How to use StratNavApp.com
Discover how to harness StratNavApp.com for effective strategy development and execution, ensuring your business strategy is dynamic and collaborative.
Overview
StratNavApp.com is the online platform for collaborative business strategy development and execution. It contains all the tools you need to successfully develop and execute a business strategy.
- It's for strategy development and execution. Because either without the other is no good. And it brings the two together in a fluid, iterative process. Because the days of spending 6 months developing a strategy and then 5 years executing it are long over.
- It is a collaborative tool. You can use it on your own. But you will probably get better results if you use it with your team. After all, 2 heads are better than 1 and 4 hands are better than 2. StratNavApp.com will help to ensure that all members of the team stay up-to-date and aligned. See also: Strategy is a collaborative exercise for details about how this works.
- It's based on best practice. All of the tools it includes are widely used. Many have been used for decades. StratNavApp.com provides plenty of support within the platform itself. But you will also find plenty of other resources to help you to better understand and apply the tools in numerous books and on the internet.
- StratNavApp.com will provide you with context-sensitive guidance on what to do next. But there is no right or wrong order in which to do things. What matters more is that, as you work, your strategy gradually becomes more integrated and aligned. So feel free to follow your own path and work in the way that suits you and your particular circumstances.
- It is also modular. You don't need to do everything. Indeed, not everything within the platform is relevant in all situations. So feel free to use as little or as much of the tool as you find useful.
Learn more about the benefits of using StratNavApp.com.
The Strategy Board
StratNavApp.com is structured around the Strategy Development and Execution lifecycle which is visually presented on the Strategy Board. This consists of 4 phases, represented by 4 modules:
- Analysis. This is where you develop a rich, evidence-based and shared picture of your business and the industry in which it operates. Analysis is the basis for all good strategy.
- Direction. This is where you outline where your organisation needs to go in order to succeed in the future. The clearer you are about where you want to go, the more likely you are to get there.
- Planning. This is where you think about what you will do in order to go there. It's important to be clear on exactly who will do what by when and to what end.
- Results. This is where you track your results to ensure your strategy is working, or that you adjust it if it is not.
A 5th module, Governance, sits at the heart of all four stages of the Strategy Development and Execution life cycle. It supports them all to ensure your strategy is soundly based, well-formulated and executed with discipline. It supports Stakeholder Management, Meeting Management and a RAID log.
These 5 modules are presented on the Strategy Board, the hub for your strategy project on StratNavApp.com. Each project (see below) has its own Strategy Board.
Learn more about the Strategy Board.
StratNavApp.com Projects
StratNavApp.com divides your work into projects.
- Usually, each project represents one strategy.
- You may only ever need one project.
- But if you're a larger organisation, you might have different projects for the strategies of each of your operating divisions.
- Or if you're a consultant, you might have one project for each of your clients' strategies.
- Or may you will just fire up a project to explore a particular idea you have.
- It's up to you. The important thing to remember is that each of the projects is independent of the others. And you can share each project with different members of your team.
- You can easily switch between projects, and even create hyperlinks between them.
- But don't worry, if you do have lots of different projects, StratNavApp.com provides you with plenty of tools to help you stay on top of them all.
Learn more at Working with Projects in StratNavApp.com.
Collaborating with others
- You can 'share' projects with other users.
- Each person you share with will see everything in that project. But don't worry, they won't be able to see anything in other projects that you haven't shared with them.
- StratNavApp.com will alert you to any changes they make using alerts if you're working on the system at the time, or emails, in case you are not.
Learn more at Strategy is a collaborative exercise.
Integrations and Reporting
StratNavApp.com contains everything you need in one platform. It's designed to be used from anywhere, on any device at any time. But we recognise that there is a world beyond StratNavApp.com. So there are plenty of ways that StratNavApp.com can integrate with the outside world:
- Reporting:
- StratNavApp.com will let you Output high-quality plans in Microsoft Word. These can be customised with your own branding and style.
- If you don't want to generate any entire report then, with the click of a single button, StratNavApp.com will let you download a particular model or view, ready to embed in an email or an office productivity tool like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint.
- You can also produce output in HTML or StratML format. (StratML, or Strategy Markup Language, is the ISO standard for strategy plans and performance reports. See Wikipedia) You can also import strategies from StratML format into StratNavApp.com. See Working with StratML.
- Calendars and Email:
- StratNavApp.com can integrate with most email and calendar programmes to help you plan your strategy development and execution projects.
- APIs:
- APIs allow you to connect your other existing systems to StratNavApp.com so that they can exchange data with each other.
- Deep links:
- Every "page" on StratNavApp.com is uniquely referenceable by its URL.
- You can copy the page URL from your browser's toolbar and paste it in a link anywhere - such as an email, another tool you use or even within StratNavApp.com itself - so that when you or another user click on that link, it will take you straight back to that page in StratNavApp.com. (It might route you through a login page if you're not logged in.)
- You can also select "Copy page link to clipboard" from the main menu to copy a more user-friendly link including the page description and the URL if you like.
- Browser Bookmarklets:
- Our browser bookmarklets allow you to access StratNavApp.com from anywhere on the web, allowing you to clip web content directly into the app, and integrate with LinkedIn and web-based email and CRM programmes.
- Attaching External Files:
- Our File Vault and SharePoint integration allow you to incorporate and share files such as research and reports related to your strategy. (See Using the File Vault and SharePoint integration.)
Getting help
We'd tried to make StratNavApp.com simple and intuitive to use. But, developing and executing strategy can be a daunting task. So, we've made sure there is plenty of help at hand.
- Blog articles: We've written detailed blog posts about just about everything StratNavApp.com does. This page is one of them. There is also a full index of blog articles, and they're searchable.
- Help menu: But you don't need to search through the blog articles yourself. Wherever you are in the system, click the help icon at the top right of the page for a menu of links to the most helpful articles, and it'll take you straight there. You'll find there is always a link straight to this page from that menu.
- Context-sensitive prompts: The system provides plenty of context-sensitive prompts at the top of the screen explaining what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what you might want to think about doing next. Think of them like a little coach sitting over your shoulder. Often, they will contain quick links to take you where you want to go, as well as links providing more information. They will be changing all the time, depending on what you're doing, so keep an eye on them.
- Popups: Especially when you first start using the system, you may see a number of popups drawing your attention to different pieces of functionality. You'll have an opportunity to dismiss them once you've read them. But they may return after a period as a fresh reminder.
- Hover tips: Not sure what something does? Simply hover your mouse-pointer over it and you just might find a help popup tip to help.
- #StratNavi: You'll find our #StratNavi chatbot at the bottom right of the screen. Simply click on the icon and ask it anything about developing and executing strategy with StratNavApp.com and see if it can answer you. It's conversational, so you can ask follow-up questions if the answers still aren't clear.
- Support tickets: If you're still stuck or something goes wrong, you can log a support ticket. Simply click on the help menu at the top right of the screen and select "Log support ticket" and we'll get back to you. (You will see you can also submit ideas for improving the system.)
Looking for more?
If you're looking for more, then:
- You can log a support ticket or make a suggestion by clicking on the help icon on the top right-hand corner of the screen.
- Check out and follow our YouTube channel for video content.
- Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
And you can always email us. Simply reply to any of the emails you get from the system. We promise to read them and will do our best to respond as helpfully as we can!
Other resources
- Introduction to StratNavApp.com (Youtube video)
- Getting the most out of StratNavApp.com (Youtube video)