What is enterprise planning?

Understanding enterprise planning

Enterprise planning ensures alignment within your organization, including business objectives, resource planning, and operational strategies. An effective enterprise plan keeps all your teams and employees on the same page and aligned with your overall strategy.

Thoroughness is essential in enterprise planning. Your plan should encompass every aspect of your business to ensure alignment.

Types of enterprise planning

Various types of enterprise planning focus on different areas of your business. Strategic planning involves setting goals and developing strategies to reach those goals. Operational planning uses your strategic plan to create a more detailed outline of the steps you need to take to achieve your goals.

Financial and organizational planning are key elements of resource allocation. The focus here is on ensuring that enough finances or staffing are allocated to each project – and that the right people are doing the right jobs.

Improves decision-making

The decision-making process is one of the most critical aspects of any organization. Whether deciding what to prioritize or how to launch a new product, enterprise planning helps you make data-driven decisions aligned with your long-term goals. It creates a framework for prioritizing projects and goals and measuring long-term success.

With a solid plan in place, you won’t have to worry about making ill-informed decisions that could impact your business in the future.

Optimizes resource allocation

Every organization has limited resources, so allocating them wisely is essential. An enterprise plan allows you to balance your short-term needs with your long-term goals to ensure you’re focused on the task at hand and your organization's future.

You can allocate several types of resources through enterprise planning, including financial, human, and technological. Whether you’re building a new team within your organization, budgeting for a project, or optimizing IT operations, an enterprise plan can help you allocate resources smartly.

Enhances risk management

Risk management is a crucial aspect of organizational planning. While you can’t eliminate internal and external risks that could threaten your business, you can identify potential risks and prepare for them ahead of time. Enterprise planning plays a key role in determining potential risks your organization faces and how to mitigate those risks.

Scenario planning and contingency plans help you stay prepared for any risks your organization faces. The earlier you identify these risks, the more time you have to plan and prevent them from becoming critical issues.

Streamlines workflows

Planning a small project is easy enough, but being efficient is more difficult when planning several short—and long-term projects and trying to align them with your long-term goals. Whether performing a simple task or collaborating on a project across teams, enterprise planning can help you streamline your workflows and save time and money.

Automation and process optimization are two key elements of enterprise planning. By trimming the fat and eliminating redundancies, your enterprise plan allows your organization to work more efficiently. Automating specific processes saves you even more time, ensuring you have the resources to reach your project objectives.

Encourages collaboration

Collaboration is one of the biggest keys to successful projects, and it’s easier when you use enterprise planning software. Let’s say you’re working on a project that involves multiple teams. With enterprise planning, you can ensure all your teams are on the same page to encourage and simplify project collaboration.

Keeping everyone on the same page when collaborating isn’t just about being efficient — it’s about staying aligned with your organizational goals. If various teams aren’t aware of the long-term goals you’re working toward and their role in your organization, it’s harder to remain aligned with those goals.

How to implement enterprise planning

Creating and implementing an enterprise plan is one of the best ways to make sure your organization is on track to meet its long-term goals. Here’s what you need to know about implementing enterprise planning in your organization.

Define strategic goals

The first step is to define the strategic goals you want to align with. These goals should be clear and measurable to track your success over time. Set key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success as you move forward as an organization.

Every organization will have different long-term goals, so there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to this part of the plan. As long as you set clear goals you can use to measure your performance, you’re off to a good start.

Assess resources and capabilities

Resource allocation is a key part of your enterprise plan, meaning you must carefully assess the available resources. Look at your existing resources — including your financial, technological, and workforce capabilities. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?

Identifying resource gaps and determining how to improve as an organization will benefit you in the future. You can also allocate resources to align with your vision statement and long-term goals.

Develop a comprehensive plan

The next step is developing a comprehensive plan that includes your organization's various aspects. A comprehensive enterprise plan includes strategic, financial, and operational elements. The goal is to ensure these three elements are aligned so that your financial plan or resource allocation doesn’t hamstring your strategic or operational plan.

Your plan should also include risk management strategies and contingency plans in the event of a threat. While you can’t plan for every possible outcome, you can do your best to prepare for risks your business may face.

Implement and monitor execution

Now, it’s time to create an implementation plan and focus on implementing your enterprise plan. Make sure everyone is up to speed with your plan, assign responsibilities, and establish workflows to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Review, adjust, and optimize

The final step is a long-term process that involves regularly reviewing, adjusting, and optimizing your enterprise plan to stay on track to meet KPIs. As your organization changes, you may need to change your strategic plan or resource allocation—that’s completely normal. Effective enterprise planning means being agile and continuously improving, so don’t worry about occasionally adjusting your strategic or financial plan.

Enterprise planning best practices

Enterprise planning can simplify resource allocation and enterprise project management — but only when done correctly. Here are some enterprise planning best practices you should keep in mind.

Aligning your planning efforts with your overall business strategy and long-term goals helps you create a plan that aligns with your organization. It’s also important to leverage data and analytics to make informed decisions and adapt as needed.

Choosing the right software is key. Jira Align is a simple way to streamline enterprise planning, helping you take your strategy from plan to payout. With Jira Align, you can keep everyone on the same page and ensure all your teams align with your strategy.