Tasks for Head of Strategic Planning >

Present the opportunities and threats from external sources.

Provide impact assessment on the corporate plan.

Your role requires monitoring of external events that could affect Organisation X in the short or long term.

Your role is key in the external scanning process and identifies those that could have a positive or negative effect.

Present the  opportunity or threat from internal sources.

Provide impact assessment on the corporate plan.

Changes originating internally may have knock on effects on changes identified on the external scan, positively or negatively.

There may also be knock on effects to the Corporate Plan that will need to be taken into consideration, you should provide this assessment to the portfolio board.

Impact assessment of medium and long term plans.

It is likely that you may have been the source of this idea as part of your strategic monitoring.

You will need to provide the impact assessment and justification for what you believe the right decision to be at this time.

Ensure that the forecast aligns with short, medium and long term financial plans of Organisation X.

Confirm that funding sources are at the same status.

You will need to check with finance on expenditure and forecasts. It is also a key part of your contribution that external funding routes are being managed, for example grants or subsidies which are contributing to the portfolio funding.

Confirm the portfolio benefit forecasts align with the corporate performance targets.

The benefits forecasts should align with the commitments in the Corporate Plan so there should be evidence that the performance indicators are matching the claims.

There may also be external factors that may enable enhancement of benefit forecasts or undermine them – in either case this information should be factored into the decision making process.

Ensure that the corporate risk register is updated.

There may be issues that have a knock on effect to the Corporate Plan but as a minimum the Corporate risk team need to see this assessment.

Ensure that new ideas coming out of the Scan process are assessed for compliance issues.

Undertake an assessment of the effect of the rate of change on the Corporate Plan.

The effectiveness of the change delivery will impact on achievement of the corporate plan.

If the capability [or is it outcomes] is being delivered more quickly than anticipated then the ambitions may be achieved sooner, the opposite is also a possibility.

Re-planning cycle includes evaluation information.

The portfolio re-starts at this point, along with the planning process.

The lessons that have been learned should now be included in the corporate planning round and built into the medium and long terms plans.

The achievability of outcomes and the level of ambition can now be adjusted. 

Confirm that the performance metrics are aligned with the Corporate Plan.

The performance metrics will one of the main indicators of achievement, whether financial or otherwise. Once this benefit has been realised revised performance baselines should be established and medium and long term plans revised.