Successful planning includes:
Clarifying the strategy, its focus, its impact
Stakeholder participation
Making sure what's decided at top level gets translated to every level
Having a degree of flexibility in the process to accommodate emerging strategies
Utilising business models (balanced scorecard, 7-S model and others)
Making sure operational people have the means to deliver the strategy
Note - planning takes place after strategic thinking, analysis and choice - see other sections of this website.