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Tactical Planning: Creating a Tactical Plan for Your Business

Tactical planning is the practical counterpoint to strategic planning, which describes the overall direction of an organization. Tactical planning tells you how to get there. It’s about execution and, therefore, critical to achieving your strategic goals.

This concept is an important part of project portfolio management (PPM) and project management offices (PMOs). Let’s dive a bit deeper into the subject and explain how it differs from other types of planning, its benefits and more.

What Is Tactical Planning?

Tactical planning describes the action steps, strategies and projects that are deployed by the different departments of an organization, such as sales, marketing, product development and others to contribute to the accomplishment of strategic goals. It breaks down the long-term strategic plans of more than two or three years into short-term plans.

In general, tactical planning is in response to an immediate issue or situation. This can apply to a business or a project team. A strategic plan is responding to where a business wants to be in a long time, but tactical planning can also be used to submit a bid by creating a viable proposal that will win your company that business.

To achieve the strategic goals of a business, tactical plans include focused goals, steps to reach these goals and a timeline in which to achieve them. To organize and manage this process, businesses employ project management techniques and tools, such as project management software.

ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has robust Gantt charts that help plan the tactical steps on a visual timeline. Our Gantt charts organize tasks, set milestones and link all four types of task dependencies to avoid costly delays. You can also filter for the critical path to identify essential tasks and then set a baseline to track project variance in real time. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Tactical planning is one of three types of planning employed by businesses. The other two are strategic planning and operational planning, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Tactical Planning vs. Strategic Planning

Tactical planning and strategic planning are two different levels in the organizational planning of an organization. Strategic plans are high-level view goals of an organization, drafted by company owners, boards of directors and the top-level management team.

Tactical planning isn’t as long-term as strategic planning. It outlines the short-term steps that need to take place to achieve the strategic goals of the strategic plan. Tactical planning is specific, short term with clear deliverables , while strategic planning identifies broader decisions, is long term and has clear goals.

Tactical Planning vs. Operational Planning

Tactical plans can be used by departments within a business to develop and measure their functionality, but it’s different from operational planning. Operational planning is done by the lower layer of management.

Operational planning directs the everyday operations of the business departments. This goes to the most specific guidelines for business processes and daily activities of employees. So if we’re talking about a manufacturing plant, it would include the different standard operating procedures for production workers.

Benefits of Tactical Planning

The longest trip starts with the first step. This applies to how strategic goals benefit from tactical planning. But there are more benefits to tactical planning, a few of which we define below.

Connects All Levels of Management in an Organization

There are three levels to any organization. The top is the board of directors, chief executive or managing director. This is the administrative or managerial level. Then there are department managers, who are the middle level, who execute the plans from the top. After that, there’s the lower level or supervisory/operational level of management. These are supervisors, foremen, etc., who assign and manage the work of the teams. Tactical planning is the string that ties all these levels together and ensures that they’re working collaboratively.

Breaks Down Long-term Strategic Goals Into Actionable, Short-term Projects

As noted, strategic goals are long-term goals that a business wants to accomplish. Once defined, however, they need to be broken down into smaller projects or tasks that, step-by-step, will let the business reach that future target. Tactical planning takes the aspirational goals of the business and makes a practical roadmap that gets the business from where it is to where it wants to be.

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Helps Decision Makers Allocate Organizational Resources Strategically

Organizations have limited resources and each department within the organization is likely competing for those resources. Strategic and tactical planning makes it easier to decide what money should be spent on marketing, production and sales as well as other resources. Resources should be spent on the areas that contribute the most to the completion of strategic goals. That’s the criteria to prioritize them when making tactical plans.

What Is a Tactical Plan?

Now that we know what tactical planning is and why it’s beneficial, it’s time to look at the elements that make up a tactical plan. While creating a tactical plan varies from one business to the next depending on their goals, any successful one will have these key elements.

SMART Tactical Goals

Before you can plan to achieve your goals you have to have them. As the top-level management starts to think about what their long-term goals are, they should make sure they’re SMART. That’s an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Next, you need to establish a timeline . That is, create a deadline and work backward to make a timeline in which you’ll be able to plot the tasks or steps that will get you there. This will improve your chances of reaching that end goal.

Action Steps & Projects

Those tasks are also called action steps, which take you from where you are to where you want to be by your deadline. However, bigger strategic goals and bigger organizations not only require action steps but actual projects, which are more involved. You’ll have to think about risk management, resource management , task management, etc.

Related: 8 Free Risk Management Templates for Excel

Deliverables

Deliverables describe the quantifiable goods or services that are provided throughout and after a project. You’ll want to identify these deliverables, which can be done by using a work breakdown structure . Once you have your deliverables identified, you can also identify the tasks needed to get them.

Resources are anything you’ll need to execute your tactical plan, such as materials, workforce, equipment, finance, outsourcing products and more. Managers need to identify the resources they’ll need and use the timeline to schedule those resources when they’re needed.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once you execute your tactical plan you’ll need a ruler by which to measure its success or lack thereof, which is what KPIs are. Some KPIs are revenue, new customers, etc.

Tactical Planning Example

Let’s imagine a large appliance manufacturing company that has drawn the following strategic goals for the next two to five years. In this example, we’ll illustrate how those high-level views of strategic goals can be translated into more specific tactical plan goals and action steps .

Strategic Goals

Increase our net revenue by 20 percent and profit margin by 10 percent
Cut manufacturing costs by 15 percent
Improve our customer satisfaction level by 25 percent

Tactical Plan Action Steps per Department

Here are the action steps for key departments of this company. All of these activities work together cohesively to achieve the strategic goals outlined above.

Production & Procurement

Find suppliers that offer raw materials and components at a lower price
Outsource and/or offshore a portion of the production process overseas to reduce production costs and increase the profit margin
Use the excess production capacity to create new products to open new markets and support the objective of increasing revenue
Optimize the production line to increase its resource capacity
Purchase machinery to automate the production process and cut down labor costs

Marketing & Sales

Find new market opportunities for new products through market research tactics
Create a website to attract customers online
Partner with online vendors to open new distribution channels
Create a mobile app that customers can use to learn more about our product and contact our support team

Customer Service

Open physical locations where users can bring or send their products for maintenance
Improve the responsiveness of the customer service department by hiring more customer service representatives
Use the website as a new way to respond to customers by creating a chatbot that answers the most commonly asked questions and directs customers to human customer service representatives

Product development

Develop products that target new niches as recommended by the market research findings
Develop new models that are cheaper to produce but retain most of the positive attributes of the current products
Creating more energy-efficient models which has been known to be a recurring issue for existing customers

To execute each of these tactical action steps, the tactical-level managers will need to define a timeline, estimate the resources that will be required and establish key performance indicators and the tools that will be used to track them.

As discussed above, whenever you create a tactical plan for a business department you must make sure that it aligns with the larger strategic plan of your organization. This free strategic plan template for Word is a great tool for gathering the key elements that will help you define the overall direction of your business in the future, such as its operations plan, marketing plan and business objectives.

How ProjectManager Helps You Track Your Tactical Plan

Project management software can help you with tactical planning, executing those plans and then tracking them. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that can plan, manage and track your tactical plan in real time. Not only does our software have powerful Gantt charts, but multiple project views, such as kanban boards, task lists, sheet and calendar views. That means teams can collaborate across departments in the same tool with the live data to keep them on the same page.

Allocate Resources and Track Resource Utilization

Being able to plan, allocate and track your resources is vital if you want to deliver on your strategic goals. Our software lets you set the availability of your team, including PTO and global vacations, which makes assigning them to tasks easier. You can track how much work they’re doing and labor costs on our secure timesheets. Then go over to the workload chart to see if anyone is overallocated. If they are, balance the team’s workload from the chart to keep them productive and working at capacity.

Track Costs With Real Time Dashboards

Whenever you need a high-level overview of your project, toggle over to our real-time dashboard. It automatically collects live data and displays it in easy-to-read graphs and charts that show KPIs, such as time, cost, workload and more. There’s no time-consuming setup required as in lightweight alternative products. It’s a status report whenever you want one. If you need a status report, portfolio report or reports on workload, timesheets and more, visit our reporting features. You can filter all reports and easily share them to keep stakeholders updated.

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: The What, When, & Why

Published: March 01, 2022

Whether you've set personal or business goals, you likely created a plan to achieve them. Without clearly defined steps, it can be difficult or even discouraging to tackle the goal you've set.

One example of a situation where planning and strategy come in handy is during a job search . Let's say you've spent weeks or months scouring the internet for a new sales job, but none of the job postings seem to match your skill set or career interests.

Have you taken a step back and thought about a specific type of sales job you want? And did you consider the most important qualities you're looking for in an employer or career?

Your online job search will become less tedious and disheartening if you have a clear set of objectives to follow. While you might get more search results for "sales manager", you'll find jobs that are a better fit for you if you clarify by searching for "senior sales manager - medical devices."

With your new search strategy, you've identified a seniority level and the industry you'd like to work in. The next steps you set for yourself are to periodically repeat this search and only apply to the roles that seem like the best fit for you and your career aspirations.

Thinking strategically helps you narrow down your search and use your time more effectively. Plus, you'll increase the likelihood of landing a job that's a great fit for you.

Once you aced your interviews and landed the perfect sales job, you'll find that these types of planning, strategic and tactical, are used by many businesses and sales teams to set themselves up for success.

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning

Strategic planning lays out the long-term, broad goals that a business or individual wants to achieve. And tactical planning outlines the short-term steps and actions that should be taken to achieve the goals described in the strategic plan.

Your strategic plan provides the general idea of how to reach a goal, and the tactical plan is where you lay out the steps to achieve that goal.

Since the objectives set in the strategic plan are more general and are evaluated over a longer period of time, strategic planning typically occurs at the beginning of a year, quarter, or month. These plans should be reviewed every quarter.

Tactical planning occurs after the strategic plan is outlined, and the tactical plan can be reexamined on a more frequent basis — if need be.

Details how the purpose, duration, and output differs between Strategic and Tactical Planning in black and light grey

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Here are some high-level examples that touch on the difference between the two types of planning.

Strategy vs. Tactics

Let's consider the perspective of a hypothetical company analyzing different strategies to improve different aspects of its sales operations.

1. Sales Recruitment

Strategy — We want to develop repeatable evaluation criteria for hiring the right salespeople.
Tactics — We will narrow down the specific qualities the company wants out of its salespeople, draft appropriate interview questions to shed light on those qualities, and train recruiters to conduct interviews based on those key tenets.

2. Smarketing

Strategy — We want to improve sales and marketing alignment.
Tactics — We will clearly define the qualities of an SQL so that marketing can fous their efforts on those, encourage collaboration between departments on the creation of sales content, and hold interdepartmental retrospectives after each marketing campaign.

3. Technological Infrastructure

Strategy — We want to build a more sound, technological foundation for our sales operations.
Tactics — We will adopt a CRM, incorporate a conversational intelligence tool for improving sales calls, and make virtual sales enablement resources available to our reps.

Taken together, the strategies and tactics a sales organization employs — like the ones listed above — comprise what are known as sales plans.

Sales Plans

A sales plan encompasses both strategic and tactical planning and contributes to an organization's overarching sales strategy . It outlines the broad goals your sales team and reps should strive for, and it creates an action plan to reach them.

The strategic plan sheds light on the mission, objectives, and future goals of the organization or individual. Managers, VPs, and executives typically create strategic plans for an organization, but this type of plan can also be used by individuals to achieve personal or professional goals.

These are the key components to include in a strategic plan:

Mission and background of the business or situation: Where do you currently stand? And where do you want to be in the future?
Goals and objectives: What would you like to achieve?
DRIs (directly responsible individuals): Who are the people responsible for these goals?

Strategic planning and tactical planning provide guidelines for businesses, teams, and individuals to follow. And the tactical plan outlines exactly how they'll achieve the final result.

Strategic Goals vs. Tactical Goals

A major part of planning, whether it’s strategic or tactical, is setting goals. You should actually set goals for both your strategic planning and your tactical planning. Having those objectives clearly laid out helps push your plans into direct action. Your strategic goals should be broader while your tactical ones should be more specific.

For example, a strategic goal may be to develop a company culture that encourages growth and retention. A tactical goal may be to survey all existing employees to gain information on why they weren’t retained. If your tactical planning and your strategic planning are related, then the goals for each should also have a connection between them.

Strategic Planning

A strategy is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time.” So, strategic planning is meant to achieve something for the bigger picture.

Tactical planning includes the immediate actions that feed into the larger purpose outlined by a strategy. These plans are carried out in the long term and incorporate big, impactful changes. There are nine strategic planning models your business can use as a starting point.

South Dakota Mines strategic plan with vision and mission statements in blue and white.

Strategic Planning Examples

IT company's strategic business initiatives in blue, orange, and white

Since tactical planning is more direct, it’s often more specific to your team or business. Strategic plans, however, are often broad enough to be applied to a whole niche or industry. For instance, strategic planning for sales could involve some similar goals across different companies, but their tactical plans may be unique. Here are a few examples of strategic plans that could apply to different businesses.

Acquire 50% more clients by the end of the year.
Improve SEO rankings by 20%.
Expand the customer service team where satisfaction is lacking.

Tactical Planning

Tactical planning occurs after a business, team, or individual has created a strategic plan that outlines general goals and objectives. A tactical plan describes the steps and actions that must be taken to achieve the goals from the strategic plan.

Once you've created your strategic plan, it's time to determine the tactics you'll use to reach your goals. This is where the tactical plan comes into play.

It's used to outline the steps a business or individual will need to take to accomplish the priorities that have been set. Here are a few things to consider when developing your tactical plan:

What is the timeline for achieving these goals?
Are there tools or resources that are necessary to accomplish these objectives?
What specific actions should be taken to achieve the intended outcome?

Your tactical plan will provide the answers to these questions to help you meet the objectives of the strategic plan.

So, what do strategic and tactical planning look like in practice?

Tactical Planning Examples

While strategic and tactical plans can vary by company or industry, there are some that can apply to many sales organizations and teams.

Here are a few examples that are common for sales teams and reps. The strategic plans are numbered, and the tactical plans are outlined below.

1. Fill my pipeline with more leads over the next two weeks.

Spend an hour prospecting each day.
Leverage social selling, and join five LinkedIn Groups that your prospects belong to.
Attend an industry networking event.

2. Close more enterprise deals each month.

Enroll reps in a hands-on training session in your Enterprise product offerings.
Set a goal for each rep to schedule at least three demos with enterprise-level prospects this quarter.
Create an incentive for those that close the most Enterprise deals in the month.

3. Hire 20 more entry-level sales representatives by the end of Q1.

Create a hiring profile that candidates should meet.
Develop a LinkedIn outreach campaign to find and attract new talent.
Attend career fairs at 15 local universities.

Your Business Needs Both Strategic and Tactical Planning

There is a purpose to both strategic and tactical planning. Each moves your business’ progress closer to larger goals and objectives. With a solid strategic plan and a detailed tactical plan, you'll be well-equipped to grow your business.

Editor's note: This post was originally published on February 28, 2019, and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Planning for Success: A Guide to Tactical Planning in Business

Let’s take a look at what tactical business planning is, why it matters, and how to use it to improve your business outcomes.

When it comes to running a successful business, planning is key. But how do you make sure your plans are effective and achievable?

That’s where tactical business planning comes in. Tactical planning focuses on the “how” of getting things done. It’s the difference between having an idea and making it happen.

What’s the Difference Between Strategy and Tactics?

Have you ever heard someone talk about strategy or tactics in business, and wondered what the difference was?

It is actually simpler than it might sound:

In a nutshell, strategy refers to your big-picture plan, while tactics are more focused on your day-to-day implementation of that plan.

Let’s take a look at each of these concepts and how they work together.

Strategy: The Big Picture

A strategy is an overarching plan that guides your decisions and helps you achieve your goals.

It is created by looking at your current situation, evaluating the potential outcomes, and determining how best to achieve your desired results.

Strategy should be based on data and research, as well as an understanding of past successes and failures. A good strategy will set out specific objectives, identify key stakeholders, outline potential risks, and provide an actionable timeline for success.

Tactics: The Nitty Gritty Implementation

Tactics are the ways you go about executing your strategy. They are specific actions taken to achieve desired results.

Tactics can include anything from developing marketing materials to launching a new product or service. A tactic could be a specific way your team sells your product, or a certain method you've created to support your customers, or even a growth hack you use to grow your business.

Tactics should always be tailored to meet the needs of your business as well as those of your customers or clients. When creating or implementing tactics it's important to consider the impact on both your short-term goals (such as increasing sales) and your long-term goals (such as building brand awareness).

Tactical plans should also include measurable metrics so that progress can be tracked over time.

Strategic vs. Tactical Planning?

When it comes to planning, there are two main approaches — strategic planning and tactical planning .

Both involve setting goals, assessing progress, and making decisions that will help you reach those goals.

But what exactly is the difference between these two types of plans, and how can understanding their differences help you make better decisions for your business?

Let's take a closer look.

What Is Strategic Planning?

At its core, strategic planning involves looking at the big picture.

This type of planning focuses on long-term objectives and goals, taking into account any external factors that could impact your progress.

A key part of strategic planning is considering which strategies could be implemented in order to achieve your "big picture" goals, and which factors might influence the success or failure of those strategies.

For example, when creating a strategic plan for your business you might consider factors like market trends, potential growth opportunities, and the competitive landscape, in order to determine which actions should be taken in order to reach your desired outcome.

What Is Tactical Planning?

Tactical planning is focused more on short-term objectives than long-term ones.

A tactical plan looks at specific tasks that can be completed in order to achieve a goal or objective within a certain time frame, and it focuses on utilizing resources efficiently in order to complete those tasks successfully.

For example, if you wanted to launch a marketing campaign for your business within the next month, your tactical plan might involve creating an actionable timeline with steps such as researching target markets, creating content assets for the campaign, and budgeting for your project, in order to ensure everything is completed before the desired deadline.

What is Tactical Planning in Business?

Tactical planning in business involves developing an actionable plan using available resources, while at the same time attempting to minimize the risk levels associated with the different options.

Let's break that down.

A tactical plan starts by identifying measurable goals or objectives related to specific outcomes (such as increasing revenue or improving productivity).

Then, one develops the steps required to reach those objectives within a predefined time frame. A tactical objective is usually something achievable within a short period of time, say 1–6 months.

When building a tactical plan for your business it's important to take into consideration any potential obstacles or roadblocks that might get in the way. By predicting challenges and coming up with solutions for overcoming them, continual progress can be made towards completion of the goals set out in your tactical plan.

It's also important to establish performance measures so that progress can be tracked over time in order to determine if key objectives are being met.

Why Does Tactical Planning in Business Matter?

Tactical planning is an essential tool for businesses and organizations wanting to succeed (which most certainly is all of them).

Without a comprehensive plan of action, well-defined goals, clear strategies and a focus on implementation, it becomes difficult to accomplish anything worthwhile, and many organizations fall into the habit of foregoing tactical planning.

Tactical planning forces managers to regularly assess their operations — making sure they don't become complacent while also encouraging them to be creative in finding new opportunities. It also helps with decision making and aligning to future objectives.

All this promotes growth and progress, helping organizations reach their full potential as efficiently as possible. It's easy to see why tactical planning matters!

How to Build a Tactical Plan

As they say, " failing to plan is planning to fail. "

And it's true — you can't hope to reach your goals without having a plan in place.

Whether it's for personal or professional reasons, there are some core steps you should always keep in mind when creating a tactical plan.

Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Objectives

The first step when creating a tactical plan is to identify your goals and objectives.

This includes both short and long term goals, as well as measurable milestones that indicate progress along the way.

It's important to be realistic when setting your goals — if they are too ambitious, you may end up burning yourself out before you even get started! Instead, break down the larger goal into smaller, achievable tasks that can be completed over time.

Step 2: Assess Your Resources and Capabilities

Once you have identified your goals, take an honest look at your resources and capabilities. Do you have enough time? Money? Knowledge? Skills ?

If not, consider how you can act on those resources and capabilities in order to make progress towards your goal. Also consider any external factors that could affect the outcome of your plan, like for example, if there is new legislation coming into effect that could impact the success of your project.

Step 3: Create an Action Plan

Now it's time to start putting together an action plan.

This includes outlining what tasks need to be done in order to achieve each goal or milestone within the timeline set out in the previous steps.

Make sure each task in your tactical action plan is detailed with specific deadlines and assigned roles so everyone knows exactly what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. It's also important to include contingency plans in case something goes wrong along the way; this will ensure that any disruptions are minimized as much as possible.

Step 4: Monitor Progress and Adjust As Necessary

As with any project, monitoring progress is key if you want it to succeed.

Be sure to regularly check in with team members and adjust plans as needed. This will help ensure that everything stays on track and no one gets left behind or overwhelmed due to lack of direction or guidance from leadership .

Step 5: Celebrate Successes!

Once all of your hard work has paid off and all of the planned tasks have been completed successfully, don’t forget to take some time to celebrate your successes!

Whether it’s sending an email thanking everyone involved, or inviting your team to a celebratory dinner, taking some time out from all the hard work is essential for staying motivated.

Executing a successful tactical plan isn't easy. It takes coordination, communication, and commitment from all parties involved in order for it to work properly.

But if done correctly, tactical planning can yield amazing results for your business.

By following the steps of defining your strategic goals, identifying tactics, and then executing the plan, you'll have everything you need to succeed.

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Strategic vs. tactical planning

Whether you need to create a new product or service, build and execute a hiring plan, or take on a company rebrand, achieving your goals calls for some serious planning. That’s where strategic and tactical planning come in. While strategic planning involves big-picture thinking, tactical planning covers the nitty-gritty of turning strategy into action.

Read on to learn more about:

What a strategic plan is and how you can benefit from one
What a tactical plan is and key benefits of tactical planning
The difference between tactical and strategic planning

What is a strategic plan?

Companies create a strategic plan to lock in long-term business objectives and goals. An effective strategic plan outlines the actions needed to reach specific goals. Once completed, it’s a useful tool to communicate a company’s overall direction to the wider organization.

A strategic plan answers such key questions as:

What’s the state of your business, product, or service? What goes into running and turning a profit on your business in the current landscape?
Where do you want your business, product, or service to go? Where do you see your business in three to five years?
What does your organization have to do to achieve this? Which teams, what timelines, and what budgets are necessary?

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Benefits of successful strategic planning

Effective strategic planning is an ongoing process that:

Gives clear direction , aligning all team members and key stakeholders around the same objectives and goals.
Curbs subjective decision-making by using data and diverse points of view to inform and validate the strategic plan.
Allows teams to gauge and improve performance , adjusting strategies to succeed in an ever-changing economy.

Strategic planning in 6 steps

Strategic planning typically spans six steps:

Market assessment. Analyze top competitors, customer demand, supply-chain issues, and regulatory trends.
SWOT analysis. Pinpoint your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the marketplace. FigJam's SWOT analysis template helps you identify them.
Mission and vision definition. Upper-level management and key stakeholders align the mission and vision with a SWOT analysis. Use FigJam’s template to define or redefine your mission and vision .
High-level goal-setting. Leadership identifies overall business goals related to the mission and vision.
Team-level objectives. Teams come up with objectives to hit the high-level goals.
Resourcing. Hammer out overall requirements for financing, staffing, and other resources, such as technology investments.

What is a tactical plan?

A tactical plan is a roadmap that breaks down your long-term strategic plan into smaller, actionable steps — including daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and deadlines to help you meet key milestones. Tactical planning fills in the practical details of your day-to-day business operations, outlining who specifically is on the hook for each task or set of tasks.

Benefits of effective tactical planning

A thorough tactical plan can:

Make it easier to achieve strategic goals by translating a lofty strategic plan into specific, easy-to-understand tasks.
Boost employee engagement and performance by assigning clear roles and responsibilities.
Keep teams on the right track , supporting the company’s mission and vision.

5 tactical planning basics

Tactical planning typically includes five key activities:

Strategy validation. Map all the steps in a tactical plan to your strategic goal.
Planning. Project managers work with team leaders to divvy up the plan into shorter phases. FigJam’s Gantt chart maker can help you plot out your plan.
Assignments. Tap the right teams and team members for each task.
Resource allocation. Assign budgeted strategic plan resources to teams and individuals to get the work done.
KPI definition. Key stakeholders come up with KPIs (key performance indicators) to monitor progress against short-term objectives.

Differences between tactical and strategic planning at a glance

Strategic planning is:

Big-picture. High level and conceptual by nature, strategic planning defines ways to deliver on the company mission and vision.
Long-term. Companies set up three- to five-year strategic goals, sometimes extending plans to 10 years.
Top down. Planning starts from the top. Upper management leads on strategy, pulling in key stakeholders along the way.
External- and internal-facing. A good strategic plan relies on a solid understanding of both external market forces and internal operations.

Tactical planning is:

Detailed. Tactical planning focuses on the specific day-to-day actions that drive business strategy.
Short-term. A tactical plan includes short-term objectives and goals, covering a couple months to a year.
Bottom up. Managers set tactical goals that teams execute on to support overall strategic goals.
Internal-facing. Tactical planning is all about organizing internal teams so that they can meet deadlines and milestones.

Start planning your strategy and tactics with FigJam

Fire up your strategic and tactical brainstorm sessions using FigJam’s online collaborative whiteboard and ready-made templates . Then start building out your plans:

To nail down strategy , FigJam’s strategic plan template helps you outline essentials. Then you can refine plans with FigJam’s library of strategic planning templates .
To map tactics , use FigJam’s work plan , SMART goals , and KPI dashboard templates—and hit the ground running.
To get everyone on board with your plans , check out these best practices on collaborating in FigJam .

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[1] https://balancedscorecard.org/strategic-planning-basics/

[2] https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/why-is-strategic-planning-important

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgedeeb/2018/12/04/the-top-6-steps-of-strategic-planning/

[4] https://predictableprofits.com/tactical-planning-what-when-and-why/

[5] https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/tactical-planning

[6] https://leaders.com/articles/executives/tactical-planning/#h-how-to-create-a-tactical-plan

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: Which One is Better?

At a business meeting, management has set an ambitious goal of new sales to hit by the end of the year. The salespeople are excited, and company leadership is eager for their organization to achieve new heights. The question remains: How will they reach this new goal? That’s the dilemma many organizations struggle with as they seek to grow their businesses. Anyone can set goals and objectives, but achieving them is another matter. Planning your strategy and tactics is essential. Knowing the difference between tactical vs. strategic planning is often the difference between succeeding or failing to reach those goals.

What is a Strategic Plan?

What is a tactical plan, what is the difference between strategy and tactics, examples of strategic and tactical planning, how to create a strategic plan, how to create a tactical plan, be both a strategic and tactical leader.

Few people doubt the importance of planning ahead before tackling any project. A study published in the Journal of Business Venturing found that planning impacts a business’s overall performance in a positive way. A business plan helps companies grow as well. Research has found that organizations that plan grow up to 30 percent faster. For this reason, businesses need to prepare in advance to remain competitive and successful. Recognizing where strategic and tactical business planning come into play makes a difference. In this article, find out the difference between strategy and tactics and how to create each type of plan.

Key Takeaways

Strategy and tactics are key aspects of business planning.
Strategic planning is the process of mapping out what a business wants to achieve in the long term.
A tactical plan describes how the business will achieve its strategic goals.

A strategic plan explains what organizations want to achieve by looking at the big picture to set goals. The strategy businesses adopt maps out the long-term plans they intend to follow. This can also apply to individuals seeking career advancement and professional development. Strategic planning for this purpose outlines the overall goals, identifying the destination you want to reach in the future.

A tactical plan describes how a business will accomplish its goals. Tactical plans focus on the steps, tasks, and specific actions needed to achieve goals set by the established strategic plan. In this way, the tactical business planning process emphasizes short-term measures that contribute to a larger business strategy. Whether used for corporate planning, team planning, or individual plans, this type of planning is necessary for following through on strategic objectives.

Strategic planning represents the long-term view of an organization. Strategic plans mainly deal with broad goals and objectives. Many strategic plans have time frames of months or even years. They also involve looking at what resources the company has available and what kind of people can tackle the project.

The tactical planning process, on the other hand, is far more specific than strategic planning. Much of the time, tactical planning looks at the day-to-day activities required for reaching broader objectives. A tactical plan should consist of milestones and deadlines that help companies know if they’re on track with their strategic plans. This type of planning also emphasizes execution, ensuring that things don’t just get done but done well.

With those differences in mind, let’s take a look at some examples that highlight how strategic and tactical planning work. A strategic plan might say something along the lines of “recruit highly skilled individuals to form a capable and talented team.” That’s a goal with some broad strokes, but a tactical plan will get into the specifics. In this instance, tactical or corporate planning would include steps such as conducting surveys of current employees to find out what they like and don’t like about their jobs. It may also include attending job fairs, creating effective exit interviews to figure out why some talented people leave the company or developing a training program to improve leadership skills . All of these tactical steps will contribute to the strategic plan.

Here’s how strategic and tactical planning might appear, with the strategic plan listed on top and the tactical plans shown underneath:

Goal: Double sales by the end of next year.
Hire ten new salespeople before the end of the current quarter.
Create and send out client surveys to determine where the company can improve.
Adopt new CRM software to handle an increased workload.
Reach out to past clients to find out why they left and if they have an interest in returning.

That’s just a brief example of how strategic and tactical planning might look. Leaders can also write each part of the tactical plan in smaller steps if that’s what the company wants. The more details worked into the plan, the easier it will be to follow and measure progress.

1. Identify a Big Picture Goal

What ultimate destination do you want to end up at? That’s the question every business and individual must ask when making a strategic plan. Do you want your company to become the leader in their industry? Do you want to head up a new innovative company? The big picture goal should be lofty and aspirational, even if it’s not too specific.

2. Evaluate Your Current Position

Take the time to look closely at where the company is now. Try using SWOT analysis, which is a strategic planning tool that analyzes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For example, ask questions like:

How does the business compare to competitors?
What recent successes has it had?
Where has it failed in the past?

By evaluating your current position, you can get a good idea of how much distance the company must cover to reach its long-term goals. If the distance is short, then maybe the goal isn’t big enough.

3. Align Goal With Company Values

Whatever goal companies choose, they must make sure it aligns with their values. Every organization should have a mission statement , so a goal that runs contrary to that mission statement should be thrown out. Take your values and convictions into account as you are strategic planning, as they can often inform you if the destination you’ve identified is actually where you want to end up.

4. Determine How to Monitor Progress

The goal set by the organization is likely many months or years into the future. Progress may appear slow at times. Because of this, determine early on how you should measure that progress. For example, with a marketing plan, what would you like to see six months from now? Where should sales be by the end of the quarter? By doing this, you’ll know if you need to course-correct before you’ve gone too far off the path.

1. Keep Strategic Goals in Mind

Strategic planning provides the destination and general outline of what the company wants to achieve. Create every piece of the tactical plan with that overall goal in mind. Operational planning like this gets into the nitty-gritty details, so it’s easy to become bogged down in unnecessary information. Note why each step of the tactical plan exists, and if it doesn’t make progress toward the goal, eliminate it.

2. Divide the Plan

When you know your ultimate destination and the approximate time frame needed to reach it, break up that goal into individual steps. Start with where you want to arrive at the end of each month, then each week, and then each day. These steps represent your progress and help teams keep track of where they are. Breaking up larger projects like this enables you to visualize how you’ll reach long-term goals.

3. Organize Teams

Once all the steps of the tactical plan have been established, note how many teams you need to achieve success. Then organize those teams to handle the different elements of the tactical plan. When engaging in corporate planning like this, you should have a good idea of what kind of expertise you have on staff. Based on the skills of the available personnel, you can determine where to place each person, so they have the best chance at success.

4. Determine Resource Allocation

At the same time, companies can also divide up the available resources, so each team has what they need to succeed. Everyone should know that these resources aren’t limitless, so make sure to explain why they get the amount you’ve allocated. This step can involve difficult choices, but with a firm tactical plan in mind, you’ll have a good idea of where your resources need to go.

5. Measure Progress

Determine how to measure progress for a tactical plan. Measuring progress for this plan will happen more frequently, such as at the end of each day or week. Determine how well you and each team did during the day and see if you need to make any changes to keep on schedule. If changes need to be made, make sure they address the problems you encounter most often.

Focusing too much on one side of strategy or tactics will lead to frustration and failure in operational planning. The best practices in a business involve both strategy and tactics. As you lead others, note the importance of having both strategic and tactical plans at the ready. Aim high with your strategies, and pinpoint the details with your tactics. The best leaders will use both to take their organizations to where they want to go. The result will be a company that experiences business growth and success.

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How Tactics Support your Business Strategy

Posted june 4, 2020 by noah parsons.

Once you’ve set the strategy for your business, the next step is to define the tactics that you’ll use to turn your strategy into a reality.

Defining your tactics is the next step in our lean business planning process . If you’re building a lean business plan, download our free template or signup for LivePlan and then follow along to create a simple, one-page strategic plan that will grow your business.

What are Business Tactics?

Tactics are the specific things you do to achieve your strategic business goals.

Strategy vs Tactics – What’s the Difference?

Strategy defines your overall goals. It’s the overall plan for your business that defines what you want your business to be. Your strategy defines the problem that your business solves and who your customers are. Your strategy defines what you want to do at a high level.

Tactics are the concrete things you’re going to do to achieve the goals you set out in your strategy. They’re the specific plans and resources that you will use to achieve your goals. Your tactics include your marketing and sales plan, the team who will execute your plans, and any other partners and resources you may need along the way.

Your strategy is what you want to do while your tactics are how you’re going to get it done.

Strategy and Tactics Work Together

One of the greatest military strategists recognized that strategy and tactics by themselves are essentially useless; but, when paired together correctly, they work hand-in-hand, supporting each other:

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” — Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”

No matter how great your overarching business strategy is, it’s nothing without tactics . Tactics are the things that you actually do to make your business work. They make up the implementation plan that will turn your strategy into reality.

Your tactics are your roadmap. More specifically, they’re your marketing and sales plan, your product plan, the people you choose to be on your team, and the partners you choose to work with. Tactics are all the specific choices you make and the tasks you do to implement your strategy.

Alignment is critical

The most important thing is that your tactics support your strategy. Because your tactics are how you’re going to execute your strategy, the two have to be in alignment.

A company that sells handcrafted leather wallets, handbags, and other fashion accessories to customers that care about things that are handmade has its strategy aligned with its tactics when the marketing campaigns communicate the origin of the leather and the story of the craftsmanship.

“Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.” — George S. Patton

When tactics don’t align with your strategy, you’ll send a mixed message to your customers and confuse them. You might even attract the wrong customers—ones who will never buy from you—instead of connecting directly to your ideal target market.

What to include in your business tactics:

Sales channels: How are you selling your products and services? Are you selling directly to your customers online? Are you opening a physical storefront? Or, maybe you’re building a product that will get sold in other companies’ stores. In that case, you might be working with distributors. Outline how you plan on selling in this section.

Marketing activities: How are prospective customers going to learn about your company and your products? Are you going to use traditional advertising? Perhaps you plan on investing in a content marketing strategy. Or, maybe you need to attend a lot of trade shows to get in front of potential customers in your industry.

Team: When you’re planning your business, you have to not only think about what you’re going to do, but who’s going to do it. Even if you don’t have a full team yet, think about the positions that you’re going to need as you get up and running. Create a list of the key roles that you’re going to need to hire for as you grow. Don’t forget to think about your own strengths and weaknesses when you think about building a team. You’ll want to hire people that can fill in the gaps in your own skillset.

Partners and resources: Some businesses need to work with other businesses in order to be successful. If your business has critical partners, list them here. This is also a great place to list key resources your business needs, such as a license for intellectual property.

How to Figure Out your Business Tactics

If you’re a startup, one of the first things you’ll do as you start your business is talking to potential customers to validate your strategy . As you talk to those potential customers, you’ll figure out the right tactics to support your strategy.

Interviewing potential customers, building a basic version of your product, or even doing a Kickstarter campaign are all great ways to figure out if your idea is going to work. And, as you talk face-to-face with potential customers, you’ll figure out the best ways to market and sell your product. This knowledge will be the foundation you’ll need to figure out the tactics to support your strategy.

Tactics as part of a Lean Business Plan

You developed your strategy as the first step in building a Lean Business Plan . You figured out what problem you are solving and who you’re solving it for. You also thought about how to differentiate yourself from the competition.

As you add tactics to that strategy, start simple and focus on your sales, marketing, team, and key resources that you’re going to need to make your business work.

With a Lean Business Plan, you want to keep your list of tactics short and simple, especially in the early days of building your company. It’s easy to get bogged down thinking of every last thing that you need or want to do to get your business off the ground.

Instead, focus on the main things that you need to do. With Lean Planning, you’re going to be constantly talking to your prospective customers to refine your strategy, and you’ll refine your tactics at the same time as you learn more about your customers and determine what tactics will work.

Just keep things simple

The goal with Lean Planning is to minimize the amount of time that you spend planning and maximize your chances of success. So, move quickly through building your strategy and documenting your tactics so you can get out into the real world and figure out if your ideas are going to work.

This article is part of our series on building a lean business plan. For a comprehensive overview, check out An Introduction to Lean Planning .

Read the rest of our Lean Planning series:

How to develop your business strategy
How to create a roadmap to grow your business
How to define your business model

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Tactical vs Strategic Planning: Benefits, Examples, & Templates

Some links included here may be affiliate links, meaning we may earn a small monetary bonus from referring you to them. In no way does this increase the price you pay.

Today’s Business Task: Create a tactical plan that helps keep you on track towards reach that SMART business goal ( and yes, I have templates for you) .

Tactical Planning Template

Grab the template for this tactical planning exercise so you can build this as you go through the post.

Tactical Planning vs Strategic Planning

This was one of the most important pieces I learned during a business class I took recently. It’s part of the business model canvas ( which I recommend looking into after you understand this ) and something I currently have hanging on my wall.

Before we dive into building this thing, we need to understand what a tactical plan is.

This sounds like an uber-boring topic, eh? Once you get the hang of it, you won’t think that anymore. This is really powerful stuff for business owners.

Here is how Business Dictionary explains these two:

Strategic planning is a ”systematic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.”

Tactical planning is “a systematic determination and scheduling of the immediate or short-term activities required in achieving the objectives of strategic planning.”

Now that we got the very technical definitions out of the way, here is how I think of these two:

Strategic planning is figuring out what you want the future to look like, and breaking that into goals. If you want to grow a business that brings in 3 million in revenue, what business goals do you need to accomplish to get there?

Characteristics of a Strategic Plan:

Long-Term – 3-5 years out
Broad Goals
The why behind your work
More stable and don’t change much

Tactical planning is breaking up those goals into workable tasks that we can start scheduling into our task management system and calendar. We take the goals from above and put together specific plans for how to reach those.

Characteristics of a Tactical Plan:

Short-term: 1-2 years
Narrow and focused goals
How you are going to reach the strategic plan goals
These can be changed quickly

The Steps to Tactical Planning

One of the more powerful things I learned was that of a Tactical Improvement Plan, or Tactical implementation plan as I’ve found it’s also called. I like the latter name better, because it reminds you that it’s about getting sh*t done, as opposed to improving.

Either way, this plan consists of 6 pieces:

These are not just any goals, we want to use SMART goals . They are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound, AND include “why” you are working towards them.

Real Life Example:

My first goal for this plan was to “Develop a set of key packages for clients that bundle relative services based off the scope of work by 10/15, in order to increase efficiency of the sales process.”

These are the strategies you are going to be using to achieve the goal above. These tactics are not the actual tasks you’ll accomplish, but the kinds of things you’ll be doing to reach that goal.

Taking the goal above, my tactics were:

Take inventory of everything I’m currently doing and categorize them
Put together a comprehensive packaging of those services
Implement the new packages

These don’t have dates, they aren’t ready to be put in my task management system yet, so let’s move on to the action steps that I’ll need to get these done.

3. Action Steps

As I alluded to above, action steps are specific tasks you can put into your task manager and schedule a date for completion.

Think of this part as building your “to-do list” to make sure you achieve those tactics.

For this tactical plan example, here are the action steps (in bold) for each of the tactics listed above:

Create a list of all services offered (what it is, why it’s done, etc.)
Categorize each service into buckets based on necessity to the core package and type.
Decide on a core package offering that stands alone but is also a lead into upselling other services.
Put together a full breakdown of what’s included in the core package
Determine “tier 2” packages for customers
Come up with an a la carte menu for other add-ons and services
Creates a sales proposition (copy, who it’s for, etc.)
Identify appropriate pricing structure
Add new packages to the website
Reach out to existing clients and put them into a package

4. Resources

Next, we’re going to determine resources needed for each of those tasks, so we know what we’ll need to have in order to start the work.

Resources can include things like financial resources, materials, software, equipment, current employees, new employees, and outsourcing work.

Sometimes, the resource is as simple as your time. For others it might be another person, tools you need to acquire, etc. My resources are in bold below:

Resources Needed: Past client files and proposals
Resources Needed: My time
Resources Needed: Past client files and time
Resources Needed: list of services and time
Resources Needed: time and copywriting help
Resources Needed: computer, time, and research
Resources Needed: computer and time
Resources Needed: computer and phone calls

5. Deadline

Next, we are going to determine a deadline for each of these tasks in the tactical plan. Without the time piece, you’re going to get bogged down in trying to figure out what is due first and when you’re actually going to have this goal done.

6. Person Responsible

The last step is figuring out who you are going to make responsible for each of those steps . This helps us tremendously when we do add each action step to our task manager because we know who to assign it to., and who to follow up with if that part is falling behind.

I’m not going to re-paste my steps here, because all of mine rely solely on me to get them done. If you have a team, please make sure you’re not skipping this step.

I hope you see how helpful taking the time to break down everything into manageable steps can be in reaching your goals. A tactical plan can help you achieve your business goals

You can download this template to use to set your goals and create a full tactical plan.

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How to Use a Tactical Business Plan to Reach Goals

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Execution" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here .

What is a tactical business plan? How can a tactical plan help you turn your business goals into reality?

Identifying your business goals is important, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a plan to execute those goals. In their book Execution, business leaders Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan teach you how to make a tactical plan to bring your business goals to fruition.

Here’s how to create a tactical business plan.

Create Tactical Plans That Work

In this article, you’ll learn how to translate your business strategy into reality using a tactical business plan . We’ll discuss the factors that make a tactical plan work well and the basic steps to follow when putting it together.

The Key Elements of a Tactical Plan

Your tactical business plan specifies both short-term and long-term goals aligned with your strategy and describes how you’re going to reach those targets. Bossidy and Charan explain that it includes the major programs and projects that are lined up for the coming year, such as a new marketing initiative, a product release, or a sales force reconfiguration.

(Shortform note: Whereas Bossidy and Charan speak of tactical plans generally, some people distinguish between two main types of tactical plans . A single-use plan is designed for a special project that’s not likely to be repeated, whereas a standing plan is used multiple times for projects that occur regularly.)

There is no strict formula for creating a tactical plan. It requires deep engagement, rigorous truth-telling, critical thinking, and much give-and-take between team members . That said, the general flow in creating your tactical plan, according to Bossidy and Charan, is fairly straightforward. Implement the following steps to create a plan that is ambitious and realistic—and that facilitates learning and relationship-building with key players in your company:

Step #1 : Give leaders from each segment of the company the big-picture targets (for example, revenue and operating margin). Then, let each leader develop a tactical plan for their particular division to help the company reach those targets.

Step #2 : Convene everyone to stress-test the assumptions built into each plan . For example, if you increase prices, will it turn customers away? Is demand for this product merely a short-term trend, or is it worth additional investment? The authors instruct that you—as the leader—must engage everyone by asking pointed questions to determine what’s most likely to produce the intended outcomes.

Step #3 : Revisit and adjust plans based on how they fit with every other part of the company. Bossidy and Charan explain that everyone must constantly assess what give-and-take is necessary in the pursuit of big-picture goals. Devoting attention and resources to one opportunity or business unit inevitably comes at the expense of another. For instance, if you allocate additional resources to your European market, then you need to cut expenses elsewhere. Does it make more sense to do that in your North American market or your Asian market? After this vigorous back-and-forth discussion among the key players, the basic tactical plan is set.

(Shortform note: Although some give-and-take is inevitable when creating a tactical plan, as when a company must choose how to allocate limited financial resources, recent developments have made some trade-offs less significant . For example, Just-in-Time production—a method in which a company produces just enough goods, precisely when customers require them—can help reduce lead times while also sustaining high quality, thereby reducing the usual trade-off between efficiency and quality.)

Step #4 : Identify contingency plans that can accommodate shifting circumstances . For example, if the European market goes cold, you’ll need to make up that anticipated revenue another way. Where will it come from? Robust contingency plans, Bossidy and Charan contend, can accelerate decision making and help you avoid costly delays.

Step #5 : Wrap up discussion and secure commitments from everyone to ensure alignment with the tactical business plan.

Step #6 : Follow up after the meeting with the key players, just as with the strategic plan. The authors recommend sending a memo that summarizes each person’s commitments and short-term benchmarks.

Step #7 : Assess progress toward those benchmarks at quarterly review meetings .

———End of Preview———

Like what you just read read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of larry bossidy and ram charan's "execution" at shortform ..

Here's what you'll find in our full Execution summary :

What execution in business is and why it matters
The three core functions that leaders must perform to execute well
The three important qualities leaders must have to execute well
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Hannah graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English and double minors in Professional Writing and Creative Writing. She grew up reading books like Harry Potter and His Dark Materials and has always carried a passion for fiction. However, Hannah transitioned to non-fiction writing when she started her travel website in 2018 and now enjoys sharing travel guides and trying to inspire others to see the world.

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One thought on “ how to use a tactical business plan to reach goals ”.

Hey there, Shortform Blog team! 👋 I just finished reading your article on creating a tactical business plan, and I must say, it’s an absolute gem for entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts like myself. Your concise yet comprehensive guide provided practical insights that are crucial for anyone looking to develop a solid roadmap for their business.

I really appreciate how you emphasized the importance of aligning strategy with action. Your step-by-step breakdown of the tactical business planning process was incredibly helpful in understanding how to translate high-level goals into actionable tasks. From defining objectives and identifying key initiatives to setting clear timelines and assigning responsibilities, your article covered all the essential elements of a well-structured business plan.

Furthermore, your emphasis on adaptability and flexibility was spot on. In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, being able to adjust and pivot is essential for long-term success. Your tips on regularly reviewing and revising the tactical plan to accommodate new information and market dynamics were invaluable. It’s clear that you understand the need for businesses to be agile and responsive in order to thrive.

Thank you for providing such valuable guidance on creating a tactical business plan. Your expertise and insights are highly appreciated, and I’m confident that many readers, myself included, will benefit greatly from your advice. Keep up the fantastic work, and I’m excited to explore more of your content in the future!

Example of Tactical Planning in Business

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Creating a Business Plan
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Tactical planning takes a company's strategic plan and sets forth specific short-term actions and plans, usually by company department or function. The tactical planning horizon is shorter than the strategic plan horizon. If the strategic plan is for five years, tactical plans might be for a period of one to three years, or even less, depending on what kind of market the business serves and the pace of change.

Characteristics of Tactical Plans

"Tactical Planning Vs. Strategic Planning," an article on the Management Innovations website, outlines several key differences between strategic and tactical planning. First, executives usually are responsible for strategic plans, as they have the best bird's-eye view of the corporation. Lower-level managers have a better understanding of the day-to-day operations, and they are usually the ones responsible for tactical planning.

Second, strategic planning is concerned with the future, and tactical planning with today. Third, since we know far more about today than we do about the future, tactical plans are more detailed than strategic plans.

Build Flexible Planning

Flexibility needs to be built into tactical plans to allow for unanticipated events. For example, if your company manufactures a product, you will need to build flexibility into your plan for machinery breakdowns and maintenance. You cannot assume you will be able to run your machinery at full tilt all the time.

Tactical Marketing Plan Example

Assume for a moment your company sells insurance products in a large metropolitan area. The tactical marketing plan for your insurance company must outline, step by step, each marketing component needed to meet the goals and vision of your company's strategic plan.

For example, if you decide one of the best ways to reach your target consumer is TV advertising, then the tactical plan needs to carefully spell out the specifics of the TV campaign. Steps in developing this plan include, but are not restricted to, deciding on an appropriate message; arranging for the production of the commercial; deciding what channels to air the commercial on and when; and following up with potential customers who respond to the campaign.

Communication Between Functional Areas

Handling customer inquiries resulting from your TV advertising may be the responsibility of your company's sales department. The tactical plan for the sales department needs to be developed in concert with the marketing department. The sales plan should address how the volume of calls will be handled, how many people this will require and how sales leads will be followed. The marketing department will need to provide the sales department with information about the TV campaign so sales can complete its own tactical plan.

Preparing to Change

The point of tactical planning is to reach the goals and objectives of the strategic plan. But markets and the business environment can change quickly. When this happens, it is time to reassess how tactics are performing against stated goals and to change tactics if necessary. Flexibility in the face of change is a necessary component of the ongoing tactical planning process.

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Lisa Nielsen is a marketing consultant for small businesses and start-ups. As part of her consultancy, she writes advertising copy, newsletters, speeches, website content and marketing collateral for small and medium-sized businesses. She has been writing for more than 20 years. She is also a business strategist, trainer and executive coach. Nielsen holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Miami.

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Strategy vs. tactics: What's the difference?

The terms “strategy” and “tactics” originated as military terminology, but are now widely used today in a professional setting. Learn how you can use both strategy and tactics to build your business strategy.

Chess grandmasters don't blindly go into the game moving pieces around randomly. They have well thought out and precise moves to gain the upper hand against their opponent.

What's the difference between strategy and tactics?

The terms "strategy" and "tactics" originated as military terminology derived from Sun Tzu's The Art of War . Since then, they've been adapted to fit different situations beyond just military usage, including business strategy.

How to build an organizational strategy

In this ebook, learn how to craft a strategic business plan that puts you ahead of the competition.

Definition of strategy

A strategy is an action plan that you will take in the future to achieve a final end goal. Strategies help to define your long-term goals and how you go about achieving them.

Definition of tactics

While strategy is the action plan that takes you where you want to go, the tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there. In a business context, this means the specific actions teams take to implement the initiatives outlined in the strategy.

If we go back to the chess analogy, strategy is positioning your pieces in a specific arrangement to get to where you want to be. Tactics are that act of moving said pieces into those positions.

The relationship between strategies and tactics

In The Art of War , Sun Tzu wrote, "All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved." Sun Tzu illustrates that while tactics are more concrete and easier to see, an overarching strategy is equally important. The question should not be strategy vs. tactics, but strategy and tactics. Think of these two techniques as two different sides of the same coin—both are necessary to achieve your goals.

If someone is trying to reach their goals solely with strategy, they won't get anywhere since tactics are the concrete action items that take you where you need to go. When a team only uses strategy, the only thing that they'll be doing is planning to achieve goals instead of doing the work that needs to be done to achieve them.

On the other hand, you can't achieve your business goals on tactics alone. Tactics without strategy quickly turns into aimless work. When this is the case, people are just taking arbitrary actions with no strategic objective in place. In the short term, this can feel like busywork for team members. In the long term, it can lead to frustration, burnout , and job dissatisfaction.

What makes a good strategy?

Data-informed decisions.

A good strategy is well thought out, planned, and extremely well researched. If you're looking to build a strong, long-term strategy, it's important to gather information and data from past experiences to influence your future data-driven decision making process.

For example, some industries experience seasonality with their business. Knowing how to use that seasonality to your advantage is an example of good strategic thinking and using historical data to your benefit.

Clearly defined goals

The best strategies are built around clearly defined goals. It's much easier to build a good strategy when you know exactly what you need to achieve. Having clearly defined goals is a key part of the overall planning process for long-term strategy. Some people plan both their strategy and their business goals at the same time, which can streamline the process. But if there's no end goal, trying to create your strategy is like trying to run a race without knowing the route.

Contingency plans

The success of your strategy is contingent on an expected outcome, but what happens when your strategy gets derailed? This is where a contingency plan comes in. If you build a contingency plan into your strategy, then you can plan for speed bumps. Your team will know what to do to get over the speed bump to prevent the project from getting completely derailed.

What makes good tactics?

Tactics are short term.

If the strategy is the long-term plan, tactics are the short-term steps that help you hit smaller goals. Tactical planning is the act of breaking down your strategic plan into short-term actions.

Tactics are clearly tied to strategy

If you’re struggling to understand how a specific tactic contributes to your strategy, it might not be the best tactic for your strategy. The work you do should actively contribute to the goals that you want to achieve.

The goal-setting framework OKRs is a good example of how short-term tactics connect to a long-term vision. There is one main objective, and there are key results that you set to achieve that main objective. The tactics that people work on regularly contribute to the growth of the key result.

Tactics are actionable and time-bound

Tactics are best executed in a limited time frame. Similar to most goal-setting strategies, creating time-bound deadlines ensures that tactics are actually completed within a set time frame. If you’re not sure how to create actionable and time-bound tactics, try using the SMART goal methodology.

Examples of business strategy and tactics

Here are a few examples of how business strategists can use both good strategy and smart tactics to achieve their business goals.

People team

Strategy: Interview 20% more candidates from historically underrepresented communities in tech.

Tactics:

Sponsor historically underrepresented community groups that focus on STEM.

Create opportunities for students with alternative education paths, such as bootcamps and trade schools.

Regularly share job listings on platforms that target under represented communities.

Digital marketing team

Strategy: Increase trial sign ups by 30%

Increase visibility on web pages by adding a free trial pop-up at 50% scroll.

Offer a free e-book with every trial sign up offer.

Promote trial sign ups through social media marketing.

Web development team

Strategy : Decrease page speed by 1 second.

Identify excess code that is affecting page speed and find streamlined alternatives.

Compress on-page images to less than 1 MB.

Reduce the number of page redirects.

Manage strategy and tactics using work management tools

Good strategy starts with organized planning. If you're looking for a way to keep your business goals organized, consider using a work management tool . Work management software can help connect your day-to-day tactics to long-term strategy.

Related resources

7 steps to complete a social media audit (with template)

How to accomplish big things with long-term goals

What are objectives and key results (OKRs)?

Fix these common onboarding challenges to boost productivity

Tactical Plan: What is it & How to Create an Effective One?

Are you one of those beginners in entrepreneurship who has great ideas but confused about how to implement them?

Even if you have a crystal clear vision, things will not work out unless you have a clear plan in place.

According to a report, a business plan creates a 71% greater chance of growth .

Another study revealed that businesses that use business plans have a 7% higher likeliness of high growth as compared to those without an adequate business plan.

Isn’t that interesting enough to consider drafting a plan for your business?

But, drafting a 40-50 page strategic business plan can really be overwhelming!

Well, what about creating a simple, yet powerful business plan to suit your company’s short-term needs?

You can update the plan as your business moves forward. Such a dynamic plan is extremely beneficial since your business is definitely not static. As you learn more about your business, you can adjust the plan frequently.

Well, that is what a ‘Tactical Plan’ is all about. It prevents you from wasting a lot of time while helping you craft the best out of your business.

In this article, we will be focusing on what a tactical plan is, how is it beneficial to your business, and how can you create one.

Read on to dive into some exciting information!

What is a Tactical Plan? (Definition)

Even if you have clearly defined goals for excelling in the long term, and beautifully executed mechanisms to carry out day-to-day processes, something is still lacking.

You are still left out with no measure to encounter an immediate challenge, which in turn, may handicap your long-term goals and strategies.

Hence, a tactical plan is something that your business would never want to compromise upon.

A tactical plan is defined as a clear outline of the actions you are going to take in order to a chieve a short-term goal.

It can either be a list of all the tasks that you will do on your own, or those which you are going to assign to your employees.

Say, if you decide to reach your potential clients or consumers through social media promotion. , Then, your tactical plan needs to lay out the entire process and steps of the promotion. This may include deciding an appropriate social media platform, arranging the necessary resources, setting up a fixed schedule for the promotional tasks, and so on, and so forth.

Or, let’s take another example. Imagine you are going to launch a new website for your business. So, you should make a clear outline of the content that you are going to post, employ an efficient content management team, provide them with all the required resources, decide a strategy and timeline for posting content, choose a medium to share the content to potential clients or customers, and more.

In order to keep up with the competitors and excel in the market, it is extremely essential for your business to have a clearly laid out tactical plan in place.

Curious to know more about the specific benefits of creating a tactical plan for your business!? Well, here are the reasons why you should never fail to create one:

How Creating a Tactical Plan is Beneficial?

The question here is extremely difficult to answer since it cannot be concluded in a few lines or even paragraphs.

Though end results may vary according to the exclusive nature of your company, it is no doubt that creating a tactical plan is a task worth your time.

For an easy and better understanding, here we provide you with the top three reasons why creating a tactical plan can be extremely beneficial to you:

1. Better Understanding of the Business

Creating a tactical plan will force you to think analytically and come up with solutions to immediate problems in any part of the business.

All the research and analysis done to create a tactical plan helps everyone, from the employer to the employees, to get a better understanding of your business and help you achieve the broader vision.

Read more: Company Profile: What is it & How to Write a Perfect one?

2. Point Out Your Inefficiencies

Tactical plans are extremely beneficial to your company since it helps you to point out your business’ inefficiencies and faults.

Once you understand what the faults are, you can take the necessary steps to prevent them from taking place again!

3. Benefit from Employees’ Inputs

Employees involved in the day-to-day operations give their opinions and inputs, as part of the tactical plan.

This would obviously be beneficial since the inputs gained are based on their first-hand experience.

With all that being said, it is totally understood that a tactical plan can be a gem to your business.

But, how to create one?

That is something that requires not only proper theoretical knowledge but also a great amount of research and brainstorming.

Let us look at the steps involved in creating a tactical plan!

How to Create a Tactical Plan? (Step by Step)

There are certain steps that you should never fail to consider while creating a tactical business plan for your business. Each one of these should be clearly included and taken care of.

Here are those essential steps, or components to be included while drafting a tactical plan:

Step 1. Envision the Long-term Mission

As mentioned earlier, though tactical plans are designed to cater to the short-term goals, they contribute ultimately to the long-term goals of your business.

This is why it is important to have a perfect understanding of the company’s overall long-term goals while drafting a tactical plan.

Once you get hold of the ultimate mission of the business, you can likely employ shorter goals to work towards them.

Step 2. Create Well-defined Goals

Learn about your company’s needs and design goals well-suited to its nature.

This should be based on various objectives such as your company’s productivity and output, workload, profit levels, etc.

Be sure to learn what your company is lacking and prioritize the goals accordingly.

Make sure that you create only realistic and practical goals because creating huge unrealistic goals may even handicap your company’s current productivity and profit levels.

Read more: Writing Vision Statement: Definition, Examples, and Best Practices!

Step 3. Assign Actions to Each Objective

Once you are done with creating the goals and objectives, the next step is to create the necessary steps needed to achieve each of them.

These steps or actions should be clear, practical, and easy to execute.

For eg: if your goal is to get more visitors to your website, you should employ steps to make your website more appealing and attractive to people. If you think smarter, a single action can even let you achieve multiple objectives!

Step 4. Arbitrate Key-Performance-Indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are a set of quantifiable measurements which are used to test the long-term performance of your company.

For example, gross profit margin, liquidity availability, or even anecdotal ones such as quality of customer experience.

KPIs help you to understand if the objectives employed are making sense.

Be wise to choose KPIs that directly support your goals. Otherwise, the information will go irrelevant.

Step 5. Employ Adequate Resources

You should make sure that your employees have access to the adequate resources and tools needed to achieve the defined goals.

You should make proper arrangements to provide any sort of training or installation of new software if needed.

Your team should never be found lacking in resources.

Any minor misgivings on your part in this regard can impact your business negatively.

Step 6. Delegation of Responsibilities with Fixed Timelines

As you are creating a tactical plan, it is important to assign and divide work and responsibilities to people, according to their efficiency and potential.

It is also salient to keep a fixed timeline for each process.

Doing this will help the employers to work as per priorities, and manage time effectively and efficiently. It will also help in inculcating professionalism and a sense of seriousness, associated with the job.

Individuals and teams should be aware of their specific responsibilities or the tasks that they must carry out.

Step 7. Build Flexibility

While creating a tactical plan for your company, it is necessary to incorporate flexibility into the plan.

Each business is unique, and so is yours.

Therefore, you should never fail to create flexible plans, that suit your exclusive business needs.

Being flexible with your plan doesn’t mean it has to be clumsy, rather it means adapting to the exclusive needs of your company.

With all these steps clearly carried out, it is of no doubt that you can build a perfect tactical plan.

However, the steps can be modified according to your company’s exclusive nature.

Well, now, choosing a tool to create your tactical document is much-required, right!

But, how to choose the most innovative platform, to create a dynamic tactical plan?

Worry not, that’s what Bit.ai stands for. Come, let us explore what really is Bit.ai!

Bit.ai : The Ultimate Tool for Creating a Tactical Plan

With Bit.ai, creating a tactical plan is easier than ever before!

The huge variety of features that Bit offers, help you in creating the perfect tactical plan for your business.

Bit does not simply boast of being the most popular document collaboration and management platform. We have solid reasons!

Well, have a look at some of the top features of Bit, on your own:

Multiple Workspaces

The Bit ‘Workspace’ help you customize your workflows to meet your business needs. While creating a tactical plan, you may need to discuss the parts with your attorney.

This can be done using Bit’s workspaces. The workspaces can be customized according to your needs too. They can be team workspaces, client workspaces, private workspaces, and more.

Real-time Collaboration

While creating your tactical plan, you need not spend extra time, discussing it with your partners or colleagues. Bit offers real-time collaboration on your documents. This means you can save your precious time, by discussing and making changes to the plan on the go!

Anyone who is part of a workspace can easily collaborate across the documents inside that workspace. The collaborators can add or edit the content, add comments, files, embed links, and more, in real-time!

Smart Editor

Your tactical plan need not be an outdated, boring document. You can make it interactive and innovative using Bit’s smart document editor features. Bit offers a large variety of templates , themes, and formatting options to choose from.

You can embed hundreds of rich media and file formats to your document, which would make it extremely stunning. Any content on the internet, with a web link, can be added to your document to make it super interactive!

Content Management

While creating any document, there would obviously arise the need for a lot of content, that must go along with it.

Storing all this digital content is obviously a task in itself. But, Bit has got your back! Bit offers an amazing content library, where you can save and access all types of digital content that are needed.

End-to-End Sharing and Tracking

Once you are ready with your tactical plan, you can share the document in live-state. Any changes made to the document will be updated in real-time. You can even track the performance of your document, by gaining real-time insights on users’ interaction on your document.

Security and Permissions

You would obviously not want your tactical plan to be accessed by everyone out there. At Bit, we respect your privacy. That is why we have introduces features like password protection, file access restrictions, etc. that can ensure the safety of your documents.

Wrapping Up

Now, you must have a clear understanding of a tactical plan.

For all that information to be useful, you just need to employ it efficiently.

With all the enthusiasm you have, we are sure that you could create an excellent tactical plan for your business.

Tweet to us @bit_docs and let us know how it goes. We wish you all success and luck ahead!

Further reads:

Resource Management Plan: What is it & How to Create it?

Growth Plan: What is it & How to Create One? (Steps Included)

Weekly Plan: What is it & How to Create an Effective One?

Product Planning: What is it & How to do it? (Process & Steps)

Business Development Plan: What Is It And How To Create A Perfect One?

Business Continuity Plan: What, Why & How to Create it?

Product Plan: How to Create it the Right Way?

Operating Agreement: What is it & How to Draft One for your LLC?

Value Proposition: What is it & How to Write it?

Influencer media kit: what is it & how to create it, 11 best video conferencing tools & software for teams, how to write a thesis with perfection, how to build a peer-to-peer recognition program, e-signatures & everything you need to know about, 9+ benefits of collaboration for teams and businesses.

About Bit.ai

Bit.ai is the essential next-gen workplace and document collaboration platform. that helps teams share knowledge by connecting any type of digital content. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, anyone can work visually and collaborate in real-time while creating internal notes, team projects, knowledge bases, client-facing content, and more.

The smartest online Google Docs and Word alternative, Bit.ai is used in over 100 countries by professionals everywhere, from IT teams creating internal documentation and knowledge bases, to sales and marketing teams sharing client materials and client portals.

👉👉Click Here to Check out Bit.ai.

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Tactical Planning: Creating a Tactical Plan for Your Business

What Is Tactical Planning?

Tactical Planning vs. Strategic Planning

Tactical Planning vs. Operational Planning

Benefits of Tactical Planning

Connects All Levels of Management in an Organization

Breaks Down Long-term Strategic Goals Into Actionable, Short-term Projects

Strategic Plan Template

Helps Decision Makers Allocate Organizational Resources Strategically

What Is a Tactical Plan?

SMART Tactical Goals

Action Steps & Projects

Deliverables

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Tactical Planning Example

Strategic Goals

Tactical Plan Action Steps per Department

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How ProjectManager Helps You Track Your Tactical Plan

Allocate Resources and Track Resource Utilization

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning: The What, When, & Why

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Strategic vs. Tactical Planning

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Strategy vs. Tactics

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2. Smarketing

3. Technological Infrastructure

Sales Plans

Strategic Goals vs. Tactical Goals

Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning Examples

Tactical Planning

Tactical Planning Examples

1. Fill my pipeline with more leads over the next two weeks.

2. Close more enterprise deals each month.

3. Hire 20 more entry-level sales representatives by the end of Q1.

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How to Build a Tactical Plan

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Step 2: Assess Your Resources and Capabilities

Step 3: Create an Action Plan

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Strategic vs. tactical planning

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