Seven Questions Help You Prepare for a Quarterly Strategic Review
For this newsletter, we are dubbing March the “Month of Momentum.” Finally, a month that is not split in half by holidays unless you count Easter, which falls on a Sunday leaving the business week safe from interruption.
Your strategic plan also should be in stride, with completed tasks that are making larger goals a reality. If this last sentence is making you search in vain for an example of your strategic progress, do not fret. The time to solve issues associated with executing your plan is upon us.
This is of course referencing the quarterly strategic review meeting. Quarterly check-in is good for not only performance evaluation, but also adaption if needed. Here are some questions to ask yourself in preparation for your quarterly session, beginning with the obvious:
- Have you scheduled your quarterly strategic review? Time stops for no one, so make this happen a.s.a.p.
- Are the goals being achieved in the timeframe of the plan? If not, why?
- Should you modify the deadlines? Before you do so, be diligent to figure out why you are behind.
- Do we need to renegotiate priorities with other departments that might be needed? Be honest about time, human and budgetary resources here.
- Are the goals and actions still realistic?
- Should the company’s focus be altered to put more focus on achieving the goals?
- Should the goals change? Again, be diligent in determining why the goal should change before doing anything and make sure it conforms to the larger target objective.
Once you get through these determinations, moving through the months of spring should begin to produce recognizable achievements in your 2013 plan. If you have to make adaptations, it’s worth noting what had to change and why. This will help make your 2014 planning efforts that much more executable.
“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”
– Muhammad Ali
It’s important not to label the need to change as proof of failure in your strategic execution. Here’s a springtime parable to keep in mind accordingly as you work to keep your strategy relevant into Q2 and beyond:
Two caterpillars are conversing, and a beautiful butterfly floats by.
One caterpillar turns and says to the other,
“You’ll never get me up on one of those butterfly things.”
Happy strategizing!
– Cammy Elquist LoRé (@cammyelquist) writes the newsletter and is a functional leader of Customer Loyalty Engagement programs for OnStrategy.
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Have you put more thought into March Madness than your Quarterly Review?
Brightening Up Pakistan with a Love of Reading
After decades living and working abroad, Saeed Malik (left) returned to his native Pakistan and wanted to do something to help rectify what he saw as a poor education system. He founded the Bright Star Mobile Library, which now serves about 2,500 children. Photo courtesy of Jackie Northam/NPR
Bright Star Mobile Library (BSML) is a not-for-profit Trust registered in Islamabad, Pakistan. The mission of the Mobile Library is to create love for reading and enhance global awareness amongst the young. The BSML has embarked on achieving its mission by providing access to excellent quality books to elementary grades children of those schools that have no libraries for their students. BSML reaches 2,500 kids in Pakistan.Read more…
Recent coverage on BSML: “At A Pakistani Mobile Library, Kids Can Check Out Books, And Hope”
