Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a focused effort to decide where you want to be in the future and create a plan to get there.  It’s about making choices.  Deciding what to do and what not to do.

Start with the end in mind

Some organizations are committed to a regular cycle of strategic planning every 3 to 5 years.  Others embark on the process because of a change.  In either case, it is important to establish a clear purpose for the planning before you begin.  This will help you to make decisions about the process and outcome you want. 

Elements of strategic planning

Each organization brings a unique set of opportunities and constraints to the planning process.  The best timeline and process is the one that works for you.  Here are the principles that we apply as we partner with you to design a  process that meets your needs:

Engage key stakeholders – whoever you need to have ownership and commitment to the plan should be involved in developing it.  

Increase situational awareness – collect data that will provide a more complex and informed understanding of your environment.

Clarify core beliefs – reflect on core values, mission, vision and theory of change and decide which if any need to be revised.

Engage in strategic thinking – this is a generative process of opening up possibilities and rethinking assumptions.  strategic plans may be orderly and clear, but probably not valuable unless the product of messy and challenging strategic thinking.

Make choices – strategy involves making choices about goals, how to pursue them, the capacities required, and the roadmap for how to respond powerfully to your environment in order to achieve your goals.

Create organizational alignment – a focus of any planning process is to ensure that the performance of the organization – what people do every day and what they produce – lines up with your priorities and goals.


Contact us for a discussion about strategic planning in your organization.