Thoughts on Delivering Strategic Business Planning Programs

I. Why teach strategic planning?
A. Farmers must have or develop technical, human relations and conceptual skills in order to be successful in the business of farming.
B. Strategic planning requires the use of conceptual skills; and, working with the strategic planning process and various strategic planning techniques is a useful way to learn and reinforce these skills.
C. Conceptual skills are extremely important for successful management in dynamic business environments.
D. The agricultural industry is an increasingly dynamic environment.

II. What are conceptual skills?
A. Conceptual skills involve being able to see a business as a whole rather than focusing on its component parts/activities and to solve problems in ways that benefit the whole business.
B. Conceptual skills involve being able to envision the future of a business and to develop strategies for making that future happen.
C. Conceptual skills provide critical perspective for evaluating technical information.
D. Conceptual skills enable farmers to make decisions, conceive of solutions to problems, make plans and gain control of their businesses.

III. How does this educational program address farmers’ needs?
A. It provides resource materials on strategic planning concepts,
B. It establishes a framework for structured exploration of strategic planning concepts and techniques,
C. It facilitates experiential learning of the basic strategic planning concepts and techniques through a series of brief presentations, exercises, and discussions,
D. It encourages incorporation of strategic planning concepts into technically oriented educational programs

IV. What types of training and/or training activities should be emphasized?
A. Strategic planning concepts may be new and different, but much of the subject matter isn’t complicated; consequently the facilitator for a strategic planning program doesn’t necessarily have to be an expert on the subject matter. In addition, the subject matter is similar in some respects to whole farm planning or long-run farm planning.
B. Learn by doing: when it comes to teaching strategic planning, experience is the best teacher and practice makes perfect. Introduce the basic concepts briefly. Allow plenty of time for exercises, discussions, and reflection.

V. Is small group or whole group interaction critical for this program to be effective?
A. No
B. It is critically important to encourage each participant to pause and reflect about their own situation from a strategic perspective.
C. It is critically important to encourage each participant to involve other stakeholders in their family and in the family business in the process. This might include people outside the family and the family business such as key employees, key resource providers, and key advisors. Consider encouraging participants to bring these stakeholders with them to the sessions and have these people work in groups.
D. Pushing for interaction may reduce participation in the program in situations where participants view each other as direct competitors for the resources needed to farm. If the audience is likely to be reluctant to participate in the program because of this type of concern, have audience members do most of the work on exercises at home with other stakeholders and don’t push them to share their ideas and plans with the other participants.

VI. Use linkages to other subject matter to maximize appeal and impact!
A. Strategic planning concepts and techniques may be most appealing to producers when they are taught within the context of particular technical/subject matter.
B. With this in mind, it may be desirable to target programs to groups of farmers that are wrestling with similar opportunities/problems such as pork producers or crop producers who are interested in precision farming, and then to focus on strategic planning in response to developments specific to the commodity or technology.
C. To the extent you can, let the student apply the concepts/techniques to his/her own case.

VII. How should programs using the course materials be structured?
A. Expect that around nine hours will be required to conduct this type of training in order to do the material justice. Exactly how much time is required may vary significantly with how much work on the exercises is done during the meetings and how much is done at home.
B. Consider a series of sessions with time in-between to go home and work on the exercises and to reflect on the presentations and subsequent discussions.
C. The materials provided are intended to be building blocks for an educational program. You know your target audience. Pick and choose from the course materials to design the most useful educational experience for your audience.
D. Consider offering to visit participants’ farms after the training sessions, as a way to help participants and their family members farther explore their strategic concerns.
E. Borrow from this material to preface programs on other subjects. You may have seen the Indiana Extension program entitled “Positioning Your Pork Operations For The 21st Century.” It provides an excellent example of using strategic planning subject matter to add perspective to a program that was primarily about technology dissemination. Once farmers understand the strategic planning process, take advantage of opportunities to emphasize strategic thinking in other settings.

VIII. Recognize that strategic planning may be difficult for some producers.
A. Strategic planning takes a commitment of time and effort that must be fit into an already busy schedule.
B. Individuals have different cognitive styles that strongly influence how they make decisions. Many farmers are very intuitive in their approach to decision making. Intuitive decision makers are the people that make decisions based on gut feelings. However, even these individuals can benefit from training in a more systematic approach to strategic planning
C. Strategic planning is driven to a certain extent by the underlying values of the participants in the process. It requires an effort to understand and communicate these values. In situations where more than one individual’s values are important, resolution of conflicts in values and a commitment to understand the values of partners will be required. If the process fosters this type of communication, the process is even more valuable, but the potential for conflict may cause some individuals to shy away from strategic planning.

IX. Use teams of presenters!
A. We expect that ultimately the program will be presented either by teams of educators or teams of educators and specialists. It is very likely that program organizers will want to consider area or regional meetings. With this in mind, there should be ample opportunity for educators to be involved in teaching the strategic planning curriculum. And, it will be desirable to have plenty of educators who are willing and able to step in and serve on a teaching team.
B. If the participants are willing to share their ideas and plans, this can lead to a more stimulating environment and can enhance the learning process. Oftentimes, individual participants will help to legitimize the process based on sharing their own experiences. Oftentimes, the best ideas and examples come from other participants and their examples may have more power for other participants than the instructors’ example.

X. How do we build on the basic program?
A. Once farmers have been introduced to the strategic planning fundamentals covered in this program, there may be opportunities to further explore particular aspects of strategic planning.
B. Strategic planning programs offer the potential to have a major impact on the lives and businesses of participants. With that in mind, we want to make sure we establish a strong foundation in terms of strategic thinking and planning skills before we narrow our focus to look at one aspect of the subject matter in more detail.

XI. Emphasize strategic thinking rather than developing a strategic plan!
A. The risk here is that the strategic plan may be viewed as the desired result. If it is, then there is also the risk that the plan will go on the shelf at the end of the planning process. If that happens, the decisions made day to day on the farm will never benefit from the strategic thinking process that we are teaching. It is strategic thinking that we are more concerned about fostering than strategic plans.
B. The strategic planning process need not lead to a particular plan or strategy in order to be beneficial. So, we want to be careful to avoid creating the expectation that the strategic planning process will lead inevitably to a particular strategic plan or that failure to conceive a strategy implies failure of the strategic thinking process.

Thoughts on a Marketing Strategy

1. The potential clientele for this program are producers who perceive that farming is in transition and they have concerns about how they should respond to the changes taking place. This doesn’t mean that they are managing large farms — the material is applicable to all size operations. Multi-manager operations should include all management personnel in the program including spouses.

2. This material is more ambiguous than much of the subject matter of technical or even other management programs. Techniques to make it more concrete and operational are to use some local case studies or include in the program someone who thinks strategically and can give examples of how this has been beneficial to his/her operation. Also have participants give examples and do work exercises for their own operation.

3. The recruiting strategy of one-on-one calling or personal contact will probably be the most successful. You know the 30 producers who could benefit and will give the time and commitment to this program. Farms going through a management transition such as adding a new generation are prime candidates.

4. You may want to do this program exclusively as an Extension offering, but leverage your contacts with industry or other agricultural groups to market it. Possibilities include county pork producer, soybean or corn grower organizations; county Farm Bureau, selected lenders or agribusinesses.

5. You may want to structure this like some of the leadership programs; i.e. an intensive workshop with a small group (20 or so); 3-4 meetings over a two month period; work assignments between meetings; a case study analyzed in teams; presentations by participants of their own strategic thinking; and a special celebration (a banquet or other event) at the end of the series with a certificate and motivational speaker.

6. The focus of this program is not on answers, but a way of thinking about and analyzing the farm business so that the participants have the managerial skills to be more successful In the future. The emphasis is on asking important questions and exploring important issues

7. We recommend that you be careful in setting expectations up front. This program involves active learning, hard thinking, work between sessions a commitment and a willingness to be open to new ideas and sharing experiences. The reward for this work and commitment will be a new way of thinking about your business.

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