How to use StratNavApp.com
StratNavApp.com contains all the tools you need to successfully develop and execute a business strategy.
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 and Locked fields.
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 some 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.
StratNavApp.com is structured around the Strategy Development and Execution lifecycle. This consist 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.
These 5 modules are presented on the Strategy Board, the hub for your strategy project on StratNavApp.com.
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.
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.
- A handy bookmarklet (learn more) to enable you to easily clip information you find on the web into your strategy.
- 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.)