Any organization can sit down and create a “plan”, but it is those special organizations that can take that plan and implement it- making it a living, breathing plan. Every planning session starts with the hope that the plan will actually be implemented, but sometimes we find that this is the hardest part of the whole planning process. We wanted to provide you will some tips to help you make your plan even better or to keep in mind when you begin developing your strategic plan. We hope that with these extra tips, you will be better armed at creating a successful strategic plan that can be executed.
Good strategy is characterized by:
- A clear direction and reason for existing
- Diagnosis of the situation/challenge
- Choice of an overall guiding approach/policy that directs and constrains action without fully defining its containment. Like guardrails on a highway.
- Design of coherent, coordinated actions to address the challenge
Put simply, strategic planning is a question based process…
- Why do we exist?
- Where are we now?
- Where are we going?
- How will we get there?
Sometimes thinking about the small, simple things make the biggest difference in strategic planning. Taking a step back every so often and looking to see if your strategic plan answers the basic questions above and follows the “good strategy” guidelines, you can re-focus your planning. We see clients time and time again getting lost in the weeds and losing sight that their plan should be focused on the why, where and the how. We don’t use the acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) for nothing!
