You are to develop a "Strategic Planning Guide" to assist a local organization to you (sector, organization) in undertaking a strategic planning process. Specifically, you are to consider yourself as a consultant with the task of creating a new (and, ideally innovative) planning model for the organization (private, public, or non-profit). This model should be directed toward either a private, public, or non-profit company. You must, however, specify the intended target audience for your guide.

Your Strategic Planning Guide should provide easy to follow and useful direction for the organization regarding the process of strategic planning, the opportunities and challenges associated with the planning process, and the steps needed to carry out an effective strategic plan.

Your Strategic Planning Guide should include things such as:

• A discussion of why strategic planning is important
• The name of your strategic planning model and the major elements of the model (along with pitfalls that might arise at each step in the process)
• A discussion of how to determine the value of existing data, and how you analyze and measure the data that you obtain from the strategic planning process.
• Resources where the organization can find more information
• Explanation of terminology (if needed)
• A discussion of how your model differs from other common planning models (i.e., What aspects of other planning models will you retain? What aspects will you include that may be missing from other planning models?)
• Charts, worksheets, or any other planning elements that might be helpful to an organization as they undertake the strategic planning process.

- While you should be comprehensive in creating your model and developing your guide, you should also be succinct in the materials(s) that you present.

- The final document should be no more than 5-7 pages not including charts, worksheets and anything else you need to complete the assignment.

- Be sure to use appendices in your final paper if necessary.

- Aside from these basic requirements on structure, your model and your guide should be as creative and innovative as possible (the items outlined above by bullets points are only meant to serve as examples of things to include in your final document).

- In addition to the quality of your work and conciseness of your document, you will also be evaluated on the thoroughness of your research. Not only will the course material provide you with a wealth of resources regarding strategic planning, but also in the internet age you have access to a wide variety of sources of information.

- Consequently, expectations are high that you will not simply rely on three or four information sources in developing your model and Strategic Planning Guide.