in communications, design and development, PR or marketing so chances are that when you think about budgets you are looking at several different disciplines like paid advertising, content, product/service marketing, public relations, branding or creative.

To be honest we could talk about budgets all day but as usual it’s not an easy job to research, select, prepare and share with you valuable information that can help you plan, execute and manage your strategic communication plans. So today we are going to focus mainly on two things:

• The important roles played by the budget.
• A series of tips that will help you define your budgets.

The budget’s roles

A strategic communication plan is the result of a process that starts by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of an organization in relation the present and future characteristics of the environment in which the organization operates. Then it defines the objectives that need to be accomplished within a determined time frame and it specifies a series of potential strategic and tactical alternatives able to achieve the objectives. Among these options, the process chooses the optimal ones specifying the relative resources required to accomplish the defined objectives.

The budget connects to this process specifying in detail the resources that are needed and it allocates them in the different functional or divisional areas within the organization. So we could say that the budget has two important roles, organizational and economical:

1) Organizational: The budget can be used as a tool to allocate, in the short and long term, the resources to achieve the defined objectives, so it’s vital for the organizational stability – Obviously, this distribution of resources is defined by the management group that holds the decision-making power in the organizational control.

2) Economical: The budget supports several economical decisions regarding the different functional or divisional areas of an organization. Basically it offers a structured decisional model based on a series of alternatives that helps us coordinating the different decisional areas and it allows us managing the complexity of the management itself.

Practical tips

I want to share with you 6 tips that are very important, not only if you are running projects that involve “digital” but especially if you are working on a different initiative that goes a bit out of your main area of expertise.

1. Keep your available budget in mind throughout your entire planning process. Whether you are a large or a small organization, monitoring your budget will help you identify excessive expenditures and it will allow you to adapt quickly to achieve your objectives as the financial situation changes.
2. Divide your budget in projected and actual expenses. The projected expenses are the estimated costs – essentially this is the approximation of the cost of your initiative – and the actual expenses are costs that actually incur once you will start to run your project. By monitoring projected and actual expenses you will be able to understand when something is not going as planned and it will allow you to address immediately eventual pending issues that might arise during your initiative.
3. Prepare a structured budget plan. Depending on the nature of your project you might want to structure your budgets monthly, quarterly (Q1,Q2,Q3,Q4) and yearly. Structuring your budgets will help you to monitor the current situation and also to predict future income and outgo to plan for any potential temporary shortfalls in revenue.
4. Review your budget periodically. It’s important to review your budget on a regular basis to make sure you are staying on track. After the first month take a minute to compare the actual expenses versus what you had created initially in the budget. This will show you where you may need to change your budget.
5. Be as detailed as possible. If you want to run successfully your initiative and achieve your objectives you have to provide as much detailed information as possible. Show where the money is coming from, how much is there and where it is all going. This is not just about listing your expenses, you must be able to make a case and justify them. Creating a budget may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world to do, but a good budget will help you keep the financial structure of your projects in order and it will help you also getting your proposals approved.
6. Ask the masters. After creating your budget, perform an additional research to fill the gaps, review and edit the budget where it’s needed. Then reach out to experts who are masters in their discipline so they can help you finalize the different items you listen in the budget.

Over to you

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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The post Budgets appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

Download the MP3 file (6.5Mb, 13:33) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

What are KPIs?

A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is a type of performance measurement. You may use KPIs to evaluate the success of your organization or more specifically the success of a project.

These indicators help you understand whether you are making progress towards the achievement of your objectives. This is why it’s vital that you have a good understanding of what you are trying to achieve with your initiative. If you need help to define your objectives, check out episode #15 of “FIR on Strategy”.

Most organizations set strategic objectives they desire to achieve. One way to measure the progress toward achieving these objectives is to use KPIs.

For example, an organization has a goal to reduce from 30% to 20% the people that are leaving when visiting their website. In order to know whether it’s achieving its objective, the organization defines a KPI called bounce rate. The bounce rate KPI measures the percentage of visitors who enter the page and “bounce” (leave the page) rather than continue viewing the content of the page on which they landed or visiting other pages within the same website.

By monitoring and analyzing this KPI the organization can measure the percentage before and after implementing any website improvements. Without implementing the KPI, the organization would not have precise data to know if it has achieved its objective.

Why are KPIs so important?

When things are going well, money is coming in and customers are happy, people tend to pay less attention to details. So it’s not always easy to have a “realistic” view of how an organization or a project is doing if we don’t pay attention to performance indicators that monitor our real progress towards the achievement of our objectives.

KPIs tell us the real status of an organization and the projects it’s running. They give us an immediate snapshot of the overall performance. Having your KPIs set up properly help us understand immediately if we are meeting, or not, our expectations and whether or not we need to make changes.

Any organization, large or small, should measure and track the KPIs that are critical to the success of its initiatives. Real-time data concerning the health of a business is extremely important because it provides essential decision-making information, especially in today’s competitive business environment.

How should you choose your KPIs?

KPIs define a set of values used to measure against. The problem is that there are many sets of values that we can choose to measure. There are quantitative and qualitative KPIs, leading, lagging, input, output, process, financial and directional indicators, just to mention a few.

There are a lot of things that we can measure but this doesn’t mean that they are all key to the organization’s success. When we select KPIs, it’s actually important to limit them to those factors that are essential for the organization to reach its objectives. Another advantage to keep a small number of indicators is that it helps to keep everyone focused on achieving the same KPIs.

Keep in mind: This doesn’t mean that an organization will have in total only three or four KPIs. Rather there will be three or four KPIs for the overall objectives of the organization and then all the units, within it, will have additional KPIs that support the overall objectives of the organization.
For example, if “Increased Customer Satisfaction” is one of the organization’s KPIs, that same indicator will be looked at differently in different departments. The Technical Department that create the product sold by the organization may have as a KPI the “Number of units rejected by quality inspection”, when the Customer Support Department may have a KPI of “Minutes a customer is on hold before a representative answers”. Success by the different departments in meeting their KPIs help the organization meet its overall KPIs.

Same goes with individual projects, each one of them needs to have its own KPIs. Also in this case the KPIs must be in synergy with the defined objectives.

So if we look specifically at digital projects, where do we start from? There are so many KPIs, which one should we choose?

Do you remember when in episode #11 of “FIR on Strategy” – Context Analysis – I asked you to define the nature of your project choosing whether you aimed at increasing awareness, sales/conversions or loyalty? Great. So let’s start from there then.

Based on the nature of your project you can choose the relative KPIs. In this example (graph above) the focus of my project is on increasing awareness. Would it make sense to choose “Conversion rate” or “Customer satisfaction” as KPIs? The answer is no.

See, narrowing the focus of our project on a specific stage of the funnel makes it easier for us to define also the right KPIs that we need to measure the success of our initiative.

Again, like I said there are so many different KPIs you can choose, but I want to close this post/episode by giving you a few options to consider for the various stages. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, but it’s something you can use to start off on the right foot.

Over To You

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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The post KPIs – What? Why? How? appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

Download the MP3 file (5.5Mb, 11:24) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

If you conducted your context analysis, defined your audiences, objectives and strategies, well then it’s time for you to focus on your tactics.

As I mentioned in a previous post/episode, tactics and strategies are often misunderstood so before moving on let’s refresh this concept.

• Objective: It’s your aim – i.e. like reaching the top of the mountain.
• Strategy: This is about how you will achieve your objective – i.e. the path/way you’ll take to get to the top.
• Tactics: Means by which the strategy is carried out – i.e. the actions and the tools you will use to climb.

The reason why I always underline the relation between objectives, strategies and tactics is because like a strategy without well planned and implemented tactics means nothing, tactics alone won’t make you achieve your objectives.

A tactic is essentially a way of going about something and only the right tactics that fit your strategy can help you achieve your end result, your objectives.

Sharing your posts on Twitter, updating a Facebook page, sending individual emails to new subscribers, creating a landing page, these are all tactics. But according to which criteria you should choose the tactics? How do you go about developing a good tactical plan?

Well here’s a three step process that can help you out:

1) Choose the right tactics.

It sounds almost obvious right? Well it’s not.

Would a “landing page” be a good tactic for a reputation management/pr project? Probably not. I’m sure there are ways we could use it but that’s a tactic that for example would serve better as a tactical tool for leads generation in a marketing project.

The important thing when you are choosing your tactics is to ensure that they always fit with your strategy and objectives. Often people make a mistake when they want to implement a specific tactic just because everybody is doing it or because it’s the “new shiny tool” that has to be used no matter what.

For example if your target audience is not on Twitter, forget about trying to implementing it as a tactical communication channel in your project because it’s not something that will help you achieve your objectives.

So as a first step keep this in mind.

2) Define tactics for each target audience.

Each audience group needs specific tactics so as a second step make a list of all your key audience groups and define at least two or three tactics that you will use to target them.

Choosing only one tactic won’t guarantee you to successfully achieve your objective/s because the members of each group, even if similar, present anyway some differences. There is always a certain degree of fragmentation so if you want to reach effectively the multiple “touch points” of each audience group, you have to use always multiple tactics.

3) Define tactics for each phase of your project.

What works well with a certain audience group in the initial stage won’t necessarily work in the final stage of your initiative. So as a third step you should define different tactics for the different phases of your project.

Something that I find particularly useful is to divide your tactics in:

• Pre-Initiative.
• During your initiative.
• Post initiative.

This is extremely important because the communication dynamics with your target groups change throughout your initiative and that why your tactical plan doesn’t have to be rigid, but flexible and adaptive.

Of course the digital landscape and the tools will keep changing and evolving but if you follow this framework you will always get a clear tactical plan that depending on the nature of your project (PR,marketing, other…) will tell you which tactics you should use, for which audience group and at which stage of your initiative.

There you have it, like I always do this was another set of “ever green” tips that goes straight to the point. I hope you will find it helpful.

Over To You

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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The post Tactics appeared first on AndreaVascellari.com.

Download the MP3 file (8.7Mb, 17:58) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

Have you defined you SMART objectives? If you don’t know what I mean by SMART objectives I encourage you to listen/have a look at episode #15 of “FIR on Strategy”. But if you already know how to define your objectives and it’s clear to you where you want to get with your project, then it’s time for you to choose which path, or paths, you will take to get there. It’s time for you to define your strategies.

What’s a strategy and why it’s important?

First of all a strategy is not a tactic. Strategy and tactics are interconnected, they work in synergy, and perhaps this is why people so often confuse them, but they are two different things.

So let’s understand what a strategy is by clarifying a where it stands in relation to objectives and tactics:

• Objective: An objective is what you want to accomplish, your final destination, and it must be defined before strategies and tactics can exist.
• Strategy: This is the path you will take to get to your destination and therefore successfully achieve your objective.
• Tactic: If your objective is to climb a mountain and your strategy is the path/way you will follow to reach the top, you can think of tactics as the tools that you will use to climb.

So why it’s important to have a strategy? Well, if you want to reach the top of that mountain and you start to climb full of tools but with no idea on what’s the best way or path to get to the top, you won’t go far. Or probably you will make it to the top but you will get there spending more time and energy than you would have used by focusing on your strategy (path) in your planning phase.

Cool, so strategies are important and now it’s more clear what their role is. But how do we chose the best path, the best way, the best strategy to successfully achieve our objectives? There are countless number of different ways you could climb a mountain, right?

How to define your strategies?

Even if it’s clear to you what a strategy is, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you know which one to chose, which one is the optimal one. And even if you do, let’s be honest, defining strategies is never an easy task. If you get this wrong you can compromise the entire project.

Defining strategies is a delicate task and every project represents a new challenge that requires a different approach.

Sure, if you have to deal only with one or two projects at the time, it’s not easy but it’s doable. Things change when you have to manage a team, or an entire agency and several projects at the same time. Not only you need to know what you are doing, but you need to do it fast and well to meet your clients’ expectations. See, optimizing the approach to strategic planning and making it more efficient is never a bad idea.

So what I’m going to share with you today is a methodology that I use to define efficiently effective strategies. Let’s jump right into it by having a look at the three steps of this methodology:

1) SWOT Analysis

Conduct a SWOT analysis, which is basically a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project. This involves specifying the objective of your project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective.

In this first step you have to try to not be too generic. You should be as specific as possible, focus on your objective, market and indeed on your audience segment – if you are not familiar with this, have a look at episode #14 of “FIR on Strategy” which is entirely dedicated to Audience Analyses.

• Strengths: Characteristics of the organization or project that give you an advantage over others.
• Weaknesses: Characteristics that place the organization or project at a disadvantage relative to others.
• Opportunities: Elements that the organization or project could use to its advantage.
• Threats: Elements in the environment that could cause problems for the organization or for the project.

2) TOWS Analysis

Once you are done with your SWOT analysis you should create a new matrix to compare opportunities and threats with strengths and weaknesses. This is called TOWS matrix.

Like for the SWOT, TOWS is an acronym, S = Strengths W = Weaknesses O = Opportunities T = Threats. This matrix allows us to define how we are strategically positioned, and it ultimately helps us to define our strategies.

• S-O: These are strategies that pursue opportunities that are a good fit to the organization’s strengths.
• W-O: Strategies that overcome weaknesses to pursue opportunities.
• S-T: Strategies that identify ways that the organization can use its strengths to reduce its vulnerability to external threats.
• W-T: Strategies that establish a defensive plan to prevent the organization’s weaknesses from making it highly vulnerable to external threats.

3) Define the strategies

As you can see the TOWS analysis is a natural integration of the SWOT into the overall strategic planning process. It gives us the basic structure on which we can define our strategic planning, in fact:

• Strengths & Opportunities (SO) – are nothing else but an “attack plan”.
• Strengths & Threats (ST) – are about building strengths for the attack.
• Weaknesses & Opportunities (WO) – Are about “defensive planning”.
• Weaknesses & Threats (WT) – about building strengths for your defense.

But if the theory and the process that need to be followed are pretty clear, the last step, aka defining your strategies, is not always as simple as you might think. Essentially, for each combination of internal and external factors, you have to consider how you can use them to create your strategies. For some this is an easy step, for others it’s not.

To help those of you that are facing some difficulties at this stage I share with you 4 questions you should ask yourself when you can’t come up with good ideas for your strategies. These are very basic questions but they will stimulate and guide your thinking in the right direction:

• (SO): How can you use your strengths to take advantage of opportunities?
• (ST): How can you take advantage of your strengths to avoid threats?
• (WO): How can you use your opportunities to overcome your weaknesses?
• (WT): How can you reduce your weaknesses and avoid threats?

A TOWS analysis is not a simple review, but as you can see this is actually the piece of the puzzle that ultimately helps us creating our strategies.

– Example:
(S): Existing customer base.
(O): New markets.
(SO): How can you use your strengths to take advantage of opportunities? => Segment the customer base; Restructure customer contact. These are two inputs that we can use to define two strategies. Now go ahead and to the same also for WO, WT and ST.

Your Thoughts

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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Download the MP3 file (8.1Mb, 16:49) – Get the show on iTunes!

This is part of a series of posts that explores the “Adaptive Digital Strategy Framework”, an operative guide that I created to plan, execute and manage online strategy programs more effectively and efficiently. Each of post of this series comes with an audio podcast in which you will find the audio version of the post with additional audio commentary about the discussed topics. The name of the podcast is “FIR On Strategy with Andrea Vascellari”.

Objectives are what you need to accomplish. Once the objectives are framed, strategies, tactics, KPIs, budgets and all the other activities will fall into the right place. Objectives come first. If your objectives are not clearly defined it’s going to be difficult for you to move towards achieving a successful project.

In this post/cast we will understand what are the most common mistakes made when defining objectives, how to actually define your objectives, I’ll give you some examples and at the end I will share also some tips based on my experience that I’m sure you will find valuable.

What’s the problem with objectives?

If you have ever failed to achieve an objective then chances are you made one of these mistakes:

1. Your objective is too vague – i.e. we want to increase web traffic.
2. You actually don’t know if or when you’ve achieved your objective – i.e. we want to improve loyalty.
3. It’s a “dream” and not an objective – i.e. we want a perfectly organized social business department by the end of tomorrow.
4. You defined something that can’t be performed – i.e. we want to increase sales (even if you don’t have resources, infrastructure or a dedicated team to do it).
5. You didn’t defined a time or a date by when your objective should be completed – i.e. we want to create a center of excellence.

One of the best ways to avoid these mistakes is to set SMART objectives. ‘SMART’ is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

Now we will look into each one of these aspects and I will also share some helpful questions that you can ask yourself to understand whether you are on the right path to define SMART objectives or not. You can go back and look at the these questions any time or whenever you need it.

How to define SMART objectives?

– Specific: The objective is well defined and clear. Anyone that has a basic knowledge of the work area can understand what this is about. The more specific you are the easier it will be to accomplish an objective.

To determine if your objective is specific, ask questions such as:

• Is the objective well-defined?
• Can it be understood by everyone?
• Is it clear enough?

Example
Not specific: Encourage more people to join the Music Center.
Specific: Increase membership of the Music Centre.

– Measurable: You should achieve tangible results. Define a concrete criteria to measure your progress toward the achievement of the objective. Helpful questions to determine if your objective is measurable? Here you go:

• How do you know when the task has been completed?
• How can you confirm it?
• How will you evaluate if it has been completed?

Example
Not measurable: Increase membership of the Music Centre.
Measurable: Increase membership of the Music Centre by 20%.

– Achievable: Ensure that you can make your objective come true. Set a realistic path to achievement. Ask yourself these questions to determine if your objective is achievable:

• Do you have sufficient resources to make it happen?
• Is it within your capabilities?
• Can it be achieved at all?

Objectives should be challenging but achievable. They should not be unrealistic. Looking at our example, supposing that we can’t stretch our resources to increase more than 30%. Keeping a 10% margin and aiming at a 20% makes it achievable.

– Realistic: The objective must be within the availability of resources, time and knowledge. You have to define an objective toward which you are able to work. To determine if your objective is realistic, ask these questions:

• Can it be achieved in the current context?
• Does it fit within your overall work structure?
• Can you and your team perform the required actions?

Every project needs different skills, knowledge and resources. Asking yourself these questions helps you determine if you may need any training, development or other support in order to achieve the objective.

– Timely: You should ground the objective within a time frame and verify that there’s enough time to achieve it. With no time frame there’s no sense of urgency, hence less commitment. To determine if your objective is timely, ask questions such as:

• Is there a tangible deadline?
• Is it feasible to meet it?
• Is now the right time to work on this?

Example
Not timely: Increase membership of the Music Centre by 20%.
Timely: Increase membership of the Music Centre by 20% over the next three months.

A Few Helpful Tips

1) If you are dealing with a particularly long timescale, you may need to break your objective down, identify the different steps you need to take to achieve it and define how long each step is likely to take so that you can set a target date.

2) Always remember to distinguish communication objectives from business objectives. Communications objectives should support the organization’s business objectives, but they are fundamentally different from one another. Making this distinction will help you to create a solid plan and also to measure more effectively the results of your project – communication objectives can be measured in responses, changes of opinion, content analysis, etc. and business objectives can be measured in sales, growth, units etc. We’ll talk more about measurement in other casts.

3) Define the department and the person that is responsible for the achievement of a specific objective (1st level manager, 2nd level manager etc.). This is extremely important because when you’ll have to evaluate the achievement of an objective you have to consider also the performance of the management. If you don’t define who is responsible for what you can’t measure effectively the overall success of your initiative.

Over to you

This is based on my experience, what would you adjust based on yours? What do you think about it? Is something missing? Looking at the sector you are working in, would you approach this differently? Let me know in the comments.

Andrea @vascellari
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