Editing Strategic planning (section)

==History==
Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of [[strategic management]]. 

[[McKinsey & Company]] developed a [[capability maturity model]] in the 1970s to describe the sophistication of planning processes, with strategic management ranked the highest. The four stages include:
#Financial planning, which is primarily about annual budgets and a functional focus, with limited regard for the environment;
#Forecast-based planning, which includes multi-year financial plans and more robust capital allocation across business units;
#Externally oriented planning, where a thorough situation analysis and competitive assessment is performed; 
#Strategic management, where widespread [[strategic thinking]] occurs and a well-defined strategic framework is used.
Categories 3 and 4 are strategic planning, while the first two categories are non-strategic or essentially financial planning. Each stage builds on the previous stages; that is, a stage 4 organization completes activities in all four categories.<ref name="LOS2010">{{cite book
| last = Kiechel
| first = Walter
| author-link = Walter Kiechel
| year = 2010
| title = The Lords of Strategy | publisher = Harvard Business Press
| isbn = 978-1-59139-782-3| title-link = The Lords of Strategy
}}</ref>

In 1993, President [[Bill Clinton]] signed into law the [[Government Performance and Results Act]], which required [[Federal agencies in the United States|US federal agencies]] to develop strategic plans for how they would deliver high quality products and services to the American people.<ref>Federal Consortium Benchmarking Study Team ([[National Performance Review]]), [https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/benchmrk/customer.html Serving the American Public], published in  February 1997, accessed on 18 March 2025</ref>

In the business sector, McKinsey research undertaken and published in 2006 found that, although many companies had a formal strategic-planning process, the process was not being used for their "most important decisions".<ref>The McKinsey Quarterly, [https://www.jorgejuanfernandez.com/archives/Improving%20strategic%20planning,%20McKinsey%20Quarterly%202007.pdf Improving Strategic Planning: A McKinsey Survey], published in 2006, accessed on 30 October 2024</ref>

For Michael C. Sekora, [[Project Socrates]] founder in the [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan|Reagan White House]], during the [[Cold War]] the economically challenged [[Soviet Union]] was able to keep on western military capabilities by using technology-based planning while the U.S. was slowed by finance-based planning, until the Reagan administration launched the Socrates Project, which should be revived to keep up with [[China as an emerging superpower]].<ref>{{cite news |url= http://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-cold-war-budget-tool-could-save-pentagon |title= Opinion: The Cold War Budget Tool That Could Save The Pentagon |date= Feb 2, 2018 |author= Michael C. Sekora |work= [[Aviation Week & Space Technology]]}}</ref>