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What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. In this article, we'll guide you through the strategic planning process, including why it's important, the benefits and best practices, and five steps to get you from beginning to end.

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. The strategic planning process informs your organization’s decisions, growth, and goals.

Strategic planning helps you clearly define your company’s long-term objectives—and maps how your short-term goals and work will help you achieve them. This, in turn, gives you a clear sense of where your organization is going and allows you to ensure your teams are working on projects that make the most impact. Think of it this way—if your goals and objectives are your destination on a map, your strategic plan is your navigation system.

In this article, we walk you through the 5-step strategic planning process and show you how to get started developing your own strategic plan.

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What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization’s mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives. The product of the planning cycle is a strategic plan, which is shared throughout the company.

What is a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is the end result of the strategic planning process. At its most basic, it’s a tool used to define your organization’s goals and what actions you’ll take to achieve them.

Typically, your strategic plan should include: 

Your company’s mission statement

Your organizational goals, including your long-term goals and short-term, yearly objectives

Any plan of action, tactics, or approaches you plan to take to meet those goals

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

Strategic planning can help with goal setting and decision-making by allowing you to map out how your company will move toward your organization’s vision and mission statements in the next three to five years. Let’s circle back to our map metaphor. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).

When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:

Build a strong organizational culture by clearly defining and aligning on your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

Align everyone around a shared purpose and ensure all departments and teams are working toward a common objective.

Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go and achieve desired outcomes.

Promote a long-term vision for your company rather than focusing primarily on short-term gains.

Ensure resources are allocated around the most high-impact priorities.

Define long-term goals and set shorter-term goals to support them.

Assess your current situation and identify any opportunities—or threats—allowing your organization to mitigate potential risks.

Create a proactive business culture that enables your organization to respond more swiftly to emerging market changes and opportunities.

What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?

The strategic planning process involves a structured methodology that guides the organization from vision to implementation. The strategic planning process starts with assembling a small, dedicated team of key strategic planners—typically five to 10 members—who will form the strategic planning, or management, committee. This team is responsible for gathering crucial information, guiding the development of the plan, and overseeing strategy execution.

Once you’ve established your management committee, you can get to work on the planning process. 

Step 1: Assess your current business strategy and business environment

Before you can define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. Understanding the external environment, including market trends and competitive landscape, is crucial in the initial assessment phase of strategic planning.

To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders, like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather:

Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future.

Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services.

Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether about the product, business practices, or the day-to-day company culture.

Consider different types of strategic planning tools and analytical techniques to gather this information, such as:

A balanced scorecard to help you evaluate four major elements of a business: learning and growth, business processes, customer satisfaction, and financial performance.

A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business (you’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process). 

To fill out each letter in the SWOT acronym, your management committee will answer a series of questions:

What does your organization currently do well?

What separates you from your competitors?

What are your most valuable internal resources?

What tangible assets do you have?

What is your biggest strength? 

Weaknesses:

What does your organization do poorly?

What do you currently lack (whether that’s a product, resource, or process)?

What do your competitors do better than you?

What, if any, limitations are holding your organization back?

What processes or products need improvement? 

Opportunities:

What opportunities does your organization have?

How can you leverage your unique company strengths?

Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?

How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?

Is there an emerging need for your product or service? 

What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?

Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?

Have you or could you experience negative press that could reduce market share?

Is there a chance of changing customer attitudes towards your company? 

Step 2: Identify your company’s goals and objectives

To begin strategy development, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your vision, mission, and current position to identify and define your goals—these are your final destination. 

To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking, “Where are we going next?” “What’s the ideal future state of this company?” This can help you figure out which path you need to take to get there.

During this phase of the planning process, take inspiration from important company documents, such as:

Your mission statement, to understand how you can continue moving towards your organization’s core purpose.

Your vision statement, to clarify how your strategic plan fits into your long-term vision.

Your company values, to guide you towards what matters most towards your company.

Your competitive advantages, to understand what unique benefit you offer to the market.

Your long-term goals, to track where you want to be in five or 10 years.

Your financial forecast and projection, to understand where you expect your financials to be in the next three years, what your expected cash flow is, and what new opportunities you will likely be able to invest in.

Step 3: Develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics

Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Take your current business position and strategy into account, as well as your organization’s goals and objectives, and build out a strategic plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your plan should be created or revisited as the quarters and years go on.

As you build your strategic plan, you should define:

Company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy.

Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals . 

Related key results and KPIs. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable. These KPIs will help you track progress and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those.

A high-level project roadmap . A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.

Step 4: Implement and share your plan

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Strategy implementation involves clear communication across your entire organization to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and how to measure the plan’s success. 

Make sure your team (especially senior leadership) has access to the strategic plan, so they can understand how their work contributes to company priorities and the overall strategy map. We recommend sharing your plan in the same tool you use to manage and track work, so you can more easily connect high-level objectives to daily work. If you don’t already, consider using a work management platform .  

A few tips to make sure your plan will be executed without a hitch: 

Communicate clearly to your entire organization throughout the implementation process, to ensure all team members understand the strategic plan and how to implement it effectively. 

Define what “success” looks like by mapping your strategic plan to key performance indicators.

Ensure that the actions outlined in the strategic plan are integrated into the daily operations of the organization, so that every team member's daily activities are aligned with the broader strategic objectives.

Utilize tools and software—like a work management platform—that can aid in implementing and tracking the progress of your plan.

Regularly monitor and share the progress of the strategic plan with the entire organization, to keep everyone informed and reinforce the importance of the plan.

Establish regular check-ins to monitor the progress of your strategic plan and make adjustments as needed. 

Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed

Once you’ve created and implemented your new strategic framework, the final step of the planning process is to monitor and manage your plan.

Remember, your strategic plan isn’t set in stone. You’ll need to revisit and update the plan if your company changes directions or makes new investments. As new market opportunities and threats come up, you’ll likely want to tweak your strategic plan. Make sure to review your plan regularly—meaning quarterly and annually—to ensure it’s still aligned with your organization’s vision and goals.

Keep in mind that your plan won’t last forever, even if you do update it frequently. A successful strategic plan evolves with your company’s long-term goals. When you’ve achieved most of your strategic goals, or if your strategy has evolved significantly since you first made your plan, it might be time to create a new one.

Build a smarter strategic plan with a work management platform

To turn your company strategy into a plan—and ultimately, impact—make sure you’re proactively connecting company objectives to daily work. When you can clarify this connection, you’re giving your team members the context they need to get their best work done. 

A work management platform plays a pivotal role in this process. It acts as a central hub for your strategic plan, ensuring that every task and project is directly tied to your broader company goals. This alignment is crucial for visibility and coordination, allowing team members to see how their individual efforts contribute to the company’s success. 

By leveraging such a platform, you not only streamline workflow and enhance team productivity but also align every action with your strategic objectives—allowing teams to drive greater impact and helping your company move toward goals more effectively. 

Strategic planning FAQs

Still have questions about strategic planning? We have answers.

Why do I need a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is one of many tools you can use to plan and hit your goals. It helps map out strategic objectives and growth metrics that will help your company be successful.

When should I create a strategic plan?

You should aim to create a strategic plan every three to five years, depending on your organization’s growth speed.

Since the point of a strategic plan is to map out your long-term goals and how you’ll get there, you should create a strategic plan when you’ve met most or all of them. You should also create a strategic plan any time you’re going to make a large pivot in your organization’s mission or enter new markets. 

What is a strategic planning template?

A strategic planning template is a tool organizations can use to map out their strategic plan and track progress. Typically, a strategic planning template houses all the components needed to build out a strategic plan, including your company’s vision and mission statements, information from any competitive analyses or SWOT assessments, and relevant KPIs.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. business plan?

A business plan can help you document your strategy as you’re getting started so every team member is on the same page about your core business priorities and goals. This tool can help you document and share your strategy with key investors or stakeholders as you get your business up and running.

You should create a business plan when you’re: 

Just starting your business

Significantly restructuring your business

If your business is already established, you should create a strategic plan instead of a business plan. Even if you’re working at a relatively young company, your strategic plan can build on your business plan to help you move in the right direction. During the strategic planning process, you’ll draw from a lot of the fundamental business elements you built early on to establish your strategy for the next three to five years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. mission and vision statements?

Your strategic plan, mission statement, and vision statements are all closely connected. In fact, during the strategic planning process, you will take inspiration from your mission and vision statements in order to build out your strategic plan.

Simply put: 

A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose.

A vision statement broadly explains how you’ll reach your company’s purpose.

A strategic plan pulls in inspiration from your mission and vision statements and outlines what actions you’re going to take to move in the right direction. 

For example, if your company produces pet safety equipment, here’s how your mission statement, vision statement, and strategic plan might shake out:

Mission statement: “To ensure the safety of the world’s animals.” 

Vision statement: “To create pet safety and tracking products that are effortless to use.” 

Your strategic plan would outline the steps you’re going to take in the next few years to bring your company closer to your mission and vision. For example, you develop a new pet tracking smart collar or improve the microchipping experience for pet owners. 

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. company objectives?

Company objectives are broad goals. You should set these on a yearly or quarterly basis (if your organization moves quickly). These objectives give your team a clear sense of what you intend to accomplish for a set period of time. 

Your strategic plan is more forward-thinking than your company goals, and it should cover more than one year of work. Think of it this way: your company objectives will move the needle towards your overall strategy—but your strategic plan should be bigger than company objectives because it spans multiple years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a business case?

A business case is a document to help you pitch a significant investment or initiative for your company. When you create a business case, you’re outlining why this investment is a good idea, and how this large-scale project will positively impact the business. 

You might end up building business cases for things on your strategic plan’s roadmap—but your strategic plan should be bigger than that. This tool should encompass multiple years of your roadmap, across your entire company—not just one initiative.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a project plan?

A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan. 

What’s the difference between strategic management vs. strategic planning?

A strategic plan is a tool to define where your organization wants to go and what actions you need to take to achieve those goals. Strategic planning is the process of creating a plan in order to hit your strategic objectives.

Strategic management includes the strategic planning process, but also goes beyond it. In addition to planning how you will achieve your big-picture goals, strategic management also helps you organize your resources and figure out the best action plans for success. 

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Essential Guide to the Strategic Planning Process

By Joe Weller | April 3, 2019 (updated March 26, 2024)

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In this article, you’ll learn the basics of the strategic planning process and how a strategic plan guides you to achieving your organizational goals. Plus, find expert insight on getting the most out of your strategic planning.

Included on this page, you'll discover the importance of strategic planning , the steps of the strategic planning process , and the basic sections to include in your strategic plan .

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organizational activity that aims to achieve a group’s goals. The process helps define a company’s objectives and investigates both internal and external happenings that might influence the organizational path. Strategic planning also helps identify adjustments that you might need to make to reach your goal. Strategic planning became popular in the 1960s because it helped companies set priorities and goals, strengthen operations, and establish agreement among managers about outcomes and results.

Strategic planning can occur over multiple years, and the process can vary in length, as can the final plan itself. Ideally, strategic planning should result in a document, a presentation, or a report that sets out a blueprint for the company’s progress.

By setting priorities, companies help ensure employees are working toward common and defined goals. It also aids in defining the direction an enterprise is heading, efficiently using resources to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives. Based on the plan, managers can make decisions or allocate the resources necessary to pursue the strategy and minimize risks.

Strategic planning strengthens operations by getting input from people with differing opinions and building a consensus about the company’s direction. Along with focusing energy and resources, the strategic planning process allows people to develop a sense of ownership in the product they create.

“Strategic planning is not really one thing. It is really a set of concepts, procedures, tools, techniques, and practices that have to be adapted to specific contexts and purposes,” says Professor John M. Bryson, McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota and author of Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement . “Strategic planning is a prompt to foster strategic thinking, acting, and learning, and they all matter and they are all connected.”

What Strategic Planning Is Not

Strategic planning is not a to-do list for the short or long term — it is the basis of a business, its direction, and how it will get there.

“You have to think very strategically about strategic planning. It is more than just following steps,” Bryson explains. “You have to understand strategic planning is not some kind of magic solution to fixing issues. Don’t have unrealistic expectations.”

Strategic planning is also different from a business plan that focuses on a specific product, service, or program and short-term goals. Rather, strategic planning means looking at the big picture.

While they are related, it is important not to confuse strategic planning with strategic thinking, which is more about imagining and innovating in a way that helps a company. In contrast, strategic planning supports those thoughts and helps you figure out how to make them a reality.

Another part of strategic planning is tactical planning , which involves looking at short-term efforts to achieve longer-term goals.

Lastly, marketing plans are not the same as strategic plans. A marketing plan is more about introducing and delivering a service or product to the public instead of how to grow a business. For more about marketing plans and processes, read this article .

Strategic plans include information about finances, but they are different from financial planning , which involves different processes and people. Financial planning templates can help with that process.

Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

In today’s technological age, strategic plans provide businesses with a path forward. Strategic plans help companies thrive, not just survive — they provide a clear focus, which makes an organization more efficient and effective, thereby increasing productivity.

“You are not going to go very far if you don’t have a strategic plan. You need to be able to show where you are going,” says Stefan Hofmeyer, an experienced strategist and co-founder of Global PMI Partners . He lives in the startup-rich environment of northern California and says he often sees startups fail to get seed money because they do not have a strong plan for what they want to do and how they want to do it.

Getting team members on the same page (in both creating a strategic plan and executing the plan itself) can be beneficial for a company. Planners can find satisfaction in the process and unite around a common vision. In addition, you can build strong teams and bridge gaps between staff and management.

“You have to reach agreement about good ideas,” Bryson says. “A really good strategy has to meet a lot of criteria. It has to be technically workable, administratively feasible, politically acceptable, and legally, morally, and ethically defensible, and that is a pretty tough list.”

By discussing a company’s issues during the planning process, individuals can voice their opinions and provide information necessary to move the organization ahead — a form of problem solving as a group.

Strategic plans also provide a mechanism to measure success and progress toward goals, which keeps employees on the same page and helps them focus on the tasks at hand.

When Is the Time to Do Strategic Planning?

There is no perfect time to perform strategic planning. It depends entirely on the organization and the external environment that surrounds it. However, here are some suggestions about when to plan:

If your industry is changing rapidly

When an organization is launching

At the start of a new year or funding period

In preparation for a major new initiative

If regulations and laws in your industry are or will be changing

“It’s not like you do all of the thinking and planning, and then implement,” Bryson says. “A mistake people make is [believing] the thinking has to precede the acting and the learning.”

Even if you do not re-create the entire planning process often, it is important to periodically check your plan and make sure it is still working. If not, update it.

What Is the Strategic Planning Process?

Strategic planning is a process, and not an easy one. A key is to make sure you allow enough time to complete the process without rushing, but not take so much time that you lose momentum and focus. The process itself can be more important than the final document due to the information that comes out of the discussions with management, as well as lower-level workers.

“There is not one favorite or perfect planning process,” says Jim Stockmal, president of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP). He explains that new techniques come out constantly, and consultants and experienced planners have their favorites. In an effort to standardize the practice and terms used in strategic planning, ASP has created two certification programs .

Level 1 is the Strategic Planning Professional (SPP) certification. It is designed for early- or mid-career planners who work in strategic planning. Level 2, the Strategic Management Professional (SMP) certification, is geared toward seasoned professionals or those who train others. Stockmal explains that ASP designed the certification programs to add structure to the otherwise amorphous profession.

The strategic planning process varies by the size of the organization and can be formal or informal, but there are constraints. For example, teams of all sizes and goals should build in many points along the way for feedback from key leaders — this helps the process stay on track.

Some elements of the process might have specific start and end points, while others are continuous. For example, there might not be one “aha” moment that suddenly makes things clear. Instead, a series of small moves could slowly shift the organization in the right direction.

“Don’t make it overly complex. Bring all of the stakeholders together for input and feedback,” Stockmal advises. “Always be doing a continuous environmental scan, and don’t be afraid to engage with stakeholders.”

Additionally, knowing your company culture is important. “You need to make it work for your organization,” he says.

There are many different ways to approach the strategic planning process. Below are three popular approaches:

Goals-Based Planning: This approach begins by looking at an organization’s mission and goals. From there, you work toward that mission, implement strategies necessary to achieve those goals, and assign roles and deadlines for reaching certain milestones.

Issues-Based Planning: In this approach, start by looking at issues the company is facing, then decide how to address them and what actions to take.

Organic Planning: This approach is more fluid and begins with defining mission and values, then outlining plans to achieve that vision while sticking to the values.

“The approach to strategic planning needs to be contingent upon the organization, its history, what it’s capable of doing, etc.,” Bryson explains. “There’s such a mistake to think there’s one approach.”

For more information on strategic planning, read about how to write a strategic plan and the different types of models you can use.

Who Participates in the Strategic Planning Process?

For work as crucial as strategic planning, it is necessary to get the right team together and include them from the beginning of the process. Try to include as many stakeholders as you can.

Below are suggestions on who to include:

Senior leadership

Strategic planners

Strategists

People who will be responsible for implementing the plan

People to identify gaps in the plan

Members of the board of directors

“There can be magic to strategic planning, but it’s not in any specific framework or anybody’s 10-step process,” Bryson explains. “The magic is getting key people together, getting them to focus on what’s important, and [getting] them to do something about it. That’s where the magic is.”

Hofmeyer recommends finding people within an organization who are not necessarily current leaders, but may be in the future. “Sometimes they just become obvious. Usually they show themselves to you, you don’t need to look for them. They’re motivated to participate,” he says. These future leaders are the ones who speak up at meetings or on other occasions, who put themselves out there even though it is not part of their job description.

At the beginning of the process, establish guidelines about who will be involved and what will be expected of them. Everyone involved must be willing to cooperate and collaborate. If there is a question about whether or not to include anyone, it is usually better to bring on extra people than to leave someone out, only to discover later they should have been a part of the process all along. Not everyone will be involved the entire time; people will come and go during different phases.

Often, an outside facilitator or consultant can be an asset to a strategic planning committee. It is sometimes difficult for managers and other employees to sit back and discuss what they need to accomplish as a company and how they need to do it without considering other factors. As objective observers, outside help can often offer insight that may escape insiders.

Hofmeyer says sometimes bosses have blinders on that keep them from seeing what is happening around them, which allows them to ignore potential conflicts. “People often have their own agendas of where they want to go, and if they are not aligned, it is difficult to build a strategic plan. An outsider perspective can really take you out of your bubble and tell you things you don’t necessarily want to hear [but should]. We get into a rhythm, and it’s really hard to step out of that, so bringing in outside people can help bring in new views and aspects of your business.”

An outside consultant can also help naysayers take the process more seriously because they know the company is investing money in the efforts, Hofmeyer adds.

No matter who is involved in the planning process, make sure at least one person serves as an administrator and documents all planning committee actions.

What Is in a Strategic Plan?

A strategic plan communicates goals and what it takes to achieve them. The plan sometimes begins with a high-level view, then becomes more specific. Since strategic plans are more guidebooks than rulebooks, they don’t have to be bureaucratic and rigid. There is no perfect plan; however, it needs to be realistic.

There are many sections in a strategic plan, and the length of the final document or presentation will vary. The names people use for the sections differ, but the general ideas behind them are similar: Simply make sure you and your team agree on the terms you will use and what each means.

One-Page Strategic Planning Template

“I’m a big fan of getting a strategy onto one sheet of paper. It’s a strategic plan in a nutshell, and it provides a clear line of sight,” Stockmal advises.

You can use the template below to consolidate all your strategic ideas into a succinct, one-page strategic plan. Doing so provides you with a high-level overview of your strategic initiatives that you can place on your website, distribute to stakeholders, and refer to internally. More extensive details about implementation, capacity, and other concerns can go into an expanded document.

Download One-Page Strategic Planning Template Excel | Word | Smartsheet

The most important part of the strategic plan is the executive summary, which contains the highlights of the plan. Although it appears at the beginning of the plan, it should be written last, after you have done all your research.

Of writing the executive summary, Stockmal says, “I find it much easier to extract and cut and edit than to do it first.”

For help with creating executive summaries, see these templates .

Other parts of a strategic plan can include the following:

Description: A description of the company or organization.

Vision Statement: A bold or inspirational statement about where you want your company to be in the future.

Mission Statement: In this section, describe what you do today, your audience, and your approach as you work toward your vision.

Core Values: In this section, list the beliefs and behaviors that will enable you to achieve your mission and, eventually, your vision.

Goals: Provide a few statements of how you will achieve your vision over the long term.

Objectives: Each long-term goal should have a few one-year objectives that advance the plan. Make objectives SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, and time-based) to get the most out of them.

Budget and Operating Plans: Highlight resources you will need and how you will implement them.

Monitoring and Evaluation: In this section, describe how you will check your progress and determine when you achieve your goals.

One of the first steps in creating a strategic plan is to perform both an internal and external analysis of the company’s environment. Internally, look at your company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the personal values of those who will implement your plan (managers, executives, board members). Externally, examine threats and opportunities within the industry and any broad societal expectations that might exist.

You can perform a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to sum up where you are currently and what you should focus on to help you achieve your future goals. Strengths shows you what you do well, weaknesses point out obstacles that could keep you from achieving your objectives, opportunities highlight where you can grow, and threats pinpoint external factors that could be obstacles in your way.

You can find more information about performing a SWOT analysis and free templates in this article . Another analysis technique, STEEPLE (social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, and ethical), often accompanies a SWOT analysis.

Basics of Strategic Planning

How you navigate the strategic planning process will vary. Several tools and techniques are available, and your choice depends on your company’s leadership, culture, environment, and size, as well as the expertise of the planners.

All include similar sections in the final plan, but the ways of driving those results differ. Some tools are goals-based, while others are issues- or scenario-based. Some rely on a more organic or rigid process.

Hofmeyer summarizes what goes into strategic planning:

Understand the stakeholders and involve them from the beginning.

Agree on a vision.

Hold successful meetings and sessions.

Summarize and present the plan to stakeholders.

Identify and check metrics.

Make periodic adjustments.

Items That Go into Strategic Planning

Strategic planning contains inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. Inputs and activities are elements that are internal to the company, while outputs and outcomes are external.

Remember, there are many different names for the sections of strategic plans. The key is to agree what terms you will use and define them for everyone involved.

Inputs are important because it is impossible to know where you are going until you know what is around you where you are now.

Companies need to gather data from a variety of sources to get a clear look at the competitive environment and the opportunities and risks within that environment. You can think of it like a competitive intelligence program.

Data should come from the following sources:

Interviews with executives

A review of documents about the competition or market that are publicly available

Primary research by visiting or observing competitors

Studies of your industry

The values of key stakeholders

This information often goes into writing an organization’s vision and mission statements.

Activities are the meetings and other communications that need to happen during the strategic planning process to help everyone understand the competition that surrounds the organization.

It is important both to understand the competitive environment and your company’s response to it. This is where everyone looks at and responds to the data gathered from the inputs.

The strategic planning process produces outputs. Outputs can be as basic as the strategic planning document itself. The documentation and communications that describe your organization’s strategy, as well as financial statements and budgets, can also be outputs.

The implementation of the strategic plan produces outcomes (distinct from outputs). The outcomes determine the success or failure of the strategic plan by measuring how close they are to the goals and vision you outline in your plan.

It is important to understand there will be unplanned and unintended outcomes, too. How you learn from and adapt to these changes influence the success of the strategic plan.

During the planning process, decide how you will measure both the successes and failures of different parts of the strategic plan.

Sharing, Evaluating, and Monitoring the Progress of a Strategic Plan

After companies go through a lengthy strategic planning process, it is important that the plan does not sit and collect dust. Share, evaluate, and monitor the plan to assess how you are doing and make any necessary updates.

“[Some] leaders think that once they have their strategy, it’s up to someone else to execute it. That’s a mistake I see,” Stockmal says.

The process begins with distributing and communicating the plan. Decide who will get a copy of the plan and how those people will tell others about it. Will you have a meeting to kick off the implementation? How will you specify who will do what and when? Clearly communicate the roles people will have.

“Before you communicate the plan [to everyone], you need to have the commitment of stakeholders,” Hofmeyer recommends. Have the stakeholders be a part of announcing the plan to everyone — this keeps them accountable because workers will associate them with the strategy. “That applies pressure to the stakeholders to actually do the work.”

Once the team begins implementation, it’s necessary to have benchmarks to help measure your successes against the plan’s objectives. Sometimes, having smaller action plans within the larger plan can help keep the work on track.

During the planning process, you should have decided how you will measure success. Now, figure out how and when you will document progress. Keep an eye out for gaps between the vision and its implementation — a big gap could be a sign that you are deviating from the plan.

Tools are available to assist with tracking performance of strategic plans, including several types of software. “For some organizations, a spreadsheet is enough, but you are going to manually enter the data, so someone needs to be responsible for that,” Stockmal recommends.

Remember: strategic plans are not written in stone. Some deviation will be necessary, and when it happens, it’s important to understand why it occurred and how the change might impact the company's vision and goals.

Deviation from the plan does not mean failure, reminds Hofmeyer. Instead, understanding what transpired is the key. “Things happen, [and] you should always be on the lookout for that. I’m a firm believer in continuous improvement,” he says. Explain to stakeholders why a change is taking place. “There’s always a sense of re-evaluation, but do it methodically.”

Build in a schedule to review and amend the plan as necessary; this can help keep companies on track.

What Is Strategic Management?

Strategic planning is part of strategic management, and it involves the activities that make the strategic plan a reality. Essentially, strategic management is getting from the starting point to the goal effectively and efficiently using the ongoing activities and processes that a company takes on in order to keep in line with its mission, vision, and strategic plan.

“[Strategic management] closes the gap between the plan and executing the strategy,” Stockmal of ASP says. Strategic management is part of a larger planning process that includes budgeting, forecasting, capital allocation, and more.

There is no right or wrong way to do strategic management — only guidelines. The basic phases are preparing for strategic planning, creating the strategic plan, and implementing that plan.

No matter how you manage your plan, it’s key to allow the strategic plan to evolve and grow as necessary, due to both the internal and external factors.

“We get caught up in all of the day-to-day issues,” Stockmal explains, adding that people do not often leave enough time for implementing the plan and making progress. That’s what strategic management implores: doing things that are in the plan and not letting the plan sit on a shelf.

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The Strategic Planning Process in 4 Steps

To guide you through the strategic planning process, we created this 4 step process you can use with your team. we’ll cover the basic definition of strategic planning, what core elements you should include, and actionable steps to build your strategic plan..

Free Strategic Planning Guide

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic Planning is when a process where organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy development.

A strategic plan or a business strategic plan should include the following:

• Your organization’s vision organization’s vision of the future.
• A clearly Articulated mission and values statement.
• A current state assessment that evaluates your competitive environment, new opportunities, and new threats.
• What strategic challenges you face.
• A growth strategy and outlined market share.
• Long-term strategic goals.
• An annual plan with SMART goals or OKRs to support your strategic goals.
• Clear measures, key performance indicators, and data analytics to measure progress.
• A clear strategic planning cycle, including how you’ll review, refresh, and recast your plan every quarter.

Overview of the Strategic Planning Process:

The strategic management process involves taking your organization on a journey from point A (where you are today) to point B (your vision of the future).

Part of that journey is the strategy built during strategic planning, and part of it is execution during the strategic management process. A good strategic plan dictates “how” you travel the selected road.

Effective execution ensures you are reviewing, refreshing, and recalibrating your strategy to reach your destination. The planning process should take no longer than 90 days. But, move at a pace that works best for you and your team and leverage this as a resource.

To kick this process off, we recommend 1-2 weeks (1-hour meeting with the Owner/CEO, Strategy Director, and Facilitator (if necessary) to discuss the information collected and direction for continued planning.)

Questions to Ask:

• Who is on your Planning Team? What senior leadership members and key stakeholders are included? Checkout these links you need help finding a strategic planning consultant , someone to facilitate strategic planning , or expert AI strategy consulting .
• Who will be the business process owner (Strategy Director) of planning in your organization?
• Fast forward 12 months from now, what do you want to see differently in your organization as a result of your strategic plan and implementation?
• Planning team members are informed of their roles and responsibilities.
• A strategic planning schedule is established.
• Existing planning information and secondary data collected.

Action Grid:

Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness

Set up your plan for success – questions to ask:

• Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain pitfalls be avoided?
• Is this the appropriate time for your organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no, where do you go from here?

Step 2: Develop Your Team & Schedule

Who is going to be on your planning team? You need to choose someone to oversee the strategy implementation (Chief Strategy Officer or Strategy Director) and strategic management of your plan? You need some of the key individuals and decision makers for this team. It should be a small group of approximately 12-15 people.

OnStrategy is the leader in strategic planning and performance management. Our cloud-based software and hands-on services closes the gap between strategy and execution. Learn more about OnStrategy here .

Step 3: Collect Current Data

All strategic plans are developed using the following information:

• The last strategic plan, even if it is not current
• Mission statement, vision statement, values statement
• Past or current Business plan
• Financial records for the last few years
• Marketing plan
• Other information, such as last year’s SWOT, sales figures and projections

Step 4: Review Collected Data

Review the data collected in the last action with your strategy director and facilitator.

• What trends do you see?
• Are there areas of obvious weakness or strengths?
• Have you been following a plan or have you just been going along with the market?

Conclusion: A successful strategic plan must be adaptable to changing conditions. Organizations benefit from having a flexible plan that can evolve, as assumptions and goals may need adjustments. Preparing to adapt or restart the planning process is crucial, so we recommend updating actions quarterly and refreshing your plan annually.

Strategic Planning Phase 1: Determine Your Strategic Position

Want more? Dive into the “ Evaluate Your Strategic Position ” How-To Guide.

Action Grid

Step 1: identify strategic issues.

Strategic issues are critical unknowns driving you to embark on a robust strategic planning process. These issues can be problems, opportunities, market shifts, or anything else that keeps you awake at night and begging for a solution or decision. The best strategic plans address your strategic issues head-on.

• How will we grow, stabilize, or retrench in order to sustain our organization into the future?
• How will we diversify our revenue to reduce our dependence on a major customer?
• What must we do to improve our cost structure and stay competitive?
• How and where must we innovate our products and services?

Step 2: Conduct an Environmental Scan

Conducting an environmental scan will help you understand your operating environment. An environmental scan is called a PEST analysis, an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological trends. Sometimes, it is helpful to include Ecological and Legal trends as well. All of these trends play a part in determining the overall business environment.

Step 3: Conduct a Competitive Analysis

The reason to do a competitive analysis is to assess the opportunities and threats that may occur from those organizations competing for the same business you are. You need to understand what your competitors are or aren’t offering your potential customers. Here are a few other key ways a competitive analysis fits into strategic planning:

• To help you assess whether your competitive advantage is really an advantage.
• To understand what your competitors’ current and future strategies are so you can plan accordingly.
• To provide information that will help you evaluate your strategic decisions against what your competitors may or may not be doing.

Learn more on how to conduct a competitive analysis here .

Step 4: Identify Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities are situations that exist but must be acted on if the business is to benefit from them.

What do you want to capitalize on?

• What new needs of customers could you meet?
• What are the economic trends that benefit you?
• What are the emerging political and social opportunities?
• What niches have your competitors missed?

Threats refer to external conditions or barriers preventing a company from reaching its objectives.

What do you need to mitigate? What external driving force do you need to anticipate?

Questions to Answer:

• What are the negative economic trends?
• What are the negative political and social trends?
• Where are competitors about to bite you?
• Where are you vulnerable?

Step 5: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths refer to what your company does well.

What do you want to build on?

• What do you do well (in sales, marketing, operations, management)?
• What are your core competencies?
• What differentiates you from your competitors?
• Why do your customers buy from you?

Weaknesses refer to any limitations a company faces in developing or implementing a strategy.

What do you need to shore up?

• Where do you lack resources?
• What can you do better?
• Where are you losing money?
• In what areas do your competitors have an edge?

Step 6: Customer Segments

Customer segmentation defines the different groups of people or organizations a company aims to reach or serve.

• What needs or wants define your ideal customer?
• What characteristics describe your typical customer?
• Can you sort your customers into different profiles using their needs, wants and characteristics?
• Can you reach this segment through clear communication channels?

Step 7: Develop Your SWOT

A SWOT analysis is a quick way of examining your organization by looking at the internal strengths and weaknesses in relation to the external opportunities and threats. Creating a SWOT analysis lets you see all the important factors affecting your organization together in one place.

It’s easy to read, easy to communicate, and easy to create. Take the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats you developed earlier, review, prioritize, and combine like terms. The SWOT analysis helps you ask and answer the following questions: “How do you….”

• Build on your strengths
• Shore up your weaknesses
• Capitalize on your opportunities
• Manage your threats

Strategic Planning Process Phase 2: Developing Strategy

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Developing Your Strategy” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Develop Your Mission Statement

The mission statement describes an organization’s purpose or reason for existing.

What is our purpose? Why do we exist? What do we do?

• What are your organization’s goals? What does your organization intend to accomplish?
• Why do you work here? Why is it special to work here?
• What would happen if we were not here?

Outcome: A short, concise, concrete statement that clearly defines the scope of the organization.

Step 2: discover your values.

Your values statement clarifies what your organization stands for, believes in and the behaviors you expect to see as a result. Check our the post on great what are core values and examples of core values .

How will we behave?

• What are the key non-negotiables that are critical to the company’s success?
• What guiding principles are core to how we operate in this organization?
• What behaviors do you expect to see?
• If the circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value, would we still keep it?

Outcome: Short list of 5-7 core values.

Step 3: casting your vision statement.

A Vision Statement defines your desired future state and directs where we are going as an organization.

Where are we going?

• What will our organization look like 5–10 years from now?
• What does success look like?
• What are we aspiring to achieve?
• What mountain are you climbing and why?

Outcome: A picture of the future.

Step 4: identify your competitive advantages.

A competitive advantage is a characteristic of an organization that allows it to meet its customer’s need(s) better than its competition can. It’s important to consider your competitive advantages when creating your competitive strategy.

What are we best at?

• What are your unique strengths?
• What are you best at in your market?
• Do your customers still value what is being delivered? Ask them.
• How do your value propositions stack up in the marketplace?

Outcome: A list of 2 or 3 items that honestly express the organization’s foundation for winning.

Step 5: crafting your organization-wide strategies.

Your competitive strategy is the general methods you intend to use to reach your vision. Regardless of the level, a strategy answers the question “how.”

How will we succeed?

• Broad: market scope; a relatively wide market emphasis.
• Narrow: limited to only one or few segments in the market
• Does your competitive position focus on lowest total cost or product/service differentiation or both?

Outcome: Establish the general, umbrella methods you intend to use to reach your vision.

Phase 3: Strategic Plan Development

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Build Your Plan” How-To Guide.

Strategic Planning Process Step 1: Use Your SWOT to Set Priorities

If your team wants to take the next step in the SWOT analysis, apply the TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix to your strategy map to help you think about the options you could pursue. To do this, match external opportunities and threats with your internal strengths and weaknesses, as illustrated in the matrix below:

TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix

Evaluate the options you’ve generated, and identify the ones that give the greatest benefit, and that best achieve the mission and vision of your organization. Add these to the other strategic options that you’re considering.

Step 2: Define Long-Term Strategic Objectives

Long-Term Strategic Objectives are long-term, broad, continuous statements that holistically address all areas of your organization. What must we focus on to achieve our vision? Check out examples of strategic objectives here. What are the “big rocks”?

Questions to ask:

• What are our shareholders or stakeholders expectations for our financial performance or social outcomes?
• To reach our outcomes, what value must we provide to our customers? What is our value proposition?
• To provide value, what process must we excel at to deliver our products and services?
• To drive our processes, what skills, capabilities and organizational structure must we have?

Outcome: Framework for your plan – no more than 6. You can use the balanced scorecard framework, OKRs, or whatever methodology works best for you. Just don’t exceed 6 long-term objectives.

Step 3: Setting Organization-Wide Goals and Measures

Once you have formulated your strategic objectives, you should translate them into goals and measures that can be communicated to your strategic planning team (team of business leaders and/or team members).

You want to set goals that convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets. Effective strategic goals clearly state what, when, how, and who, and they are specifically measurable. They should address what you must do in the short term (think 1-3 years) to achieve your strategic objectives.

Organization-wide goals are annual statements that are SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, responsible, and time-bound. These are outcome statements expressing a result to achieve the desired outcomes expected in the organization.

What is most important right now to reach our long-term objectives?

Outcome: clear outcomes for the current year..

Step 4: Select KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the key measures that will have the most impact in moving your organization forward. We recommend you guide your organization with measures that matter. See examples of KPIs here.

How will we measure our success?

Outcome: 5-7 measures that help you keep the pulse on your performance. When selecting your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ask, “What are the key performance measures we need to track to monitor if we are achieving our goals?” These KPIs include the key goals you want to measure that will have the most impact on moving your organization forward.

Step 5: Cascade Your Strategies to Operations

To move from big ideas to action, creating action items and to-dos for short-term goals is crucial. This involves translating strategy from the organizational level to individuals. Functional area managers and contributors play a role in developing short-term goals to support the organization.

Before taking action, decide whether to create plans directly derived from the strategic plan or sync existing operational, business, or account plans with organizational goals. Avoid the pitfall of managing multiple sets of goals and actions, as this shifts from strategic planning to annual planning.

Questions to Ask

• How are we going to get there at a functional level?
• Who must do what by when to accomplish and drive the organizational goals?
• What strategic questions still remain and need to be solved?

Department/functional goals, actions, measures and targets for the next 12-24 months

Step 6: Cascading Goals to Departments and Team Members

Now in your Departments / Teams, you need to create goals to support the organization-wide goals. These goals should still be SMART and are generally (short-term) something to be done in the next 12-18 months. Finally, you should develop an action plan for each goal.

Keep the acronym SMART in mind again when setting action items, and make sure they include start and end dates and have someone assigned their responsibility. Since these action items support your previously established goals, it may be helpful to consider action items your immediate plans on the way to achieving your (short-term) goals. In other words, identify all the actions that need to occur in the next 90 days and continue this same process every 90 days until the goal is achieved.

Examples of Cascading Goals:

Phase 4: Executing Strategy and Managing Performance

Want more? Dive Into the “Managing Performance” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Strategic Plan Implementation Schedule

Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals.

How will we use the plan as a management tool?

• Communication Schedule: How and when will you roll-out your plan to your staff? How frequently will you send out updates?
• Process Leader: Who is your strategy director?
• Structure: What are the dates for your strategy reviews (we recommend at least quarterly)?
• System & Reports: What are you expecting each staff member to come prepared with to those strategy review sessions?

Outcome: Syncing your plan into the “rhythm of your business.”

Once your resources are in place, you can set your implementation schedule. Use the following steps as your base implementation plan:

• Establish your performance management and reward system.
• Set up monthly and quarterly strategy meetings with established reporting procedures.
• Set up annual strategic review dates including new assessments and a large group meeting for an annual plan review.

Now you’re ready to start plan roll-out. Below are sample implementation schedules, which double for a full strategic management process timeline.

Step 2: Tracking Goals & Actions

Monthly strategy meetings don’t need to take a lot of time – 30 to 60 minutes should suffice. But it is important that key team members report on their progress toward the goals they are responsible for – including reporting on metrics in the scorecard they have been assigned.

By using the measurements already established, it’s easy to make course corrections if necessary. You should also commit to reviewing your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) during these regular meetings. Need help comparing strategic planning software ? Check out our guide.

Effective Strategic Planning: Your Bi-Annual Checklist

Never lose sight of the fact that strategic plans are guidelines, not rules. Every six months or so, you should evaluate your strategy execution and strategic plan implementation by asking these key questions:

• Will your goals be achieved within the time frame of the plan? If not, why?
• Should the deadlines be modified? (Before you modify deadlines, figure out why you’re behind schedule.)
• Are your goals and action items still realistic?
• Should the organization’s focus be changed to put more emphasis on achieving your goals?
• Should your goals be changed? (Be careful about making these changes – know why efforts aren’t achieving the goals before changing the goals.)
• What can be gathered from an adaptation to improve future planning activities?

Why Track Your Goals?

• Ownership: Having a stake and responsibility in the plan makes you feel part of it and leads you to drive your goals forward.
• Culture: Successful plans tie tracking and updating goals into organizational culture.
• Implementation: If you don’t review and update your strategic goals, they are just good intentions
• Accountability: Accountability and high visibility help drive change. This means that each measure, objective, data source and initiative must have an owner.
• Empowerment: Changing goals from In Progress to Complete just feels good!

Step 3: Review & Adapt

Guidelines for your strategy review.

The most important part of this meeting is a 70/30 review. 30% is about reviewing performance, and 70% should be spent on making decisions to move the company’s strategy forward in the next quarter.

The best strategic planners spend about 60-90 minutes in the sessions. Holding meetings helps focus your goals on accomplishing top priorities and accelerating the organization’s growth. Although the meeting structure is relatively simple, it does require a high degree of discipline.

Strategy Review Session Questions:

Strategic planning frequently asked questions, read our frequently asked questions about strategic planning to learn how to build a great strategic plan..

Strategic planning is when organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy..

Your strategic plan needs to include an assessment of your current state, a SWOT analysis, mission, vision, values, competitive advantages, growth strategy, growth enablers, a 3-year roadmap, and annual plan with strategic goals, OKRs, and KPIs.

A strategic planning process should take no longer than 90 days to complete from start to finish! Any longer could fatigue your organization and team.

There are four overarching phases to the strategic planning process that include: determining position, developing your strategy, building your plan, and managing performance. Each phase plays a unique but distinctly crucial role in the strategic planning process.

Prior to starting your strategic plan, you must go through this pre-planning process to determine your organization’s readiness by following these steps:

Ask yourself these questions: Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place now? Can we foresee any pitfalls that we can avoid? Is there an appropriate time for our organization to initiate this process?

Develop your team and schedule. Who will oversee the implementation as Chief Strategy Officer or Director? Do we have at least 12-15 other key individuals on our team?

Research and Collect Current Data. Find the following resources that your organization may have used in the past to assist you with your new plan: last strategic plan, mission, vision, and values statement, business plan, financial records, marketing plan, SWOT, sales figures, or projections.

Finally, review the data with your strategy director and facilitator and ask these questions: What trends do we see? Any obvious strengths or weaknesses? Have we been following a plan or just going along with the market?

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Strategic Planning Process Definition, Steps and Examples

Published: 03 January, 2024

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Digital Strategy

Table of Contents

Organizations use Strategic Planning to gather all their stakeholders to evaluate the collection of current circumstances and decide upon their ongoing goals and benchmarks. They decide upon long-term objectives and establish a vision for the company’s future.

The efforts behind an organization’s Strategic Planning Processes are vital to its success, and yet, while many organizations acknowledge they need to do this kind of planning, they often don’t understand how to make it a reality. In this article, we explain the reasons behind Strategic Planning and how to make your Strategic Planning Process as powerful as possible.

What is a Strategic Plan

Strategic planning is a systematic process wherein the leaders of an organization articulate their vision for the future and delineate the goals and objectives that will guide the trajectory of the organization.

What is the Strategic Planning Process

Strategic planning is a process of defining an organization’s direction and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this direction . It involves creating a long-term plan that outlines the organization’s vision, mission, values, and objectives, as well as the strategies and tactics that will be used to achieve them.

Strategy is often misunderstood, which is surprising because fundamentally it’s a pretty basic concept. Strategy is a clearly expressed direction and a verified plan on how to get there. Your Strategic Planning Process formalizes the steps you’ll take to decide on your plan. The Strategic Planning Process facilitates using a Strategic Execution Framework that articulates where you’ll invest in innovation and where you can cut costs.

As far as business development planning is concerned, your Strategic Execution Framework is a vital tool for driving innovation, but first you must define the process you’ll undertake to determine how you and your team see the future of your organization. In this article, we discuss how to create your Strategic Plan and define its relationship to other concepts and documents that direct your business and its activities.

While it’s true that every business is different and must develop their own processes, we believe there are some process  of strategic planning stepsthat benefit all organizations.

Below are our recommendations for the steps to take when undergoing your Strategic Planning Process, along with the questions we suggest you answer during each specific step.

Step One: Analyze your Business Environment

• Who are your competitors?
• What relevant market data do you have, and what do you still need?
• What technology has emerged that impacts your business model?
• How have customer expectations changed since your last Strategic Plan?
• What advantages do you have over competitors?
• Where is your company weaker compared to competitors?
• What predictable complications are on the horizon?
• Which unpredictable complications seem most likely or most potentially impactful?

Step Two: Set your Strategic Direction

• What is your overall Business Purpose ?
• How have your operations reflected your Purpose and Goals recently?
• How should your operations reflect your Purpose and Goals?
• Where do you see your business going in the next year?
• In two years? In three years?
• What are the metrics you’ll use to measure success?
• What are your make-or-break necessities?

Step Three: Set and develop Strategic Goals and Strategic Objectives

• Have you considered short-, mid-, and long-term business goals , and what are they?
• How do your Strategic Goals reflect your Mission Statement?
• How do your Strategic Goals reflect your company values and vision?
• What daily operations must be completed to work toward your Strategic Objectives?
• How will you communicate your Strategic Goals and Strategic Objectives?
• Who is responsible for reporting on success?
• How will strategic data be collected?

Related: Strategic Goals: Examples, Importance, Definitions and How to Set Them

Step Four: Drill down to Department-Level Objectives

• What are specific department concerns?
• How will your budget influence and be influenced by your Strategic Goals and Objectives?
• Which departments have resources that could be shared to better advantage?
• What roles do individual departments play in your overall Strategic Goals?
• What ongoing projects become a priority because of your new Strategic Goals?
• Are Departmental Objectives complementing each other and the overall Business Model?

Step Five: Manage and Analyze Performance

• Who is on the Strategic Planning team?
• Are tasks and job descriptions properly aligned to ensure the right work is getting completed?
• What is the schedule for the meeting for Strategic Planning?
• What are your metrics for measuring performance and success?
• Have you clearly articulated and shared KPIs?
• Who is responsible for gathering data?
• How will data be collected?
• How will data be reported?
• What’s at stake for strategy success or failure?

Step Six: Review and develop your Strategic Plan

• How should your Strategic Plan look on paper?
• What is your Strategy Execution Framework —how will you guarantee the Strategic Plan Team’s decisions are respected and executed?
• What is the review process?
• How often do you evaluate your Strategic Plan?
• How will you communicate your final Strategic Plan?

Strategic Planning Process Examples

1) apple strategic plan process.

• Vision and Mission: Apple’s strategic planning begins with a clear vision and mission. Apple’s vision is to create innovative products that inspire and enrich people’s lives.
• Environmental Analysis: Apple conducts thorough environmental analyses, considering technological trends, market demands, and competitive landscapes. This includes staying at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies.
• SWOT Analysis: Apple evaluates its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For example, one of Apple’s strengths is its strong brand image, while a weakness might be dependence on a limited product line.
• Setting business Goals and Objectives: Apple sets specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. This could include objectives like maintaining a certain market share, launching new products, or achieving specific financial targets.
• Strategies and Tactics: Apple develops strategies based on its goals. For instance, a strategic move might be expanding its ecosystem by integrating hardware, software, and services. Tactics could include aggressive marketing campaigns and product launches.
• Implementation and Execution: Apple’s strategic plans are meticulously executed. The launch of iconic products like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac series demonstrates effective implementation of their strategies.
• Monitoring and Adjusting: Apple constantly monitors its performance metrics, customer feedback, and market dynamics. If necessary, adjustments are made to the strategic plan to stay responsive to changing conditions.

2) Tesla Strategic Plan Process

• Vision and Mission: Tesla’s strategic planning revolves around its mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. The vision includes producing electric vehicles and renewable energy solutions.
• Market Analysis: Tesla analyzes global markets for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and energy storage. This involves understanding regulatory environments, consumer behaviours, and technological advancements.
• Risk Assessment: Tesla conducts risk assessments related to manufacturing, supply chain, and market volatility. For instance, it considers risks associated with battery production and global economic conditions.
• Setting Bold Objectives: Tesla is known for setting ambitious objectives, such as achieving mass-market electric vehicle adoption and establishing a robust network of charging stations worldwide.
• Innovative Strategies: Tesla’s strategic planning involves innovation in technology and business models . For instance, the “Gigafactories” for mass production of batteries and the “Autopilot” feature in vehicles reflect innovative strategies.
• Agile Adaptation: Due to the rapidly changing automotive and energy sectors, Tesla maintains an agile approach. The company adapts its plans swiftly to capitalize on emerging opportunities, as seen in the expansion of its energy products.
• Continuous Improvement: Tesla places emphasis on continuous improvement. The iterative development of electric vehicle models, software updates, and advancements in battery technology showcase a commitment to refinement.

These examples demonstrate how strategic planning is a dynamic and integral part of the business processes of leading companies. They highlight the importance of a well-defined vision, rigorous analysis, adaptability, and innovation in the strategic planning process.

Tactical vs. Strategic Planning Process

An easy way to distinguish your company’s Tactical Planning from your Strategic Planning is to separate your wants from your HOWs.

In your Strategic Planning, you identify what you WANT for the company. These are big-picture dreams (achievable, but big ) that are your definition of success. In your Tactical Planning, you identify the HOW for reaching those dreams, including the smaller necessary steps.

Each kind of planning is vital for securing the organization’s future, but they require different sorts of attention and philosophy, and teams that are good at planning one way may not necessarily be good at the other kind of planning.

Strategic Planning vs. Your Business Purpose

Your Strategic Planning Process will of course be deeply connected to your Business Purpose .

We like to think of Business Purpose in broad terms, choosing especially to think of a business’s role in massive transformation. Embedded within a Business Purpose is the Business Plan that directs operations and how a company delivers value to its customers.

What is the relationship between your Strategic Planning and your Business Purpose? One feeds into the other. Your Business Purpose must point to a larger impact you’ll have on the people who purchase your goods and services, and your Strategic Planning takes into account how you’ll grow and expand that Purpose as you reach more customers more successfully.

Strategic Planning vs Business Planning

Strategic planning and business planning are two distinct processes that are often used interchangeably, but they have some key differences.

Strategic planning is a top-level process that focuses on determining the direction of an organization over the long term. It involves setting goals, determining the key resources and actions necessary to achieve those goals, and allocating those resources in a way that best serves the organization’s future. The outcome of strategic planning is typically a long-term strategic plan that outlines the organization’s vision, mission, values, and objectives.

Business planning , on the other hand, is a more tactical process that focuses on the implementation of specific initiatives and projects to support the organization’s long-term goals. Business plans typically outline the steps necessary to launch a new product, enter a new market, or achieve a specific objective. They may also include budgets, marketing plans, and other operational details.

In short, strategic planning is about setting the direction for an organization, while business planning is about implementing specific initiatives to support that direction. Both processes are important for the success of an organization and should be used in conjunction to ensure that resources are allocated effectively and that the organization is moving in the right direction.

Why is Strategic Planning Important?

Imagine this scenario: A warehouse full of goods sits, unsold and unmoved. A collection of brilliant people languishes at desks all day. Outside, the world spins and changes. It’s ready for what these people could do, can do, and yet nothing happens. Needs remain unmet. Progress is halted. Everyday life takes several backwards steps. This is what your business will look like without proper Strategic Planning.

Strategic Planning forces you to consider your Strategic Objectives and critically compare them to the resources you have available. As you continuously evaluate the circumstances of your business and your customers, your Strategic Plan evolves to match your goals and business capabilities.

The process involved pushes decision-makers to practice Strategic Thinking . It limits wasteful spending, especially when upper-level managers are willing to forgo pet projects in favor of operations with a broader use and appeal.

Strategic Planning is important because it directs your resources to efficiently meet your overall Business Goals. Without Strategic Planning, you are likely to waste resources, make conflicting decisions, or fail to grow your business to its greatest potential.

When Do You Create a Strategic Plan?

Most businesses find value in reviewing their Strategic Plan every three years. This allows enough time to pass that you can evaluate the success of previous plans, reflect on the achievement of your Strategic Goals, consider developments outside your organization that affect your business, and begin formulating new goals that will become the next version of your plans.

When businesses first begin, they often have too many fires burning at once. They remain focused on existing today rather than planning for tomorrow. Most entrepreneurs remember those stressful early days of starting their businesses and can understand why formalities like Strategic Plans can fall by the wayside. We believe if your business lasts longer than a year it’s important to develop a plan for the future. Think of Strategic Planning as a celebration of a first anniversary—a sign that you’re poised to continue moving forward for years to come.

However, Strategic Planning is not a one-off event that is over once the cookies are all gone and the room clears. Your Strategic Planning team should meet regularly to measure how effective the plans are at helping you reach your Strategic Goals. Ad hoc subcommittees can play a role in gathering evidence to ensure that your plans remain appropriate, especially if conditions change.

For example, we recommended a close review of Strategic Plans and Strategic Goals once the COVID-19 pandemic made it clear that business was going to be affected at least short- to mid-term. We continue to recommend teams regularly revisit their Strategic Plans with global circumstances in mind to recognize opportunities and prepare for challenges.

The Benefits of Strategic Planning

As we’ve mentioned, there are many benefits of Strategic Planning . Some of those benefits include:

• Shared sense of power and importance
• United direction
• Clear path and purpose for decision-making and operations
• Boosted operational effectiveness
• Responsible, efficient use of available resources
• Meaningful work done on a daily basis
• Tracking of progress
• Ability to adjust to changing circumstances

What is a business without Strategic Planning? In most cases, it’s not much, nor is it long for the world. While it’s possible to accidentally find success without much planning, most successful businesses are a result of careful thought mixed with the urge to pounce on the opportunity.

What prepares you to pounce?

Your Strategic Planning and the processes that make it possible.

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A step-by-step guide to strategic planning (and what makes it unique)

Discover how strategic planning differs from other project management approaches and learn how to draft a strategy that benefits your organization.

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Capitalize on present opportunities and prepare for the future with strategic planning.

Whether you’re starting a new business or looking to revamp your company’s existing structures, a strategic plan is crucial for success. It complements existing documents, such as mission statements and individualized project plans, and considers future opportunities and potential setbacks.

With a strategic plan suited to your specific goals, you can chart a realistic, sustainable road map that acknowledges your current organizational challenges while unlocking future possibilities. Learn how strategic planning can benefit your organization and set you up for long-term success.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a continuous, systematic process for organizations to define their short- and long-term direction. It involves comprehensively assessing internal aspects, like employee development, budgets, and timelines, and external elements, such as market trends and competitors, to enable effective resource allocation so your organization can achieve business goals and scale effectively.

The strategic planning process is dynamic and requires adaptability to changing circumstances to establish a structured approach to decision-making and maintain team agility. At its core, strategic planning serves as a road map that steers an organization from its present state toward a well-defined future, ensuring sustainable growth.

The benefits of strategic planning

As a holistic road map, a strategic plan well suited to your organization can propel your productivity. Here are a few benefits that strategic planning brings:

• Creating a shared purpose. Strategic planning involves team members in setting the organization’s mission, vision, and values. This collaborative process ensures that every team member understands and connects with these fundamental principles — fostering a sense of shared purpose and direction.
• Proactive planning. The strategic planning process translates abstract ideas into actionable objectives. Setting specific, attainable goals and mapping out strategies to achieve them provides a clear blueprint for the future that’s guided by informed decision-making and deliberate goal-setting.
• Effective resource allocation. Strategic planning allocates resources such as finances, personnel, and technology based on their potential impact on business goals. This process assesses the resources required to achieve each objective and distributes them to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.
• Defining long-term and short-term goals. Strategic plans break down long-term, overarching goals into smaller, short-term objectives to create a step-by-step pathway to achieve the larger vision. This makes goals more manageable and actionable and enables regular monitoring and adjustment of these goals.
• SWOT analysis. Strategic planning provides a clear understanding of your organization’s current status, position in the market, and well-being through a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. By evaluating both internal and external factors, this process helps identify areas where your organization excels, where it can improve, and external factors that could impact its success, ultimately helping you strategize for future growth and stability.
• Anticipating market trends. Strategic planning enables organizations to foresee and prepare for future changes by analyzing market data and trends. This proactive approach involves evaluating emerging trends, consumer behavior, and technological advancements to adapt strategies accordingly, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve.

How does a strategic plan differ from other project management and business tools?

When creating a long-term vision, a strategic plan becomes pivotal in steering your organization toward success. However, there are other project management tools and workflows with similar goals. Here’s how strategic plans differ from those processes.

Strategic plans vs. business plans

While a strategic plan outlines the organization’s long-term direction and actions to achieve overarching goals, a business plan focuses more on starting new ventures or restructuring existing ones. The strategic plan is broader in scope and encompasses long-term visions like market expansion, while the business plan might detail the steps to attract new customers and establish brand identity .

For example, a new brick-and-mortar sports apparel store might have a business plan for attracting new customers and establishing a brand identity, with a strategic plan that focuses on expanding into online sales to capture a broader audience over a three-year period.

Strategic plans vs. mission statements

A strategic plan outlines a comprehensive set of strategies to achieve organizational goals, while a mission or vision statement concisely communicates the organization’s core purpose. The mission statement sets the tone and direction, and the strategic plan lays out the specific initiatives, such as research and development investments and partnerships, to realize that vision.

Consider a mission statement for a security camera company — to create seamlessly integrated security systems that protect homes. Meanwhile, their strategic plan details initiatives such as product development, resource allocation, and personnel plans to achieve that mission statement.

Strategic plans vs. company objectives

Company objectives are specific, feasible, and measurable targets. In contrast, a strategic plan provides a broader blueprint for aligning resources and realizing those objectives. The strategic plan incorporates and supports various company objectives through detailed action plans and resource allocation.

For instance, an ecommerce platform aims to increase online sales by 15% in the first quarter. To achieve this, their marketing team creates a strategic plan prioritizing a digital marketing revamp, including optimizing the company website, driving organic traffic, and boosting search engine optimization (SEO).

Strategic plans vs. business cases

Unlike strategic plans, which broadly set the direction for multiple projects and initiatives aligned with a company’s long-term goals, business cases justify individual projects and focus on a specific initiative’s viability and benefits.

For example, a business case might focus on the financial feasibility and expected outcomes of introducing a new analytics feature in a software product. In contrast, the strategic plan of this software company might include goals such as becoming a leader in data-driven solutions, where the analytics function features prominently.

Strategic plans vs. project plans

Project plans are detailed documents that outline specific timelines, tasks, and budgets to complete a project. In contrast, strategic plans incorporate multiple project plans, ensuring they align with the broader goals and vision of the organization, and provide the context and framework for developing and implementing individual project plans.

For a web development team, a project plan could detail the steps for redesigning a client’s website, including milestones, resources, and deadlines. However, the strategic plan for this web development company might aim to become the go-to agency for innovative web solutions. Their strategic plan guides not just this single project but others in terms of technology adoption, client engagement strategies, and market positioning.

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The 5 essential steps to strategic planning

Now that you’re familiar with strategic plans’ benefits and use cases, here are five best practices to create one tailored for your organization.

1. Understand your position

Before drafting the actual plan, it’s essential to understand your position in the market. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your industry that focuses on current market trends, client needs, and the competitive landscape. This comprehensive understanding helps you grasp where your organization stands and what unique opportunities or challenges you might face so you can establish a solid foundation for future strategies.

2. Set clear goals and objectives

After understanding your market position, establish specific, attainable, and measurable objectives that align with your business’s mission and broader goals. Ensure these goals are relevant, time-bound, and fit within your organization’s resources and budget. Doing so effectively guides your efforts and provides a framework for measuring progress.

3. Define the organization-wide plan

After brainstorming broad long- and short-term goals, convert them into a cohesive strategy encompassing all departments. For example, if launching a new website design is your goal, involve developers, designers, and marketers in your planning process. Assess and use each team member’s strengths and encourage cross-departmental collaboration. This step ensures that your strategy is holistic and aligns every department toward common objectives.

4. Establish and meet KPIs

Implement key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your project. For a web development agency, these could include metrics such as website loading speed, user engagement rates, or client acquisition. You can also use data visualization tools , like Google Analytics, to gather insights and track objectives and key results.

This phase is where you translate strategy into action by allocating resources according to your pre-established goals and measure the progress against these KPIs.

5. Review and update

Strategic plans in business are flexible. As markets and consumer demands evolve, so must your approach. Regularly review your KPIs, collect customer feedback, study market trends and industry changes, and motivate your team to be flexible when necessary.

A continuous, iterative process ensures your organization remains responsive and aware of ever-changing conditions, allowing you to effectively anticipate new hurdles, improve existing frameworks, and leverage opportunities.

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What is Strategic Planning? The Key Components, Process & Role Leaders Play in Ensuring a Strategy's Success

by Thuy Sindell, PhD. and Milo Sindell, MS.

Strategic planning is a process that is essential for companies to ensure successful and sustainable growth.

An intelligent and actionable strategic plan is a vital part of competing within the marketplace. It directs businesses to take meaningful action to help them reach their organization’s goals by mapping out a clear direction, creating measurable goals, and allocating resources to pursue these specific objectives.

What is Strategic Planning?

A strategic plan is an essential process and strategy execution document for any company looking to make the most of its resources and reach long-term organizational goals.

This vital and continually evolving document outlines a clear direction, sets objectives that must be achieved, and provides an actionable roadmap for success; it also helps organizations stand out from competitors by allowing them to differentiate themselves in the marketplace with their unique approach.

A well-crafted strategic plan will help companies stay focused on their mission while making decisions based on core values guiding them toward achieving desired results by ensuring everyone is moving in the same direction.

What are the Key Components of a Strategic Plan?

Several key components make up a well-developed strategic plan. These key components include:

A Mission Statement

An organization’s mission statement states the company’s purpose and the reasons why it exists. Although you might be already clear on the mission, reiterating your mission statement and connection to the plan acts as a foundation for the strategic plan and your strategy.

A Vision Statement

The company vision is the bigger objective that the company aspires to achieve. This may be as broad as making the world a better place through your product or service or ridding bathrooms of mildew. Whatever your vision, it should be connected to your strategic plan

Aligning the company mission and vision statements is the first crucial step to strategic planning.

SWOT Analysis

An overall evaluation of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Knowing these points will help you leverage your resources, shore up gaps, and realistically plan your path and the potential risks. Your SWOT analysis will help ensure that your strategic plan is based upon reality and play an important part in your strategic management process.

Goals & Objectives

Goals and objectives need specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound targets the company wants to achieve. Ensure your goals are achievable, measurable, and can be clearly communicated as part of your strategic planning. High-level company objectives should cascade and align with the objectives of various divisions and teams. The Strategic plans of each division and team should map directly to broader company goals and methods.

The specific courses of action that the company will take to achieve its measurable goals and specific strategic issues.

Action Plans

Detailed project plans outlining the specific steps that will be taken to implement the strategies.

Resource Allocation

The allocation of financial, human, and other resources to implement the action plans.

Evaluation and Control

Evaluation and control are based on measures and systems to monitor the company’s progress toward achieving its organization’s goals, objectives, and financial plan and to make adjustments as necessary.

Who is Responsible for Creating a Strategic Plan?

In general, creating a strategic plan is the responsibility of the company’s top management team - the CEO, CFO, other executives, etc.

However, though the top management will do the strategic thinking, it’s essential for key members throughout the entire organization to be involved in the strategic planning process as different departments, employees, and human resources will have valuable insights and perspectives to contribute to the strategy formation. Also, when various constituents are a part of and the planning process a sense of ownership and commitment to the strategic plan’s success is reinforced.

It’s also common for companies to seek input from external stakeholders, customers, suppliers, and industry experts as part of the strategic planning process. As part of your planning process make sure to identify any critical stakeholders outside of your company.

What Makes the Strategic Planning Process Effective?

Below are some key factors that contribute to the overall effectiveness of a successful strategic plan and the strategic planning process. Understanding these points will help make your strategic planning process more effective:

The plan needs to be clear & concise, with specific strategic goals & objectives that are easy for everyone to understand. Senior leadership plays a critical role in ensuring that each objective is clear and how objectives will be achieved is understood.

The strategic plan needs to take the company’s resources & capabilities into account, and the goals need to be realistic & achievable based on the market data.

The plan needs to be flexible enough to allow for adjustments to be made in response to changes in the external environment after deployment.

The plan must be aligned with the company’s mission, vision & values and should support the organization’s overall direction in terms of business plan and annual budgets.

Easily Communicated

The plan needs to be communicated effectively to all stakeholders & investors, including employees & customers.

The plan needs clear & actionable steps and a timeline for implementation. It must be followed consistently to ensure progress toward business goals like increasing sales and maximizing profit.

The plan needs to measure & evaluate progress, collect feedback, and be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure continuous progress toward company goals and that the plan remains relevant and practical and targets logical key performance indicators.

An effective strategic plan identifies potential factors that might derail the plan and, at a minimum, provides high-level alternatives should the plan become derailed.

When Do Strategic Plans Fail?

Listed below are a few potential reasons why strategic planning might fail. Understanding why strategic plans fail will help create more effective strategic planning outcomes:

Lacks Clarity

Plans need to be clear and specific. If not, it may be difficult to understand and challenging to implement. When a strategic plan is ambitious it is tough for people to feel connected and motivated to take action.

Lack of Realistic Options and Objectives

Plans need to be realistic. If the plan cannot really be achieved, it’ll be difficult to implement and lead to frustration, disappointment, and potential failure.

Lack of Flexibility

The plan needs to be flexible; if it’s not is not flexible and doesn’t allow for adjustments in response to changes in the environment (internal and external) or from evaluation or measurement, it may become irrelevant or ineffective.

Lack of Alignment

The plan needs to be aligned with the company’s mission, vision, and values; if not consistent with the organization’s overall direction, it can quickly become out of sync with its underlying purpose and be ineffective in helping to reach desired goals.

Lack of Understanding

The plan needs to be communicated effectively to all key stakeholders and take feedback from all stakeholders; otherwise, it may be misunderstood or, worse - ignored or seen as not valuable.

Lack Actionable Steps

The strategic plan needs to be implemented swiftly and consistently; if the action steps are not clear or too hard to implement, they may not be implemented effectively.

Lack of Measurable Outcomes

The strategic plan needs to be reviewed and updated regularly, and its performance evaluated after implementation; otherwise, it may become ineffective or outdated, therefore ineffective at achieving desired outcomes.

External Factors

Changes in the external environment can have a huge effect. Changes like shifts in the economy or customer preferences, if not accounted for, can seriously impact the effectiveness of a once brilliant strategic plan.

However, as in life and business, things change, and every business must be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. This is why an effective plan includes contingencies.

What is a Company Leader’s Role in Ensuring the Strategic Plan is Implemented Successfully?

Strategic management.

Company leaders are responsible for ensuring that the strategic plan is implemented successfully.

Some specific ways business leaders can ensure the plan is implemented properly are:

Clearly Communicate the Plan

Business leaders need to communicate the strategic plan effectively to all key stakeholders, including employees, customers, and investors. Any questions need to be answered and clarified, so everyone is aligned. The strategic plan should be shared in a way that you (the leader) demonstrate ownership and enthusiasm and can share with your team how each role is vital to achieving the plan’s objectives.

Providing Resources

Leaders need to ensure that resources, such as funding, personnel, and technology, are available to everyone needed in order to implement the plan successfully.

Setting Expectations

Leaders need to set clear expectations for implementing the plan and hold the designated employees accountable for meeting those expectations. Clear and achievable timelines need to be established and committed to by each stakeholder.

Leading by Example

Leaders need to model the behaviors and values outlined in the plan and encourage others to do the same.

Providing Support

Leaders need to provide support and guidance to employees as they work through problems toward achieving the strategic goals and objectives of the plan.

Monitoring Progress

Leaders need to monitor the progress towards achieving the goals and objectives outlined in the plan and make adjustments in the operational plans as they see fit, as needed.

Celebrating Successes

Leaders need to recognize and celebrate wins along the way to help keep morale high and encourage continued progress toward the ultimate goals.

What’s the Role of Each Individual Employee in Implementing & Supporting the Strategic Plans Success?

Employees are the driving force and critical in implementing and supporting the strategic plan’s success. Your employees will be the eyes and ears of how the strategic plan works. This is why it is vital for leaders to create a business environment where there is open communication and all types of information can be shared and reviewed in relation to its impact on the long- term strategy. Leaders must foster an open environment where questions can be asked and bad and good news shared. Leaders can help employees play their part by ensuring employees are supported and are clear on their ability to do the following:

Understand the Plan

Employees need to understand the strategic plan, how it aligns with the company’s mission, the steps to take, and most importantly, the goals.

Aligning Work and Job Goals with the Plan

Leaders, managers, and employees need to align their work with the strategic plan and prioritize tasks that support achieving the plan’s goals & strategic objectives.

Manage Implementation

Employees must consistently follow through on their assigned tasks and responsibilities to implement the plans, steps, and processes.

Provide Feedback

During the initial review of the organization’s current status, employees must provide feedback and suggestions to improve the plan. During its implementation, employees need to provide feedback based on performance and potentially adjust the plan if needed for better performance and goals.

Communicate Laterally and Up

Employees need to communicate with coworkers to ensure everyone is working towards the same goals & objectives and, most importantly, employees need to communicate to their manager on how their contribution is proceeding.

Seek Support and Guidance

Employees need to seek support and guidance from leaders if they need help implementing any steps of the plan or achieving goals.

Do Some Companies Believe that Strategic Planning is a Waste of Time?

Sure. It’s possible some companies may view strategic planning as a waste of time. This could be due to a variety of reasons: resources required upfront, lack of understanding of the benefits of strategic planning, a lack of buy-in from senior management, or a lack of resources to dedicate to the process.

However, for massively successful companies, strategic planning is recognized as an invaluable tool to help organizations achieve their long-term goals and be outstanding in a competitive marketplace.

Strategic planning can also help companies be more agile and adapt to changes in the external environment. For these reasons, it’s generally recommended that companies engage in strategic planning and review results on a regular basis.

What Makes a Great Strategy?

What makes a great competitive strategy? Several characteristics are often considered to be key elements of great strategy execution:

A great strategy is clear & easy to understand, with specific goals & strategic objectives that are well-defined.

A great strategy is a focused strategy. A great strategy is focused on a specific area of the business and doesn’t try to do too many things at once.

A great strategy is aligned with the company’s overall mission, vision for the future, and values, supporting the organization’s overall direction.

Flexibility

A great strategy is flexible and allows for adjustments to be made in response to results and changes in the external environment.

A great strategy is realistic & achievable, taking into account the company’s resources & capabilities and what can actually get done.

Differentiation

The great strategy sets the company apart from its competitors in the marketplace and helps it to differentiate itself from competitors to customers.

A great strategy can be executed effectively, with clear action steps, a timeline for implementation, and who is responsible for each action step.

Evaluation & Feedback

The great strategy includes measures for evaluating progress and collecting feedback, and it needs to be reviewed regularly & potentially updated to ensure it remains relevant & effective.

When is a Great Strategy Not Enough to Ensure Company Success?

While a great strategy can certainly be a key factor in a company’s success, it’s not the only factor needed to be successful. There are a number of other internal and external factors that can impact a company’s success, including:

Even the best strategy will not be a successful strategy if executed poorly.

A company needs resources, period. Resources like funding, personnel, and technology, are essential to implement strategy effectively.

Changes in external factors are equally important as the internal environment. For example, economic shifts or customer preferences can impact a company’s success.

Competition

A company’s success can also be impacted by its competitors’ actions and even competitors’ reactions to strategy implementation.

Market Demand

A company’s success will depend partly on the market demand for its products or services. Demand should absolutely be a part of the strategy formulation.

A company’s success will highly depend on the quality of its products or services and its ability for its products to meet customer needs.

The senior leadership of a company can play a key role in its success, or failure, as they set the vision & direction of the organization.

How Does Company Leadership Play a Critical Part in a Company’s Strategic Success?

Without involved leadership, a strategic plan will more than likely fail. A company’s leadership plays a critical role in strategic success in several ways:

Setting the Direction

A company’s leadership is responsible for setting the organization’s vision and direction and creating a strategic management plan that aligns with that direction.

A company’s Leadership is responsible for ensuring that the necessary resources, such as funding, personnel, and technology, are available to implement the strategic plan.

Communicating the Plan

A company’s leadership communicates the strategic management plan effectively and consistently to all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and investors.

A company’s leadership needs to model the behaviors and values aligned with the plan and encourage others to do the same.

A company’s leadership needs to provide support & guidance to employees as they work towards achieving the goals and objectives of the strategic plan. This will help in employee retention and strategic success.

A company’s leadership needs to monitor progress toward achieving the goals & objectives of the plan and make necessary adjustments as needed.

A company’s leadership needs to recognize and celebrate successes along the way to help keep team morale high and encourage continued progress to achieve goals.

How Can Companies Prepare & Support their Leaders to Implement & Ensure Strategic Planning Success?

There are many ways in which companies can prepare and support their leaders to implement and ensure the success of their strategic planning initiative.

Provide Proper Training

Companies need to provide training & strategy development opportunities to help their leaders acquire the knowledge and skills they need to implement & support the strategic vision effectively.

Encourage Open Communication

Companies need to foster an environment of open, clear communication and encourage leaders to seek input & feedback from their teams within the strategic framework - even when the strategy map is not positive.

Align Leadership with Company Values

Companies must ensure that their leadership’s values align with the company’s values and culture and that their leaders are committed to the mission and vision of the organization.

Encourage Collaboration

Companies need to encourage collaboration & cross-functional teamwork as a part of project management to ensure that all departments work towards the same goals & objectives.

Provide Resources

As part of the strategic planning process, companies need to ensure their leadership has the necessary resources, such as funding, personnel, & technology, to implement the strategic plan effectively for the entire duration.

Establish Clear Expectations

Companies must set clear expectations for how strategic planning should be activated and implemented and hold leadership accountable for meeting expectations as per the strategic plan document.

Monitor Progress

Company leaders need to monitor the progress toward achieving the goals and objectives of the strategic plan and provide their support and guidance as needed. Strategic planning is essential for business success, and the key to achieving successful results lies in the hands of leadership. For leaders to ensure a strategy’s success, they must become strategic planners and the details of the business’s strategic plan must be organized and understood by each person responsible.

Leaders and managers need to communicate the strategic plan through consistent discussions that foster collaborative decision-making. Responsibilities for the planning process and success also extend beyond the leader and onto each individual employee to help realize the steps of an effective strategic plan. Companies must set clear strategic objectives that align with their mission and strategic goals while preparing business leaders to carry out those plans. When done correctly, with careful attention paid to all levels of the organization, successful strategic planning can lead a company in the right direction toward long-term sustainability and future opportunities.

Having a clear strategic plan is one of those obvious items that every company should have in place yet many companies don’t.

Although the effort of investing the time and resources into creating a strategic planning template can be demanding, the value and impact of your investment can return a healthy multiple.

Once your mission and vision statements and strategic plan are in place they become a touchstone to focus your business, align teams, and what makes your way of navigating your market and competition unique.

We hope that this resource provides a road map and helps facilitate the development of your strategic plan if you don’t have one yet. For those that do have strategic plans, we hope this resource helps act as a checklist to fortify the strategy development you’ve already created.

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How to Set Strategic Planning Goals

• 29 Oct 2020

In an ever-changing business world, it’s imperative to have strategic goals and a plan to guide organizational efforts. Yet, crafting strategic goals can be a daunting task. How do you decide which goals are vital to your company? Which ones are actionable and measurable? Which goals to prioritize?

To help you answer these questions, here’s a breakdown of what strategic planning is, what characterizes strategic goals, and how to select organizational goals to pursue.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees, and ensure organizational goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

Research in the Harvard Business Review cautions against getting locked into your strategic plan and forgetting that strategy involves inherent risk and discomfort. A good strategic plan evolves and shifts as opportunities and threats arise.

“Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works,” says Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in the online course Disruptive Strategy . “When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that’s at work 24/7 in almost every industry."

Related: 5 Tips for Formulating a Successful Strategy

4 Characteristics of Strategic Goals

To craft a strategic plan for your organization, you first need to determine the goals you’re trying to reach. Strategic goals are an organization’s measurable objectives that are indicative of its long-term vision.

Here are four characteristics of strategic goals to keep in mind when setting them for your organization.

1. Purpose-Driven

The starting point for crafting strategic goals is asking yourself what your company’s purpose and values are . What are you striving for, and why is it important to set these objectives? Let the answers to these questions guide the development of your organization’s strategic goals.

“You don’t have to leave your values at the door when you come to work,” says HBS Professor Rebecca Henderson in the online course Sustainable Business Strategy .

Henderson, whose work focuses on reimagining capitalism for a just and sustainable world, also explains that leading with purpose can drive business performance.

“Adopting a purpose will not hurt your performance if you do it authentically and well,” Henderson says in a lecture streamed via Facebook Live . “If you’re able to link your purpose to the strategic vision of the company in a way that really gets people aligned and facing in the right direction, then you have the possibility of outperforming your competitors.”

Related: 5 Examples of Successful Sustainability Initiatives

2. Long-Term and Forward-Focused

While strategic goals are the long-term objectives of your organization, operational goals are the daily milestones that need to be reached to achieve them. When setting strategic goals, think of your company’s values and long-term vision, and ensure you’re not confusing strategic and operational goals.

For instance, your organization’s goal could be to create a new marketing strategy; however, this is an operational goal in service of a long-term vision. The strategic goal, in this case, could be breaking into a new market segment, to which the creation of a new marketing strategy would contribute.

Keep a forward-focused vision to ensure you’re setting challenging objectives that can have a lasting impact on your organization.

3. Actionable

Strong strategic goals are not only long-term and forward-focused—they’re actionable. If there aren’t operational goals that your team can complete to reach the strategic goal, your organization is better off spending time and resources elsewhere.

When formulating strategic goals, think about the operational goals that fall under them. Do they make up an action plan your team can take to achieve your organization’s objective? If so, the goal could be a worthwhile endeavor for your business.

4. Measurable

When crafting strategic goals, it’s important to define how progress and success will be measured.

According to the online course Strategy Execution , an effective tool you can use to create measurable goals is a balanced scorecard —a tool to help you track and measure non-financial variables.

“The balanced scorecard combines the traditional financial perspective with additional perspectives that focus on customers, internal business processes, and learning and development,” says HBS Professor Robert Simons in the online course Strategy Execution . “These additional perspectives help businesses measure all the activities essential to creating value.”

The four perspectives are:

• Internal business processes
• Learning and growth

The most important element of a balanced scorecard is its alignment with your business strategy.

“Ask yourself,” Simons says, “‘If I picked up a scorecard and examined the measures on it, could I infer what the business's strategy was? If you've designed measures well, the answer should be yes.”

Related: A Manager’s Guide to Successful Strategy Implementation

Strategic Goal Examples

Whatever your business goals and objectives , they must have all four of the characteristics listed above.

For instance, the goal “become a household name” is valid but vague. Consider the intended timeframe to reach this goal and how you’ll operationally define “a household name.” The method of obtaining data must also be taken into account.

An appropriate revision to the original goal could be: “Increase brand recognition by 80 percent among surveyed Americans by 2030.” By setting a more specific goal, you can better equip your organization to reach it and ensure that employees and shareholders have a clear definition of success and how it will be measured.

If your organization is focused on becoming more sustainable and eco-conscious, you may need to assess your strategic goals. For example, you may have a goal of becoming a carbon neutral company, but without defining a realistic timeline and baseline for this initiative, the probability of failure is much higher.

A stronger goal might be: “Implement a comprehensive carbon neutrality strategy by 2030.” From there, you can determine the operational goals that will make this strategic goal possible.

No matter what goal you choose to pursue, it’s important to avoid those that lack clarity, detail, specific targets or timeframes, or clear parameters for success. Without these specific elements in place, you’ll have a difficult time making your goals actionable and measurable.

Prioritizing Strategic Goals

Once you’ve identified several strategic goals, determine which are worth pursuing. This can be a lengthy process, especially if other decision-makers have differing priorities and opinions.

To set the stage, ensure everyone is aware of the purpose behind each strategic goal. This calls back to Henderson’s point that employees’ alignment on purpose can set your organization up to outperform its competitors.

Calculate Anticipated ROI

Next, calculate the estimated return on investment (ROI) of the operational goals tied to each strategic objective. For example, if the strategic goal is “reach carbon-neutral status by 2030,” you need to break that down into actionable sub-tasks—such as “determine how much CO2 our company produces each year” and “craft a marketing and public relations strategy”—and calculate the expected cost and return for each.

The ROI formula is typically written as:

ROI = (Net Profit / Cost of Investment) x 100

In project management, the formula uses slightly different terms:

ROI = [(Financial Value - Project Cost) / Project Cost] x 100

An estimate can be a valuable piece of information when deciding which goals to pursue. Although not all strategic goals need to yield a high return on investment, it’s in your best interest to calculate each objective's anticipated ROI so you can compare them.

Consider Current Events

Finally, when deciding which strategic goal to prioritize, the importance of the present moment can’t be overlooked. What’s happening in the world that could impact the timeliness of each goal?

For example, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the ever-intensifying climate change crisis have impacted many organizations’ strategic goals in 2020. Often, the goals that are timely and pressing are those that earn priority.

Learn to Plan Strategic Goals

As you set and prioritize strategic goals, remember that your strategy should always be evolving. As circumstances and challenges shift, so must your organizational strategy.

If you lead with purpose, a measurable and actionable vision, and an awareness of current events, you can set strategic goals worth striving for.

Do you want to learn more about strategic planning? Explore our online strategy courses and download our free flowchart to determine which is right for you and your goals.

This post was updated on November 16, 2023. It was originally published on October 29, 2020.

About the Author

The 5 steps of the strategic planning process

Starting a project without a strategy is like trying to bake a cake without a recipe — you might have all the ingredients you need, but without a plan for how to combine them, or a vision for what the finished product will look like, you’re likely to end up with a mess. This is especially true when working with a team — it’s crucial to have a shared plan that can serve as a map on the pathway to success.

Creating a strategic plan not only provides a useful document for the future, but also helps you define what you have right now, and think through and outline all of the steps and considerations you’ll need to succeed.

What is strategic planning?

While there is no single approach to creating a strategic plan, most approaches can be boiled down to five overarching steps:

• Define your vision
• Assess where you are
• Determine your priorities and objectives
• Define responsibilities
• Measure and evaluate results

Each step requires close collaboration as you build a shared vision, strategy for implementation, and system for understanding performance.

Related: Learn how to hold an effective strategic planning meeting

Why do I need a strategic plan?

Building a strategic plan is the best way to ensure that your whole team is on the same page, from the initial vision and the metrics for success to evaluating outcomes and adjusting (if necessary) for the future. Even if you’re an expert baker, working with a team to bake a cake means having a collaborative approach and clearly defined steps so that the result reflects the strategic goals you laid out at the beginning.

The benefits of strategic planning also permeate into the general efficiency and productivity of your organization as a whole. They include: 

• Greater attention to potential biases or flaws, improving decision-making 
• Clear direction and focus, motivating and engaging employees
• Better resource management, improving project outcomes 
• Improved employee performance, increasing profitability
• Enhanced communication and collaboration, fostering team efficiency 

Next, let’s dive into how to build and structure your strategic plan, complete with templates and assets to help you along the way.

Before you begin: Pick a brainstorming method

There are many brainstorming methods you can use to come up with, outline, and rank your priorities. When it comes to strategy planning, it’s important to get everyone’s thoughts and ideas out before committing to any one strategy. With the right facilitation , brainstorming helps make this process fair and transparent for everyone involved.  

First, decide if you want to run a real-time rapid ideation session or a structured brainstorming . In a rapid ideation session, you encourage sharing half-baked or silly ideas, typically within a set time frame. The key is to just get out all your ideas quickly and then edit the best ones. Examples of rapid ideation methods include round robin , brainwriting , mind mapping , and crazy eights . 

In a structured brainstorming session, you allow for more time to prepare and edit your thoughts before getting together to share and discuss those more polished ideas. This might involve brainstorming methods that entail unconventional ways of thinking, such as reverse brainstorming or rolestorming . 

Using a platform like Mural, you can easily capture and organize your team’s ideas through sticky notes, diagrams, text, or even images and videos. These features allow you to build actionable next steps immediately (and in the same place) through color coding and tagging. 

Whichever method you choose, the ideal outcome is that you avoid groupthink by giving everyone a voice and a say. Once you’ve reached a consensus on your top priorities, add specific objectives tied to each of those priorities.

Related: Brainstorming and ideation template

1. Define your vision

Whether it’s for your business as a whole, or a specific initiative, successful strategic planning involves alignment with a vision for success. You can think of it as a project-specific mission statement or a north star to guide employees toward fulfilling organizational goals. 

To create a vision statement that explicitly states the ideal results of your project or company transformation, follow these four key steps: 

• Engage and involve the entire team . Inclusivity like this helps bring diverse perspectives to the table. 
• Align the vision with your core values and purpose . This will make it familiar and easy to follow through. 
• Stay grounded . The vision should be ambitious enough to motivate and inspire yet grounded enough to be achievable and relevant.
• Think long-term flexibility . Consider future trends and how your vision can be flexible in the face of challenges or opportunities. 

For example, say your vision is to revolutionize customer success by streamlining and optimizing your process for handling support tickets. It’s important to have a strategy map that allows stakeholders (like the support team, marketing team, and engineering team) to know the overall objective and understand the roles they will play in realizing the goals. 

This can be done in real time or asynchronously , whether in person, hybrid, or remote. By leveraging a shared digital space , everyone has a voice in the process and room to add their thoughts, comments, and feedback. 

Related: Vision board template

2. Assess where you are

The next step in creating a strategic plan is to conduct an assessment of where you stand in terms of your own initiatives, as well as the greater marketplace. Start by conducting a resource assessment. Figure out which financial, human, and/or technological resources you have available and if there are any limitations. You can do this using a SWOT analysis.

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis is an exercise where you define:

• Strengths: What are your unique strengths for this initiative or this product? In what ways are you a leader?
• Weaknesses: What weaknesses can you identify in your offering? How does your product compare to others in the marketplace?
• Opportunities: Are there areas for improvement that'd help differentiate your business?
• Threats: Beyond weaknesses, are there existing potential threats to your idea that could limit or prevent its success? How can those be anticipated?

For example, say you have an eco-friendly tech company and your vision is to launch a new service in the next year. Here’s what the SWOT analysis might look like: 

• Strengths : Strong brand reputation, loyal customer base, and a talented team focused on innovation
• Weaknesses : Limited bandwidth to work on new projects, which might impact the scope of its strategy formulation 
• Opportunities : How to leverage and experiment with existing customers when goal-setting
• Threats : Factors in the external environment out of its control, like the state of the economy and supply chain shortages

This SWOT analysis will guide the company in setting strategic objectives and formulating a robust plan to navigate the challenges it might face. 

Related: SWOT analysis template

3. Determine your priorities and objectives

Once you've identified your organization’s mission and current standing, start a preliminary plan document that outlines your priorities and their corresponding objectives. Priorities and objectives should be set based on what is achievable with your available resources. The SMART framework is a great way to ensure you set effective goals . It looks like this:  

• Specific: Set clear objectives, leaving no room for ambiguity about the desired outcomes.
• Measurable : Choose quantifiable criteria to make it easier to track progress.
• Achievable : Ensure it is realistic and attainable within the constraints of your resources and environment.
• Relevant : Develop objectives that are relevant to the direction your organization seeks to move.
• Time-bound : Set a clear timeline for achieving each objective to maintain a sense of urgency and focus.

For instance, going back to the eco-friendly tech company, the SMART goals might be: 

• Specific : Target residential customers and small businesses to increase the sales of its solar-powered device line by 25%. 
• Measurable : Track monthly sales and monitor customer feedback and reviews. 
• Achievable : Allocate more resources to the marketing, sales, and customer service departments. 
• Relevant : Supports the company's growth goals in a growing market of eco-conscious consumers. 
• Time-bound : Conduct quarterly reviews and achieve this 25% increase in sales over the next 12 months.

With strategic objectives like this, you’ll be ready to put the work into action. 

Related: Project kickoff template

4. Define tactics and responsibilities

In this stage, individuals or units within your team can get granular about how to achieve your goals and who'll be accountable for each step. For example, the senior leadership team might be in charge of assigning specific tasks to their team members, while human resources works on recruiting new talent. 

It’s important to note that everyone’s responsibilities may shift over time as you launch and gather initial data about your project. For this reason, it’s key to define responsibilities with clear short-term metrics for success. This way, you can make sure that your plan is adaptable to changing circumstances. 

One of the more common ways to define tactics and metrics is to use the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method. By outlining your OKRs, you’ll know exactly what key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and have a framework for analyzing the results once you begin to accumulate relevant data. 

For instance, if our eco-friendly tech company has a goal of increasing sales, one objective might be to expand market reach for its solar-powered products. The sales team lead would be in charge of developing an outreach strategy. The key result would be to successfully launch its products in two new regions by Q2. The KPI would be a 60% conversation rate in those targeted markets.  

Related: OKR planning template  

5. Manage, measure, and evaluate

Once your plan is set into motion, it’s important to actively manage (and measure) progress. Before launching your plan, settle on a management process that allows you to measure success or failure. In this way, everyone is aligned on progress and can come together to evaluate your strategy execution at regular intervals.

Determine the milestones at which you’ll come together and go over results — this can take place weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the nature of the project.

One of the best ways to evaluate progress is through agile retrospectives (or retros) , which can be done in real time or asynchronously. During this process, gather and organize feedback about the key elements that played a role in your strategy. 

Related: Retrospective radar template

Retrospectives are typically divided into three parts:

• What went well.
• What didn’t go well.
• New opportunities for improvement.

This structure is also sometimes called the “ rose, thorn, bud ” framework. By using this approach, team members can collectively brainstorm and categorize their feedback, making the next steps clear and actionable. Creating an action plan during a post-mortem meeting is a crucial step in ensuring that lessons learned from past projects or events are effectively translated into tangible improvements. 

Another method for reviewing progress is the quarterly business review (QBR). Like the agile retrospective, it allows you to collect feedback and adjust accordingly. In the case of QBRs, however, we recommend dividing your feedback into four categories:

• Start (what new items should be launched?).
• Stop (what items need to be paused?).
• Continue (what is going well?).
• Change (what could be modified to perform better?).

Strategic planners know that planning activities continue even after a project is complete. There’s always room for improvement and an action plan waiting to be implemented. Using the above approaches, your team can make room for new ideas within the existing strategic framework in order to track better to your long-term goals.

Related: Quarterly business review template

Conclusions

The beauty of the strategic plan is that it can be applied from the campaign level all the way up to organizational vision. Using the strategic planning framework, you build buy-in , trust, and transparency by collaboratively creating a vision for success, and mapping out the steps together on the road to your goals.

Also, in so doing, you build in an ability to adapt effectively on the fly in response to data through measurement and evaluation, making your plan both flexible and resilient.

Related: 5 Tips for Holding Effective Post-mortems

Why Mural for strategic planning

Mural unlocks collaborative strategic planning through a shared digital space with an intuitive interface, a library of pre-fab templates, and methodologies based on design thinking principles.

Outline goals, identify key metrics, and track progress with a platform built for any enterprise.

Learn more about strategic planning with Mural.

About the authors

Bryan Kitch

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Strategic Planning Process: Why Is Strategic Planning Important for Organizations in 2024?

What to read next:

Playing chess without a strong opening is a guaranteed way to disadvantage yourself. Just like in chess, organizations without an adequate strategic planning process are unlikely to thrive and adapt long-term. 

The strategic planning process is essential for aligning your organization on key priorities, goals, and initiatives, making it crucial for organizational success.   

This article will empower you to craft and perfect your strategic planning process by exploring the following:  

• What is strategic planning
• Why strategic planning is important for your business  
• The seven steps of the strategic planning process   

Strategic planning frameworks

• Best practices supporting the strategic planning process  

By the end of this article, you’ll have the knowledge needed to perfect the key elements of strategic planning. Ready? Let’s begin.  

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning charts your business's course toward success. Using your organization’s vision, mission statement , and values — with internal and external information — each step of the strategic planning process helps you craft long-term objectives and attain your goals with strategic management.  

The key elements of strategic planning includes a SWOT analysis, goal setting , stakeholder involvement, plus developing actionable strategies, approaches, and tactics aligned with primary objectives.  

In short, the strategic planning process bridges the gap between your organization’s current and desired state, providing a clear and actionable framework that answers:   Where are you now?   Where do you want to be?   How will you get there?

7 key elements of strategic planning 

The following strategic planning components work together to create cohesive strategic plans for your business goals. Let’s take a close look at each of these:  

• Vision : What your organization wants to achieve in the future, the long-term goal  
• Mission : The driving force behind why your company exists, who it serves, and how it creates value  
• Values : Fundamental beliefs guiding your company’s decision-making process  
• Goals : Measurable objectives in alignment with your business mission, vision, and values  
• Strategy : A long-term strategy map for achieving your objectives based on both internal and external factors  
• Approach : How you execute strategy and achieve objectives using actions and initiatives   
• Tactics : Granular short-term actions, programs, and activities  

Why is the strategic planning process important?

Just as a chess player needs a gameplan to reach checkmate, a company needs a solid strategic plan to achieve its goals.   

Without a strategic plan, your business will waste precious time, energy, and resources on endeavors that won’t get your company closer to where it needs to be.   

Your ideal plan should cover all key strategic planning areas, while allowing you to stay present by measuring success and course-correcting or redefining the strategic direction when necessary. Ultimately, enabling your company to stay future-proof through the creation of an always-on strategy that reflects your company's mission and vision.   

An always-on strategy involves continuous environmental scanning even after the strategic plan has been devised, ensuring readiness to adapt in response to quick, drastic changes in the environment.

Let’s dive deeper into the steps of the strategic planning process.  

What are the 7 stages of the strategic planning process?

You understand the overall value of implementing a strategic planning process — now let’s put it in practice. Here's our 7-step approach to strategic planning that ensures everyone is on the same page:  

• Clarify your vision, mission, and values  
• Conduct an environmental scan  
• Define strategic priorities  
• Develop goals and metrics  
• Derive a strategic plan  
• Write and communicate your strategic plan  
• Implement, monitor, and revise   

1. Clarify your vision, mission, and values 

The first step of the strategic planning process is understanding your organization’s core elements: vision, mission, and values. Clarifying these will align your strategic plan with your company’s definition of success. Once established, these are the foundation for the rest of the strategic planning process.   

Questions to ask:

• What do we aspire to achieve in the long term?
• What is our purpose or ultimate goal?
• What do we do to fulfill our vision?
• What key activities or services do we provide?
• What are our organization's ethics?
• What qualities or behaviors do we expect from employees?

Read more: What is Mission vs. Vision  

2. Conduct an environmental scan

Once everyone on the same page about vision, mission, and values, it's time to scan your internal and external environment. This involves a long-term SWOT analysis, evaluating your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  

Internal factors 

Internal strengths and weaknesses help you understand where your organization excels and what it could improve. Strengths and weaknesses awareness helps make more informed decisions with your capabilities and resource allocation in mind.  

External factors

Externally, opportunities and threats in the market help you understand the power of your industry’s customers, suppliers, and competitors. Additionally, consider how broader forces like technology, culture, politics, and regulation may impact your organization.   

• What are our organization's key strengths or competitive advantages?
• What areas or functions within our organization need improvement?
• What emerging trends or opportunities can we leverage?
• How do changes in technology, regulations, or consumer behavior impact us?

3. Define strategic priorities

Prioritization puts the “strategic” in strategic planning process. Your organization’s mission, vision, values, and environmental scan serve as a lens to identify top priorities. Limiting priorities ensures your organization intentionally allocates resources.  

These categories can help you rank your strategic priorities:  

• Critical : Urgent tasks whose failure to complete will have severe consequences — financial losses, reputation damage, or legal consequences  
• Important : Significant tasks which support organizational achievements and require timely completion  
• Desirable : Valuable tasks not essential in the short-term, but can contribute to long-term success and growth  
• How do these priorities align with our mission, vision, and values?
• Which tasks need to be completed quickly to ensure effective progress towards our desired outcomes?
• What resources and capabilities do we need to pursue these priorities effectively?

4. Develop goals and metrics

Next, you establish goals and metrics to reflect your strategic priorities. Purpose-driven, long-term, actionable strategic planning goals should flow down through the organization, with lower-level goals contributing to higher-level ones.  

One approach that can help you set and measure your aligned goals is objectives and key results (OKRs). OKRs consist of objectives, qualitative statements of what you want to achieve, and key results, 3-5 supporting metrics that track progress toward your objective.  

OKRs ensure alignment at every level of the organization, with tracking and accountability built into the framework to keep everyone engaged. With ambitious, intentional goals, OKRs can help you drive the strategic plan forward.  

• What metrics can we use to track progress toward each objective?
• How can we ensure that lower-level goals and metrics support and contribute to higher-level ones?
• How will we track and measure progress towards key results?
• How will we ensure accountability?

Get an in-depth look at OKRs with our Ultimate OKR Playbook

5. Derive a strategic plan

The next step of the strategic planning process gets down to the nitty-gritty “how” — developing a clear, practical strategic plan for bridging the gap between now and the future.   

To do this, you’ll need to brainstorm short- and long-term approaches to achieving the goals you’ve set, answering a couple of key questions along the way. You must evaluate ideas based on factors like:  

• Feasibility : How realistic and achievable is it?  
• Impact : How conducive is it to goal attainment?  
• Cost : Can we fund this approach, and is it worth the investment?  
• Alignment : Does it support our mission, vision, and values?  

From your approaches, you can devise a detailed action plan, which covers things like:  

• Timelines : When will we take each step, and what are the deadlines?  
• Milestones : What key achievements will ensure consistent progress?  
• Resource requirements : What’s needed to achieve each step?  
• Responsibilities : Who's accountable in each step?  
• Risks and challenges : What can affect our ability to execute our plan? How will we address these?  

With a detailed action plan like this, you can move from abstract goals to concrete steps, bringing you closer to achieving your strategic objectives.  

6. Write and communicate your strategic plan

Writing and communicating your strategic plan involves everyone, ensuring each team is on the same page. Here’s a clear, concise structure you can use to cover the most important strategic planning components:  

• Executive summary : Highlights and priorities in your strategic overview   
• Introduction : Background on your strategic plan  
• Connection : How your strategic plan aligns with your organization’s mission, vision, and values  
• Environmental scan : An overview of your SWOT analysis findings  
• Strategic priorities and goals : Informed short and long-term organizational goals  
• Strategic approach : An overview of your tactical plan   
• Resource needs : How you'll deploy technology, funding, and employees  
• Risk and challenges : How you’ll mitigate the unknowns if and when they arise  
• Implementation plan : A step-by-step resource deployment plan for achieving your strategy  
• Monitoring and evaluation : How you’ll keep your plan heading in the right direction  
• Conclusion : A summary of the strategic plan and everything it entails  
• What information or context do stakeholders need to understand the strategic plan?
• How can we emphasize the connection between the strategic plan and the overall purpose and direction of the organization?
• What initiatives or strategies will we implement to drive progress?
• How will we mitigate or address risks?
• What are the specific steps and actions we need to take to implement the strategic plan?
• Any additional information or next steps we need to communicate?

7. Implement, monitor, and revise performance 

Finally, it’s time to implement your strategic plan, making sure it's up to date, creating a persistent, always-on strategy that doesn't lag behind. As you get the ball rolling, keep a close eye on your timelines, milestones, and performance targets, and whether these align with your internal and external environment.   

Internally, indicators like completions, issues, and delays provide visibility into your process. If any bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or misalignment arises, take corrective action promptly — adjust the plan, reallocate resources, or provide additional training to employees.  

Externally, you should monitor changes such as customer preferences, competitive pressures, economic shifts , and regulatory changes. These impact the success of your strategic action plan and may require tweaks along the way.   

Remember, implementing a strategic plan isn’t a one-time task — continual evaluation is essential for an always-on strategy. It involves extending beyond planning stages and contextualizing the strategy in real-time, allowing for swift adaptations to changing circumstances to ensure your plan remains relevant.

• Are there any bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or misalignments we need to address?
• Are we monitoring and analyzing external factors?
• Are we prepared to make necessary tweaks or adaptations along the way?
• Are we agile enough to promptly correct deviations from our strategic plan while maintaining an "always-on" strategy for continual adjustments?

You can use several frameworks to guide you through the strategic planning process. Some of the most influential ones include:

• Balanced scorecard (BSC) : Takes an overarching approach to strategic planning, covering financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth, aligning short-term operational tasks with long-term strategic goals.
• SWOT analysis : Highlights your business's internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats to enable informed decisions about your strategic direction.
• OKRs : Structures goals as a set of measurable objectives and key results. They cascade down from top-level organizational objectives to lower-level team goals, ensuring alignment across the entire organization. Get an in-depth look at OKRs here . 
• Scenario planning : Involves envisioning and planning for various possible future scenarios, allowing you to prepare for a range of potential outcomes. It's particularly useful in volatile environments rife with uncertainties.
• Porter's five forces : Evaluates the competitive forces within your industry — rivalry among existing competitors, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threat of new entrants, and threat of substitutes — to shape strategies that position the organization for success.

Common problems with strategic planning and how to overcome them

While strategic planning provides a roadmap for business success, it's not immune to challenges. Recognizing and addressing these is crucial for effective strategy implementation. Let's explore common issues encountered in strategic planning and strategies to overcome them.

Static nature

Traditional strategic planning models often follow a linear, annual, and inflexible process that doesn't accommodate quick changes in the business landscape. Strategies formulated this way may quickly become outdated in today's fast-paced environment.

To overcome the rigidity of traditional strategic planning, your organization should integrate continuous environmental scanning processes. This includes monitoring market changes, competitor actions, and technological advancements, ensuring real-time insights inform strategic decision-making. Additionally, adopting agile methodologies allows for iterative planning, breaking down strategies into smaller, manageable components reviewed and adjusted regularly, ensuring adaptability in today's fast-paced landscape.

Disconnect between strategic plan and execution

There's often a significant gap between the strategic objectives and their actual implementation, leading to misalignment, confusion, and inefficiency within the organization.

To bridge the gap, ensure accountability, alignment, and feedback-driven processes across the business. Linking team roles and responsibilities to lower-level objectives can fosters alignment and accountability, whereas aligning these with overarching strategic objectives ensure coherence in execution. To ensure goals are optimized on an ongoing basis, implement a feedback mechanism that continuously evaluates progress against goals, enabling regular adjustments based on market feedback and internal insights.

Lack of real-time insights

Traditional planning models rely on historical data and periodic reviews, which might not capture real-time changes or emerging trends accurately. This can result in misaligned strategies unsuitable for the current business landscape.

Leverage advanced analytics tools and AI-driven technologies. Invest in technologies that offer real-time tracking and reporting of key performance indicators, with dashboards and monitoring systems that provide up-to-date insights. These allow you to gather, process, and interpret real-time data for proactive decision-making that aligns with the current business landscape. 

Failure to close the feedback loop

The absence of a feedback loop between strategy formulation, execution, and evaluation can impact learning and improvement. Companies might therefore struggle to refine their strategies based on real-time performance insights.

Establish a structured feedback loop encompassing strategy formulation, execution, and evaluation stages. Encourage employees to actively contribute insights on strategy execution, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation.

Best practices during the strategic planning process

Navigating strategic planning goes beyond overcoming challenges. A successful strategic plan requires you to embrace a set of guiding best practices, helping you navigate the development and implementation of your strategic planning process.   

1. Keep the planning process flexible

With ever-changing business environments, a one-and-done approach to strategic planning is insufficient. Your strategic plan needs to be adaptable to ensure its relevancy and its ability to weather the effects of changing circumstances.  

2. Pull together a diverse group of stakeholders

By including voices from across the organization, you can account for varying thoughts, perspectives, and experiences at each step of the strategic planning process, ensuring cross-functional alignment .  

3. Document the process

Continuous documentation of the strategic management process is crucial in capturing and communicating the key elements of strategic planning. This keeps everyone on the same page and your strategic plan up-to-date and relevant.  

4. Make data-driven decisions

Root your decisions in evidence and facts rather than assumptions or opinions. This cultivates accurate insights, improves prioritization, and reduces biased (flawed) decisions.  

5. Align your company culture with the strategic plan 

Your strategic plan can only be successful if everyone is on board with it — company culture supports what you’re trying to achieve. Behaviors, rules, and attitudes optimize the execution of your strategic plan.  

6. Leverage AI 

Using AI in strategic planning supports the development of an always-on strategy — amplifying strategic agility, conducting comprehensive environmental scans, and expediting planning phases. It can streamline operations, facilitate data-driven decision-making, and provide transparent insights into progress to drive accountability, engagement, and alignment with the strategic plan.

The strategic planning process in a nutshell

Careful strategy mapping is crucial for any organization looking to achieve its long-term goals while staying true to its mission, vision, and values. The seven steps in the strategic planning process outlined in this article provide a solid framework your organization can follow — from clarifying your organization’s purpose and developing a strategic plan, to implementing, monitoring, and revising performance. These steps will help your company meet goal measurements and create an always-on strategy that's rooted in the present. 

It’s important to remember that strategic planning is not a one-time event. To stay effective and relevant, you must continuously monitor and adapt your strategy in response to changing circumstances. This ongoing process of improvement keeps your organization competitive and demonstrates your commitment to achieving your goals.  

Quantive empowers modern organizations to turn their ambitions into reality through strategic agility. It's where strategy, teams, and data come together to drive effective decision-making, streamline execution, and maximize performance.  

As your company navigates today’s competitive landscape, you need an Always-On Strategy to continuously bridge the gap between current and desired business outcomes. Quantive brings together the technology, expertise, and passion to transform your strategy from a static plan to a feedback-driven engine for growth.  

Whether you’re a visionary start-up, a mid-market business looking to conquer, or a large enterprise facing disruption, Quantive keeps you ahead — every step of the way. For more information, visit www.quantive.com . 

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Strategic Planning Process: Importance & Implications

Strategic plans direct managerial decisions for business development and limit the issues and risks in organizational development. The strategic plan provides a basis for the activities in the business, thereby impacting the performance of these activities and the performance of the entire organization. Some of the most important aspects of strategic planning include the vision, mission, values, and the strategy used in the organization of interest. In addition, other factors in the strategic planning activity of the organization include the timeliness of the strategies, as well as variables, like the business situation, the available courses of action, and the desired outcomes. The aim is to develop a strategic plan that suits the business condition based on an accurate evaluation of the internal factors and external factors influencing the operations of the organization.

The situation of the business organization is also a major factor in the development of business strategic plans. In this regard, strategic planning relates to a variety of activities throughout the business organization. The connection between strategic planning and every component of the business organization emphasizes the significance of strategic planning in supporting the overall growth and progress of the organization. An analysis of strategic planning in a business organization considers the organizational context, the connection between strategic plans and organizational development, the impacts of strategic planning on management performance and organizational performance, the efforts of strategic planners for organizational viability and attractiveness to employees and investors, and the ability of the organization to ensure sustainable and viable operations in the long term. Strategic planning serves as a foundation on which an organization builds its growth and expansion, such that the strategic planning process is a critical success factor in the development of organizations.

The Strategic Planning Context

The context of strategic planning involves the needs of the business organization, including the need for the organization to ensure that its operations properly match the conditions of the market. For instance, the market situation changes over time, such that the dynamism of the market condition can impact the demand for the products and services of the organization of interest. The context of strategic planning requires consideration for the changes that occur in the market situation to optimize the development of the organization.

The development of the organization depends on its ability to address the current market trends and the preferences and expectations of consumers. Such a condition means that strategic planning is usually conducted for the purpose of developing new guidelines, policies, programs, tasks, and procedures that the entire organization could follow to maximize the capability of satisfying the demand and expectations of consumers in the target market. Such a context emphasizes the ability of managers to maximize the performance of the organization through the strategic planning process. In effect, strategic planning is viewed as a managerial process or, sometimes, a managerial tool, for developing policies, programs, rules, and regulations that impose requirements and controls the activities within the organization, for the purpose of maximizing performance.

Another factor in the context of strategic planning is that it is based on the abilities and limitations of the business organization. For instance, as mentioned earlier, managers engage in the strategic planning process to maximize the performance of the organization. However, the reality is that managers need to consider the capabilities of the members of the organization, i.e., the workers of the business, because the characteristics of these organizational members directly influence or define the capabilities of the organization in fulfilling any strategic plan.

The context of strategic planning involves the skills, knowledge, abilities, and limitations of the members of the organization. Managers need to consider these characteristics of the workforce to ensure that the resulting strategic plan contributes to the maximization of the performance of the business. The context of the strategic planning process requires consideration for the characteristics of the internal environment of the organization, as well as consideration for the characteristics of the external organizational environment to optimize the effectiveness and potential for success in the implementation of the resulting strategic plan.

The Strategic Planning Process and Managerial Performance

The relationship between the activities of managers and the strategic planning process emphasizes the reality that the strategic planning process impacts managerial performance or management performance in the organization. For instance, the activities of managers in an organization generally involve strategic planning requiring an analysis of the internal organizational environment and the external organizational environment, such that the ability of the managers to address issues identified in the internal organizational environment and issues identified in the external organizational environment depends on the ability to utilize the strategic planning process and develop appropriate solutions and actions for organizational development.

The effectiveness of the strategic planning process to arrive at solutions impacts the effectiveness of managers in addressing organizational and business problems. As a result, it can be argued that the performance of managers in providing the appropriate solutions for the issues encountered in the organization depends on the specific activities involved in the strategic planning process. Therefore, the strategic planning process influences the capabilities of managers in providing support for organizational development.

Strategic Planning and Human Resource Management

The strategic planning process accounts for the characteristics of human resources because strategic plans are implemented through the action of the organization’s employees. It is necessary for the managers to ensure that the resulting strategic plan gains support or commitment from the workers in the organization. The inability of managers to get such commitment and support could spell disaster in the implementation of the strategic plan. This lack of commitment and support could lead to failure in implementing the strategic plan for the desired results.

Strategic planning influences the ability of managers to drive the organization’s human resources for the goals of the business. The commitment and support of individual workers in the organization depends on how strategic plans match the characteristics of the workforce. For example, workers’ expectations and preferences influence the probability of success of strategies and tactics. Strategic planning impacts management performance and influences human resource commitment and support for the strategic goals of the business organization. Individual workers apply the organization’s strategic plans in their job tasks. Alignment is necessary between human resource characteristics and strategic requirements and objectives.

Strategic Planning and Organizational Performance

Strategic planning impacts organizational performance. The level of organizational performance depends on the level of performance of managers. The effectiveness of managers in addressing the needs of the organization influences the ability of the organization to fulfill its goals. Managers engage in the strategic planning process to arrive at the best possible strategies and tactics for the satisfaction of goals and objectives based on the organization’s mission and vision. Individual workers determine the organizational ability to achieve goals and objectives. Human resources define the capabilities and core competencies for change in the organization. Thus, it is necessary for managers to ensure that the strategic planning process aims to bring out the best productivity levels from the organization’s human resources.

Strategic Planning, Business Viability & Investor Support

Organizations need to maximize human resource capabilities to achieve business goals and objectives. Employees want to make sure that the strategic planning process considers the needs and concerns of human resources. Workers want to feel that they are valued in the organization. Workers want to make sure that they are part of the organization and that they contribute to its development. Some workers tend to analyze the strategic planning process and consider it as an indicator of the connection between managers and subordinates, and of managerial support for the workforce. The strategic planning process must account for the concerns, interests, and abilities of workers. The maximization of the alignment of the strategic planning process to the characteristics of employees influences the organizational ability to attract the best possible employees for the long-term growth and development of the business.

Strategic planning influences the attractiveness of companies to investors. Organizations depend on their ability to attract investors. For instance, large business organizations, like Walmart , Apple , Tesla , Costco , and Unilever , as well as Amazon , McDonald’s , Disney , PepsiCo , and Nike , require support from investors to continue growing in the international market. Investor support influences the organizational capability to access valuable sources of capital. Investors examine companies’ strategic plans as a basis for their decisions on investing. When investing in a company, investors evaluate the company’s portfolio along with its strategic planning process and strategies to determine profitability and growth potential.

Strategic planning is a critical factor that influences the success of the organization in the long-term. Strategic planning affects the performance of managers. It also influences human resource capabilities and the attractiveness of the organization to employees and investors. Moreover, strategic planning affects the organizational flexibility to address changes in the market, including changes in consumer preferences. Strategic planning determines the long-term success of business organizations.

• Gandrita, D. M. (2023). Improving Strategic Planning: The Crucial Role of Enhancing Relationships between Management Levels. Administrative Sciences, 13 (10), 211.
• Gowan, M., DeMarr, B. J., & David, J. (2022). Human Resource Management: Managing Employees for Competitive Advantage . SAGE Publications.
• Jukka, T. (2023). Does business strategy and management control system fit determine performance? International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 72 (3), 659-678.
• López, D., & Oliver, M. (2023). Integrating innovation into business strategy: Perspectives from innovation managers. Sustainability, 15 (8), 6503.
• Pavlov, G. (2023). Strategic business planning – Theoretical analysis of business strategies. Journal of Management Sciences and Applications, 1 , 103-117.
• Zapletalová, Š. (2023). The business excellence models and business strategy. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 34 (1-2), 131-147.
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December 8, 2020

The Principles of Writing a Good Strategic Brief

Writing strategic briefs, a guide from A to Z.

by Colin Buckingham

CEO of Rainmakers and at Senior Director of Rainmakers

This kind of programme is inherently different from a primary research project and is often harder to tie down. We can help. Over the years we’ve been on the receiving end of many different types of briefing from brisk 15-minute calls – “I’ve no idea how we’re going to get there but this is where we need to end up” – to 50 pages of valuable background detail. We’d like to share our thoughts on what we’ve learned and outline the principles of a good strategic brief.

Don’t try to write everything down before you start

The best ideas often come from informal conversations or passing references. Talking about the issues which are easiest to articulate can help reveal the underlying challenge which you really need to resolve. It’s often better to have these unstructured conversations early on to get the thought process moving. Otherwise, the most exciting project of the year could end up on next year’s To-Do list

In our view, no idea is too embryonic to be worth discussing. It’s fine not to know exactly what you need at the outset. If your Trusted Advisor really can be trusted to advise you, they will tease out the heart of the challenge and hone what may appear to be a jumble of conflicting requirements into a well-structured piece of work that has a realistic chance of being delivered.

If you can’t get perfect alignment, get the lie of the land

In the ideal organisation, everyone sings from the same hymn sheet, everyone reads from the same book of cliches, and above all everyone is ALIGNED. Well, sometimes.

Strategic insight programmes are often multi-layered and not everyone starts from the same place. The important thing is that everyone finishes in the same place and feels that it’s a great destination to have reached. To ensure this happens, there is often valuable work to be done once the project has started to understand where different stakeholders are coming from, figure out exactly what they need, and find the unifying themes that will lead to a successful outcome.

However, it will be important that you as the internal project lead are at least able to articulate the main ongoing objectives of the programme before it kicks off. That means having conversations with your colleagues which allows you to get to grips with what they each need to achieve and to understand the range of ambitions for the work. In our experience, these soundings out can often take place in parallel with the early agency briefings. Questions raised in the external stream of conversations help focus the internal discussions, and vice versa.

When the talking has to stop

Throwing ideas around in lively conversations will only get you so far. There comes a point when you need to sit down on a robust piece of furniture and type out something which captures the essence of what you’re intending to deliver for your employers and why you can justify spending their money on it.

Organising the key points into a written document is essential. If you continue to explain it verbally, it will be subtly different every time. As a minimum, the written brief must explain the outcomes and deliverables that will make or break the project. If you’re time-poor, ask your consultancy to capture your discussions and confirm the objectives back to you in writing with a process, time plan, and budget scenarios clearly laid out. This initial document should be short so that your senior stakeholders can digest and interrogate it.  A more detailed proposal can follow once you’re sure that your consulting partner can pinpoint what you need to do and earn the trust of your wider team.

Surface the Unknown Knowns

Donald Rumsfeld may have been fixated on Unknown Unknowns but in our experience, it’s the Unknown Knowns you really have to watch out for. The dates already inked into the calendar four weeks before your project is scheduled to deliver; the targets were agreed to last year and are considered non-negotiable. The more strategic the programme, the wider its impact, and the more places crucial parameters can lie hidden from your sight. If your consulting partner has anything about them, they will know from experience the kinds of unforeseen obstacles that can derail an apparently well-planned project. Surfacing the non-negotiable deadlines and deliverables early can make a big difference.

And while you’re asking your consultancy to help you apply that discipline within your organisation, do the same to them. Strategic insight programmes demand a blend of different skill sets and competencies. Make sure that the company you’ve chosen to partner with is putting forward a team that can handle everything you want to happen, and that an enticing strong suit in one area isn’t taking the eye away from gaping holes elsewhere.

Set and agree on specific measures

As you finalise the proposal and project plan, it’s time to make sure that you and your chosen partner are super-clear on the end goal. A shared understanding of the big picture is all very well, but what exactly will success look like, and what does it mean from a specific, measurable point of view? Alongside that, how are you going to deliver and embed the critical insights?

Make sure your consultancy is aware of what you’ve done before, and what did and didn’t work, and why. Keep everyone involved and up to date. Keep everyone on the same path from the outset.

More (really) is more

This is one of the rare instances where More is More. Plan to give your insight consultancy all the background information and existing research they could possibly relate to the challenge at hand. We always ask our clients to share as much as they can with us and to give us the problem of digging into mounds of material to find the nuggets that will help us create the solution. There are usually moments when we regret this, as we plough through yet another 150 page PowerPoint deck, but in the end, it’s worth the effort. Companies’ data and research archives frequently contain hidden gems, originally acquired for a different purpose, but of great value to your new quest.

Make the best use of the time you have

Be realistic about timeframes. We can, and often do, work very fast and too tight deadlines, but in order to get the best out of your project, sufficient time needs to be dedicated to it. Investing in the upfront stages in particular will reap dividends later on. Allow time for immersion and discussion of hypotheses – a great consultancy will construct the solutions you need much more quickly and effectively if the foundations are sound.

Be realistic about budgets

And finally, we’re going to have to talk about money. Strategy programmes that draw on existing information and research have a financial advantage from the outset because they often involve little or no outlay on the collection of new primary data.

Use the scope that gives you to invest in the things that will make a huge difference, like the calibre of the team you’ll be working with and the agency’s accumulated expertise.

Of course, we would say that but it’s undeniable. Quality of input is crucial to the outcome. That means serious senior engagement, and a mix of specialists whose combined skills will take you to places you can’t get by yourself.

Be prepared to pay for that, but equally, don’t write blank cheques. Strategic projects can feel amorphous and intangible at the outset, but they don’t need to be. A consultancy which knows what it’s doing won’t tell you to “trust me, I’m a doctor”. They will be able to break an apparently complex programme down into its constituent parts and show you a logical roadmap for how you’re going to get, step by step, to where you need to be. And they’ll be able to tell you how much each stage is going to cost. If they can’t, you might want to think again.

Ultimately a good brief for a strategic project comes down to a simple principle – what you get out is only as good as what you put in. By laying the groundwork, and by involving your chosen partner in the process, you can get your arms around a complex challenge and develop a brief that leads to a great outcome – and a happy and successful working relationship.

Photo by  Andrea Piacquadio  from  Pexels

Colin Buckingham

The views, opinions, data, and methodologies expressed above are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official policies, positions, or beliefs of Greenbook.

Comments are moderated to ensure respect towards the author and to prevent spam or self-promotion. Your comment may be edited, rejected, or approved based on these criteria. By commenting, you accept these terms and take responsibility for your contributions.

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Strategic Planning Should Be a Strategic Exercise

• Graham Kenny

Don’t create a plan. Create a system.

Many managers complain that strategy-making often reduces to an operational action plan that resembles the last one.  To prevent that from happening they need to remember that strategy is about creating a system whereby a company’s stakeholders interact to create a sustainable advantage for the company.  Strategic planning is how the company designs that system, which is very different from an operational action plan in that it is never a static to-do list but constantly evolves as strategy makers acquire more insights into how their system of stakeholders can create value.

Over the years I’ve facilitated many strategic planning workshops for business, government, and not-for-profit organizations. We reflect on recent changes and future trends and consider how to engage with them for corporate success.

• Graham Kenny is the CEO of Strategic Factors and author of Strategy Discovery . He is a recognized expert in strategy and performance measurement who helps managers, executives, and boards create successful organizations in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. He has been a professor of management in universities in the U.S. and Canada.

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Strategic Planning: Why It Makes a Difference, and How to Do It

Short abstract.

Take action before problems reach crisis level. Strategic planning provides the structure to make day-to-day decisions that follow a larger vision, creates a direction for your practice, and maximizes your options for influencing your environment.

In oncology practice, where dramatic changes in reimbursement, technology, and the marketplace are just a few of the driving forces, “the future,” as Yogi Berra once said, “ain't what it used to be.” You may not be able to control the future, but strategic planning can create a direction for your practice and maximize your options for influencing your environment. Without it, your group will likely take action only to address immediate problems—a kind of crisis management approach. Strategic planning gives a practice the structure to make day-to-day decisions that follow a larger vision. This article presents the principles of strategic planning and outlines processes that your practice can adapt for short- or long-term planning. Strategic decision making is needed now more than ever for success in oncology practice.

A strategic plan is a tool that moves your practice toward a goal you have set. However, the definition of a strategic plan differs among different people, according to management consultant Teri Guidi, MBA. Guidi, chief executive officer of Oncology Management Consulting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, points out that although there is “no wrong idea” of what a strategic plan encompasses, people often do have misconceptions about it. “Some expect a strategic plan to be precise—it's not. Some think that it will take you forward forever—it won't. The biggest mistake people make is already having the end result in mind when they start.”

Of all the compelling reasons for your group to engage in strategic planning, perhaps the most critical is the speed at which forces in your environment are changing. “Physicians who try to keep practicing as they have in the last five years will be at a disadvantage,” says Dawn Holcombe, MBA, president of DGH Consulting in South Windsor, Connecticut. “The world swirling around oncologists is changing, and things they may not even know about will affect their practice.”

Engaging in the process of strategic planning has benefits in addition to the plan that comes out of it. For starters, having everyone in the same room fosters collegiality and creates a milieu in which you can focus on the direction of your practice, away from patient care and other duties. In addition, the process promotes the open and creative exchange of ideas, including putting disagreements on the table and working out effective solutions.

Short- and Long-Term Planning

Establishing the direction of your practice and identifying overarching goals provide the foundation for strategic planning, whether short or long term. In the field of health care today, a long-term plan will likely address no more than the next 3 years. After the strategic course is determined in the initial planning session, the group should meet at least annually. During these sessions, the partners should revisit the practice goals, update the environmental assessment with new data, and identify strategies needed to address issues that will arise within the next 12 months. For example, as the retirement of one or more partners approaches, a succession plan may need to be developed (as described in related article on page 136). Meanwhile, growth in patient volume may call for recruitment strategies for both physicians and midlevel providers.

Should You Use a Consultant?

Although use of an outside facilitator entails expense, turning to a strategic planning professional has a number of advantages that can contribute greatly to success, especially if you are undertaking strategic planning for the first time. A professional has done this before—many times—and thus can direct the process efficiently. He or she knows how to collect and analyze diverse information—opinions, practice data, and market reports, for example—and present it in a concise way, thereby saving you and your administrator many hours of work. As a moderator, a consultant knows how to keep a group moving forward, prevent it from getting bogged down in side issues, and objectively help participants resolve disagreements and develop effective solutions.

Perhaps the biggest value added by a consultant is guidance in assessing your environment. A well-qualified strategic planning consultant should have a thorough and current knowledge of national trends in medicine as well as detailed knowledge about oncology practice. Regarding your community, although your group naturally knows the local marketplace well, an outsider can provide a fresh and objective perspective; in fact, the familiarity of physicians with the local scene may create blind spots. Similarly, in assessing the strengths and limitations of a group, a consultant can contribute objectivity and should be able to provide national benchmarks for objective comparison.

In choosing a consultant, look for an individual or firm that will contribute valuable knowledge about national reimbursement, patient care, and business initiatives and trends affecting oncology practice. Many management consultant firms offer strategic planning services, but you will be best served by a consultant who has worked with physician practices and has significant recent experience with oncology practice.

Scheduling a Strategic Planning Session: Who, When, and Where

Just as there is no one way to define strategic planning, there is no single way of doing it. Examples and guidelines are presented here that you may draw on to implement a process that makes sense for your practice.

The decision makers of the practice should be the ones who conduct strategic planning. If your practice is so large that including all partners could make a meeting unwieldy, it might make sense to have a smaller group, such as the executive board, do the planning. In addition to shareholders, you may want physician associates and key managers to participate. Inclusion of individuals who are not partners, at least for some parts of the meeting, may also have advantages. This can foster buy-in to the strategic direction, thereby contributing to the success of the resulting action plan. The oncology group at the Toledo Clinic, a large multispecialty center in Toledo, Ohio, found it beneficial to include the executive director of the clinic. By participating, the director gained valuable insight into the special administrative and practice needs of oncology.

Setting aside at least one day for strategic planning is recommended, especially if this is the first time your group has undertaken it. Distribute an agenda ahead of time, and use a moderator to keep the meeting on track. The location should be comfortable and private. The participants must be able to focus solely on strategic planning, without interruption, so arrange to have patient-related calls covered. Members of the Toledo Clinic used a consultant to guide them through strategic planning, and the consultant facilitated a one-day retreat at a country club. The meeting began around 9 am , after physician rounds, and the nurse practitioners of the group provided patient coverage. Other oncology groups may have conference space available in their office. A half-day meeting can be adequate for groups that have been doing strategic planning for many years.

Starting Point: Mission and Values

Developing a mission statement for your practice—a statement of its basic purpose—is the first step of strategic planning and provides the foundation for the entire process. You may think that putting your mission in writing is a bureaucratic waste of time, but in fact, determining how to articulate your mission is a productive experience. It sets the stage for later prioritization, and the process compels the shareholders to reflect on and express the purpose of the practice. Is providing high-quality care to patients with cancer your entire mission? What about research? Does your practice have a mission to serve the community through education? Answering questions such as these helps spell out the core mission of the group.

Once you succinctly define the mission of your organization, you should develop value statements expressing your core beliefs regarding issues such as patient care, interaction with the community, and how members of the practice work together. In the framework of a traditional strategic plan, the mission statement is concisely expressed in not more than one or two sentences, with value statements articulated separately. However, some organizations combine the mission and values into a narrative of one or more paragraphs. The format used is inconsequential; most important is that your group express the enduring elements of your practice, which will form the foundation on which the practice direction and strategies are expounded.

For a practice that is hospital based or part of a larger organization, the mission and values of the group should be consistent with those of the larger organization. Your group may want to state its own distinct mission or simply adopt that of the larger organization, as did the group of nine oncologists affiliated with the Toledo Clinic. “In practices like ours, which are within a larger organization, it's important to support the larger organization's mission,” says Peggy Barton, group manager. “It could lead to confusion if the broad organization and the practice are going in different directions.”

Vision: Where Do You Want to Go?

With the mission and values defined, the next step for the group is determining what kind of practice you want in the future. Again, the words of Yogi Berra apply: “If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else.” A vision statement—whether just a few words or a longer document—creates the desired image of the future state of your practice. Do you want to be recognized for treatment of a certain type of cancer? Is your vision to be the leader in clinical research in your state? Do you want to grow larger and have a network of practice sites? The vision of the group must complement your practice environment, so you may find that your review of internal and external information (described in SWOT Analysis) leads you to revise your vision statement to some extent as you continue planning strategically.

The vision statement for your group should be painted in broad strokes, not in detail, and it should represent the end point, not the strategy for achieving it. For example, your vision may be to provide multidisciplinary services to your community, but your vision statement would not include a specific strategy, such as merging with a certain radiology group or recruiting two physicians. When developing a vision statement, an atmosphere of openness should prevail to encourage creativity and thinking beyond current boundaries.

As in all stages of strategic planning, disagreements may surface. “Different opinions about the direction of a practice are very healthy,” says Guidi. “The ideas might be in conflict, but getting them out on the table helps [you] to see what is really important.”

Barton agrees. “One purpose of the strategic planning meeting was to get everyone in the room at the same time to identify where we agree and disagree and to reach compromise. The process encouraged input from everyone, and the group made some important decisions that have helped them over the past year.”

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis—an assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your practice—is a staple of strategic planning. This analysis uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative information, most of which should be gathered and analyzed before the planning meeting. The process for gathering information and performing a SWOT analysis varies greatly, and there is no single correct method. The size of the group, the frequency of strategic planning meetings, and how fast changes are taking place both nationally and locally are all significant factors affecting the process.

Internal Assessment: Strengths and Weaknesses

In identifying internal strengths and weaknesses, include hard data such as the number of new consults, cost of drugs per full-time-equivalent physician, and financial reports. It is useful to benchmark aspects of the quality and efficiency of the practice against data on other oncology practices (Sources for Benchmarking Data provides references for locating this information).

If possible, investigate the perceptions of individuals outside the practice—patients, hospital administrators, and referring physicians, for example. A consultant naturally has an advantage in gathering candid assessments from such individuals, unless an anonymous survey is used. How others view the practice can be critical to performing an accurate SWOT analysis, as demonstrated in an experience reported by consultant Guidi. In one practice that had rather long wait times, the physicians believed that the patients did not mind, because “they know that when it's their turn, they'll get just as much attention as the patient before.” But the patients interviewed by Guidi cited long wait times as a top complaint and said they would mention it to others considering the practice for treatment.

Gather qualitative information and opinions from physicians and staff. What do they see as the top issues facing the practice, and what do they consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of the practice? These perspectives can be provided during the meeting, but it is useful to collect information ahead of time, so a larger group can be polled, and anonymity can be assured. Holcombe distributes a questionnaire to solicit information from each physician and also interviews key individuals. Her summary is then reviewed and discussed during the strategic planning retreat.

Sources for Benchmarking Data

• ASCO Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI). http://qopi.asco.org
• Medical Group Management Association: Performance and practices of successful medical groups. www.mgma.com/surveys or call 877-275-6462
• American College of Physicians: Practice management check up: Examining the business health of your practice. www.acponline.org/pmc/new_checkup.htm
• Akscin J, Barr TR, Towle EL: Benchmarking practice operations: Results from a survey of office-based oncology practices. J Oncol Pract 3:9-12, 2007
• Akscin J, Barr TR, Towle EL: Key practice indicators in office-based oncology practices: 2007 report on 2006 data. J Oncol Pract 3:200-203, 2007
• Barr TR, Towle EL, Jordan W: The 2007 National Practice Benchmark: Results of a national survey of oncology practices. J Oncol Pract 4:178-183, 2008

Oncology Associates in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, uses its face-to-face planning meeting to share personal perspectives about the practice. The group is small—currently five oncologists—and has been doing strategic planning for many years. SWOT data for analysis is gathered ahead of time, but at the beginning of the meeting, each physician discusses how he feels about his own practice, including his workload, his satisfaction with the schedule, and other aspects of practice. “With everyone in the room, they all hear each other's perspective, which helps later on when we are talking about the practice as a whole and making decisions about issues such as expanding services or recruiting a new provider,” says Carole Dzingle, practice manager.

A third method is used at the Mark H. Zangmeister Center in Columbus, Ohio. The executive board of the 16-oncologist practice holds an annual strategic planning session. Glenn Balasky, executive director, obtains input from six or seven staff managers and works with the managing partner to complete a SWOT analysis that is presented at the meeting.

External Assessment: Opportunities and Threats

Data about the marketplace of the practice, such as demographics, economic trends, referral patterns, and competition, should be analyzed in light of whether they represent threats or opportunities. In addition to the local picture, the broader environment, including the regional health care system and approaching changes in reimbursement and regulation, should also be assessed. Although the physicians and staff in some groups stay abreast of local, regional, and national trends, a consultant knowledgeable about oncology market forces is often needed to provide an analysis of the environment. The Toledo Clinic found the report on the national picture prepared by the consultant significantly helpful.

Some groups work to keep up with trends on their own through active involvement in state and national oncology societies. The physicians of Oncology Associates are active in ASCO as well as in the Iowa Oncology Society, and the staff managers are involved with organizations such as the Association of Community Cancer Centers and the Medical Group Management Association. Physicians and staff leaders at the Zangmeister Center are involved with the Community Oncology Alliance and other oncology organizations at both national and state levels, and each staff manager actively participates in a professional organization. Monitoring the environment takes energy and commitment, but it produces advantages, according to Balasky. “It pays off in the raw market intelligence we get, and we stay in touch continually rather than having a once-a-year report.”

Developing Strategies

Once a clear picture of the practice and its environment has been established, the group should develop strategic options for moving the practice from its current status toward the desired future position. Be alert to the pitfalls of discussing operational issues and trying to decide on tactics instead of identifying strategies. For example, a strategic decision may be to go forward with implementing an electronic medical record system, but the strategic planning meeting is not the place to discuss available systems, preferred data fields, or training required. Managing these kinds of details will be the responsibility of individuals assigned in the action plan.

In some cases, the SWOT analysis can reveal weaknesses that call for implementing one or more strategic priorities before pursuing others. Practices sometimes realize they need to create the infrastructure necessary to reach their goals. For example, they may not have systems in place to provide data that will be needed to remain competitive.

In other cases, the group may come up with many strategies that need to be prioritized during the meeting or at a subsequent meeting. To narrow down big lists, Guidi describes two approaches that work well when groups meet more than once. One mechanism she uses is to put all the strategies in writing after the first meeting; she then asks individuals via e-mail to score the importance, difficulty, and cost of each strategy on a scale of one to five. In another approach, after one or two brainstorming sessions, Guidi boils down the information to three or four overarching goals for additional discussion by the group. Guidi finds that several short strategic planning sessions are often more productive than is a full- or half-day retreat, and in the end, the shorter sessions call for about the same total hours of physician time.

More Information About Strategic Planning

• Soper WD: The meeting you won't want to miss: Annual strategic planning. www.aafp.org/fpm/20010200/28them.html
• Holcombe D: Strategic planning and retreats for practices. www.dghconsulting.net/images/holcombe_strategic_planning_0908.pdf
• McNamara C: Strategic planning (in nonprofit or for-profit organizations). www.managementhelp.org/plan_dec/str_plan/str_plan.htm

Action Plan

The outcome of developing strategies should be the prioritization of a few (ie, two to five) achievable strategies and creation of related action plans. Many strategic plans have faltered or failed because they were too ambitious or too complex. Do not try to take advantage of every opportunity or address every limitation identified in your SWOT analysis. Some goals may be important but can be scheduled for implementation in a year or two. By having an annual strategic planning meeting to update your plan, these goals will stay in sight and can be addressed successfully.

Create an action plan to address each strategic priority within the next 12 months. Spell out steps to be taken, who will have the lead responsibility, and the milestones that will show progress. For example, a strategy of adding midlevel providers might have a work plan with dates and assignments for finalizing a position description, creating a compensation package, recruiting, hiring, and conducting orientation. A strategy of building a new facility or merging with another practice will ultimately involve complex actions, but initially, the work plan might specify only the steps involved in finding and retaining a consultant to present a business plan by a certain date. Make sure the action plan is in a format that can and will be used by those with responsibility for implementation.

Communicate the strategic goals and action plan to all clinical and administrative staff. Everyone in the practice should know the goals and clearly understand his or her role in implementing strategies to achieve them. Effective communication and cultivation of a team culture are especially important if your strategic planning results in changes or begins moving the practice in a new direction.

Keep in mind that a strategic plan does not have to involve a lot of paperwork or a big report. The mission, values, and vision of the practice should be documented, and the group should revisit them at the beginning of subsequent strategic planning meetings to validate them or make revisions if appropriate. A summary of the SWOT analysis should be included, but this may be brief, with the data that went into it provided as appendices or even stored elsewhere while remaining easily available for updating. The action plan must be available for tracking progress. Your strategic plan must be a living document—a roadmap that guides what happens in your practice on a day-to-day basis—not a report that sits on a shelf.

Artificial intelligence in strategy

Can machines automate strategy development? The short answer is no. However, there are numerous aspects of strategists’ work where AI and advanced analytics tools can already bring enormous value. Yuval Atsmon is a senior partner who leads the new McKinsey Center for Strategy Innovation, which studies ways new technologies can augment the timeless principles of strategy. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, he explains how artificial intelligence is already transforming strategy and what’s on the horizon. This is an edited transcript of the discussion. For more conversations on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform .

Joanna Pachner: What does artificial intelligence mean in the context of strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: When people talk about artificial intelligence, they include everything to do with analytics, automation, and data analysis. Marvin Minsky, the pioneer of artificial intelligence research in the 1960s, talked about AI as a “suitcase word”—a term into which you can stuff whatever you want—and that still seems to be the case. We are comfortable with that because we think companies should use all the capabilities of more traditional analysis while increasing automation in strategy that can free up management or analyst time and, gradually, introducing tools that can augment human thinking.

Joanna Pachner: AI has been embraced by many business functions, but strategy seems to be largely immune to its charms. Why do you think that is?

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Yuval Atsmon: You’re right about the limited adoption. Only 7 percent of respondents to our survey about the use of AI say they use it in strategy or even financial planning, whereas in areas like marketing, supply chain, and service operations, it’s 25 or 30 percent. One reason adoption is lagging is that strategy is one of the most integrative conceptual practices. When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking too far ahead—at AI capabilities that would decide, in place of the business leader, what the right strategy is. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy that could significantly improve outcomes.

I like to use the analogy to virtual assistants. Many of us use Alexa or Siri but very few people use these tools to do more than dictate a text message or shut off the lights. We don’t feel comfortable with the technology’s ability to understand the context in more sophisticated applications. AI in strategy is similar: it’s hard for AI to know everything an executive knows, but it can help executives with certain tasks.

When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking too far ahead—at AI deciding the right strategy. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy.

Joanna Pachner: What kind of tasks can AI help strategists execute today?

Yuval Atsmon: We talk about six stages of AI development. The earliest is simple analytics, which we refer to as descriptive intelligence. Companies use dashboards for competitive analysis or to study performance in different parts of the business that are automatically updated. Some have interactive capabilities for refinement and testing.

The second level is diagnostic intelligence, which is the ability to look backward at the business and understand root causes and drivers of performance. The level after that is predictive intelligence: being able to anticipate certain scenarios or options and the value of things in the future based on momentum from the past as well as signals picked in the market. Both diagnostics and prediction are areas that AI can greatly improve today. The tools can augment executives’ analysis and become areas where you develop capabilities. For example, on diagnostic intelligence, you can organize your portfolio into segments to understand granularly where performance is coming from and do it in a much more continuous way than analysts could. You can try 20 different ways in an hour versus deploying one hundred analysts to tackle the problem.

Predictive AI is both more difficult and more risky. Executives shouldn’t fully rely on predictive AI, but it provides another systematic viewpoint in the room. Because strategic decisions have significant consequences, a key consideration is to use AI transparently in the sense of understanding why it is making a certain prediction and what extrapolations it is making from which information. You can then assess if you trust the prediction or not. You can even use AI to track the evolution of the assumptions for that prediction.

Those are the levels available today. The next three levels will take time to develop. There are some early examples of AI advising actions for executives’ consideration that would be value-creating based on the analysis. From there, you go to delegating certain decision authority to AI, with constraints and supervision. Eventually, there is the point where fully autonomous AI analyzes and decides with no human interaction.

Because strategic decisions have significant consequences, you need to understand why AI is making a certain prediction and what extrapolations it’s making from which information.

Joanna Pachner: What kind of businesses or industries could gain the greatest benefits from embracing AI at its current level of sophistication?

Yuval Atsmon: Every business probably has some opportunity to use AI more than it does today. The first thing to look at is the availability of data. Do you have performance data that can be organized in a systematic way? Companies that have deep data on their portfolios down to business line, SKU, inventory, and raw ingredients have the biggest opportunities to use machines to gain granular insights that humans could not.

Companies whose strategies rely on a few big decisions with limited data would get less from AI. Likewise, those facing a lot of volatility and vulnerability to external events would benefit less than companies with controlled and systematic portfolios, although they could deploy AI to better predict those external events and identify what they can and cannot control.

Third, the velocity of decisions matters. Most companies develop strategies every three to five years, which then become annual budgets. If you think about strategy in that way, the role of AI is relatively limited other than potentially accelerating analyses that are inputs into the strategy. However, some companies regularly revisit big decisions they made based on assumptions about the world that may have since changed, affecting the projected ROI of initiatives. Such shifts would affect how you deploy talent and executive time, how you spend money and focus sales efforts, and AI can be valuable in guiding that. The value of AI is even bigger when you can make decisions close to the time of deploying resources, because AI can signal that your previous assumptions have changed from when you made your plan.

Joanna Pachner: Can you provide any examples of companies employing AI to address specific strategic challenges?

Yuval Atsmon: Some of the most innovative users of AI, not coincidentally, are AI- and digital-native companies. Some of these companies have seen massive benefits from AI and have increased its usage in other areas of the business. One mobility player adjusts its financial planning based on pricing patterns it observes in the market. Its business has relatively high flexibility to demand but less so to supply, so the company uses AI to continuously signal back when pricing dynamics are trending in a way that would affect profitability or where demand is rising. This allows the company to quickly react to create more capacity because its profitability is highly sensitive to keeping demand and supply in equilibrium.

Joanna Pachner: Given how quickly things change today, doesn’t AI seem to be more a tactical than a strategic tool, providing time-sensitive input on isolated elements of strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: It’s interesting that you make the distinction between strategic and tactical. Of course, every decision can be broken down into smaller ones, and where AI can be affordably used in strategy today is for building blocks of the strategy. It might feel tactical, but it can make a massive difference. One of the world’s leading investment firms, for example, has started to use AI to scan for certain patterns rather than scanning individual companies directly. AI looks for consumer mobile usage that suggests a company’s technology is catching on quickly, giving the firm an opportunity to invest in that company before others do. That created a significant strategic edge for them, even though the tool itself may be relatively tactical.

Joanna Pachner: McKinsey has written a lot about cognitive biases  and social dynamics that can skew decision making. Can AI help with these challenges?

Yuval Atsmon: When we talk to executives about using AI in strategy development, the first reaction we get is, “Those are really big decisions; what if AI gets them wrong?” The first answer is that humans also get them wrong—a lot. [Amos] Tversky, [Daniel] Kahneman, and others have proven that some of those errors are systemic, observable, and predictable. The first thing AI can do is spot situations likely to give rise to biases. For example, imagine that AI is listening in on a strategy session where the CEO proposes something and everyone says “Aye” without debate and discussion. AI could inform the room, “We might have a sunflower bias here,” which could trigger more conversation and remind the CEO that it’s in their own interest to encourage some devil’s advocacy.

We also often see confirmation bias, where people focus their analysis on proving the wisdom of what they already want to do, as opposed to looking for a fact-based reality. Just having AI perform a default analysis that doesn’t aim to satisfy the boss is useful, and the team can then try to understand why that is different than the management hypothesis, triggering a much richer debate.

In terms of social dynamics, agency problems can create conflicts of interest. Every business unit [BU] leader thinks that their BU should get the most resources and will deliver the most value, or at least they feel they should advocate for their business. AI provides a neutral way based on systematic data to manage those debates. It’s also useful for executives with decision authority, since we all know that short-term pressures and the need to make the quarterly and annual numbers lead people to make different decisions on the 31st of December than they do on January 1st or October 1st. Like the story of Ulysses and the sirens, you can use AI to remind you that you wanted something different three months earlier. The CEO still decides; AI can just provide that extra nudge.

Joanna Pachner: It’s like you have Spock next to you, who is dispassionate and purely analytical.

Yuval Atsmon: That is not a bad analogy—for Star Trek fans anyway.

Joanna Pachner: Do you have a favorite application of AI in strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: I have worked a lot on resource allocation, and one of the challenges, which we call the hockey stick phenomenon, is that executives are always overly optimistic about what will happen. They know that resource allocation will inevitably be defined by what you believe about the future, not necessarily by past performance. AI can provide an objective prediction of performance starting from a default momentum case: based on everything that happened in the past and some indicators about the future, what is the forecast of performance if we do nothing? This is before we say, “But I will hire these people and develop this new product and improve my marketing”— things that every executive thinks will help them overdeliver relative to the past. The neutral momentum case, which AI can calculate in a cold, Spock-like manner, can change the dynamics of the resource allocation discussion. It’s a form of predictive intelligence accessible today and while it’s not meant to be definitive, it provides a basis for better decisions.

Joanna Pachner: Do you see access to technology talent as one of the obstacles to the adoption of AI in strategy, especially at large companies?

Yuval Atsmon: I would make a distinction. If you mean machine-learning and data science talent or software engineers who build the digital tools, they are definitely not easy to get. However, companies can increasingly use platforms that provide access to AI tools and require less from individual companies. Also, this domain of strategy is exciting—it’s cutting-edge, so it’s probably easier to get technology talent for that than it might be for manufacturing work.

The bigger challenge, ironically, is finding strategists or people with business expertise to contribute to the effort. You will not solve strategy problems with AI without the involvement of people who understand the customer experience and what you are trying to achieve. Those who know best, like senior executives, don’t have time to be product managers for the AI team. An even bigger constraint is that, in some cases, you are asking people to get involved in an initiative that may make their jobs less important. There could be plenty of opportunities for incorpo­rating AI into existing jobs, but it’s something companies need to reflect on. The best approach may be to create a digital factory where a different team tests and builds AI applications, with oversight from senior stakeholders.

The big challenge is finding strategists to contribute to the AI effort. You are asking people to get involved in an initiative that may make their jobs less important.

Joanna Pachner: Do you think this worry about job security and the potential that AI will automate strategy is realistic?

Yuval Atsmon: The question of whether AI will replace human judgment and put humanity out of its job is a big one that I would leave for other experts.

The pertinent question is shorter-term automation. Because of its complexity, strategy would be one of the later domains to be affected by automation, but we are seeing it in many other domains. However, the trend for more than two hundred years has been that automation creates new jobs, although ones requiring different skills. That doesn’t take away the fear some people have of a machine exposing their mistakes or doing their job better than they do it.

Joanna Pachner: We recently published an article about strategic courage in an age of volatility  that talked about three types of edge business leaders need to develop. One of them is an edge in insights. Do you think AI has a role to play in furnishing a proprietary insight edge?

Yuval Atsmon: One of the challenges most strategists face is the overwhelming complexity of the world we operate in—the number of unknowns, the information overload. At one level, it may seem that AI will provide another layer of complexity. In reality, it can be a sharp knife that cuts through some of the clutter. The question to ask is, Can AI simplify my life by giving me sharper, more timely insights more easily?

Joanna Pachner: You have been working in strategy for a long time. What sparked your interest in exploring this intersection of strategy and new technology?

Yuval Atsmon: I have always been intrigued by things at the boundaries of what seems possible. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s second law is that to discover the limits of the possible, you have to venture a little past them into the impossible, and I find that particularly alluring in this arena.

AI in strategy is in very nascent stages but could be very consequential for companies and for the profession. For a top executive, strategic decisions are the biggest way to influence the business, other than maybe building the top team, and it is amazing how little technology is leveraged in that process today. It’s conceivable that competitive advantage will increasingly rest in having executives who know how to apply AI well. In some domains, like investment, that is already happening, and the difference in returns can be staggering. I find helping companies be part of that evolution very exciting.

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Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is like solving a financial puzzle. Instead of relying on the previous year’s budget, ZBB requires you to evaluate and justify every expense from the ground up, justifying its necessity and alignment with strategic goals.

It’s like starting with a blank canvas and carefully selecting each budget item based on its value and contribution to your financial objectives. This approach ensures that every piece of your budget fits together harmoniously to create a clear and purposeful financial picture. In this blog post, we will delve into the concept of zero-based budgeting, exploring its definition, advantages, disadvantages, implementation steps and tools needed.

The zero-based budgeting process is a strategic budgeting approach that mandates a fresh evaluation of all expenses during each budgeting cycle. Unlike traditional budgeting, where previous spending levels are typically adjusted, ZBB requires individuals or organizations to justify every expense from the ground up. The aim is to optimize resource allocation by ensuring funds are allocated to activities that align with strategic objectives and generate the highest value. 

Peter Pyhrr, an accountant and consultant, is credited with developing the concept of zero-based budgeting (ZBB) in the 1970s. Pyhrr recognized the limitations of traditional methods of budgeting that relied on incremental adjustments to previous budgets. He believed that organizations needed a more rigorous approach to budgeting that would ensure resources were allocated efficiently and aligned with strategic objectives.

Pyhrr introduced the idea of starting the budgeting process from a “zero base,” meaning that every expense had to be justified from scratch. This approach challenged the assumption that previous spending levels were automatically justified, requiring individuals and departments to provide a detailed rationale for each expenditure.

By requiring a fresh evaluation of all expenses, Pyhrr aimed to eliminate unnecessary costs, identify inefficiencies, and promote a more focused use of resources. His goal was to instill a sense of accountability and ownership among budget holders, encouraging them to critically analyze and justify their budget requests.

Zero-based budgeting offers several advantages for both businesses and individuals. Some key benefits include: 

• Cost savings: ZBB requires a thorough evaluation of all expenses, challenging the assumption that last year's spending levels are justified. By scrutinizing each line-item expense from scratch, ZBB helps identify unnecessary or redundant costs, preventing overspending. This process allows for cost-cutting and setting savings goals, leading to lower costs and improved financial efficiency. 
• Enhanced efficiency: ZBB encourages resource reallocation towards high-impact activities. By evaluating expenses based on their value and alignment with strategic objectives, ZBB ensures that resources are allocated to areas that generate the highest return on investment. It promotes a more focused and effective cost management.
• Increased accountability: With ZBB, individuals or departments must justify their budget requests and align them with organizational financial goals. This fosters a culture of accountability, as each expense must demonstrate its purpose and value. ZBB creates a sense of ownership and responsibility among budget holders. 
• Flexibility and adaptability: Traditional budgeting systems often rely on historical data and incremental adjustments. ZBB, however, is not bound by past spending patterns. It allows for better adaptation to changing circumstances, emerging priorities and new opportunities. ZBB promotes agility in resource allocation, enabling organizations to respond effectively to evolving market conditions. 
• Cost-conscious culture: ZBB can foster a cost-conscious culture within an organization. By instilling a mindset of questioning and justifying expenses, ZBB encourages employees to think critically about costs and seek more efficient alternatives to cut back. This culture of cost-consciousness can lead to continuous improvement and a focus on value creation. 
• Improved decision-making: ZBB provides a comprehensive view of expenses and their impact on organizational goals. By evaluating each expense category, decision-makers gain better visibility into the cost structure of the organization. This enables informed decision-making, as leaders have a clearer understanding of the trade-offs involved and can make strategic choices based on reliable data.

Implementing zero-based budgeting (ZBB) in an organization involves careful planning and execution. Here are the key steps to follow:

• Identify objectives: Clearly define the organization’s goals and strategic direction to establish the foundation for the budgeting process. Ensure that budget allocations align with these objectives and prioritize them accordingly.
• Evaluate expenses: Review each expense category, including recurring expenses such as subscriptions, and question their necessity and relevance. Scrutinize both fixed expenses like rent and utilities and variable expenses such as marketing and travel. Identify areas where costs can be optimized and potential savings can be made.
• Build budgets: Create new budgets from scratch, ensuring that each item serves a clear purpose and directly supports the organization’s strategic goals. Consider the importance of each expense category, allocating resources accordingly to maximize their impact. Set up an emergency fund to ensure sufficient funds are available for unforeseen circumstances.
• Prioritize resources: Allocate resources based on their importance and their contribution to the organization’s objectives. Prioritize high-value activities and projects that align with strategic goals. Take budget constraints into account and make informed decisions on resource allocation.
• Monitor and review: Regularly monitor the budget implementation, track expenses and assess performance against objectives. Keep a close eye on spending and make adjustments as necessary to maintain alignment with the organization’s goals. This ongoing monitoring and review process ensures that the budget remains effective and adaptable to changing circumstances.

By following these steps, organizations can successfully implement zero-based budgeting, optimize their resource allocation and achieve greater financial efficiency while aligning with their strategic objectives.

While zero-based budgeting can be a powerful tool for organizations, there are several important considerations and potential challenges to be aware of:

• Time and effort: Implementing zero-based budgeting can be a time-consuming process, especially short-term during the initial stages. It requires a significant investment of effort to thoroughly evaluate and justify every expense from scratch. Adequate planning, data collection and stakeholder involvement are crucial for a successful implementation.
• Change management: Adopting a new budgeting method like zero-based budgeting often requires a shift in organizational culture and mindset. Employees may need to adjust to a more rigorous and detailed approach to budgeting, which can lead to resistance or discomfort. Change management practices, such as communication, training and engagement, are important to facilitate a smooth transition and ensure widespread adoption.
• Complexity: Zero-based budgeting can be more complex than traditional budgeting, especially for large organizations or individuals with diverse financial obligations. The process requires meticulous documentation and tracking systems to ensure accurate evaluation, allocation and monitoring of expenses. Managing the complexity of ZBB may require additional resources, expertise and technology to support the budgeting process effectively.
• Resource allocation challenges: Zero-based budgeting may pose challenges in resource allocation, particularly when dealing with competing priorities and limited resources. The thorough evaluation of expenses from scratch can sometimes lead to difficult decisions and trade-offs between different activities, projects or departments. Balancing strategic objectives, budget constraints and the need for cost optimization requires careful consideration and decision-making.
• Initial disruption: Implementing zero-based budgeting may cause initial disruption within the organization as existing budgeting practices and processes are replaced or modified. This disruption can impact the workflow, roles and responsibilities of individuals involved in the budgeting process. Adequate communication, training and support are essential to minimize disruption and ensure a smooth transition.

By understanding and addressing these potential challenges, organizations can better prepare themselves for the implementation of zero-based budgeting and mitigate any potential negative impacts on the budgeting process and organizational dynamics.

• Spreadsheets: Traditional spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets can be used to create and manage zero-based budgets. They provide flexibility in organizing budget data, performing calculations and generating reports. Spreadsheets allow for customization and can be a cost-effective option for smaller organizations.
• Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software: They offer dedicated features for budgeting, forecasting and financial analysis. These tools provide a centralized platform for top-down and bottom-up budgeting creation, collaboration, scenario modeling, data integration and reporting. They often come with advanced analytics capabilities, enabling organizations to make data-driven budgeting decisions.
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) Systems: ERP systems integrate various financial processes, including budgeting. These systems offer modules specifically designed for budget creation, tracking and reporting. They provide a comprehensive view of financial data, facilitate data integration and support collaboration among different departments.
• Budgeting and planning software: Dedicated budgeting and planning software are designed to streamline the budgeting process. These tools provide features like budget templates, workflow automation, data consolidation, scenario modeling and reporting. They often offer user-friendly interfaces and enable collaboration among budget stakeholders.
• Data visualization tools: Data visualization tools enable organizations to visualize budget data and financial insights. These tools create interactive charts, graphs and dashboards that enhance the understanding and communication of budget information. Data visualization tools can help identify trends, patterns and anomalies in the budgeting process.
• Project ,anagement software: Project management tools like Asana, Trello or Jira can be utilized to track budgeting tasks, deadlines and milestones. These tools help manage the workflow, assign responsibilities and ensure accountability during the budgeting process. They enhance collaboration and provide transparency into the progress of budget-related activities.

IBM Planning Analytics is an  integrated business planning  and  analysis  solution that can greatly assist with zero-based budgeting (ZBB) initiatives. Here’s how IBM Planning Analytics stands out and provides value in implementing ZBB:

• Advanced functionality: IBM Planning Analytics provides robust features specifically designed to support ZBB, such as data collection, analysis, scenario modeling and budgeting capabilities. It also offers integration with spreadsheets, allowing organizations to leverage existing spreadsheet data and seamlessly transition to a more sophisticated budgeting solution.
• Collaborative environment: IBM Planning Analytics fosters collaboration among stakeholders involved in the budgeting process. It allows teams to evaluate expenses, allocate resources and justify budget requests based on strategic objectives. This collaborative environment enhances transparency and accountability and ensures that budget decisions align with organizational goals.
• AI-infused capabilities: IBM Planning Analytics utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to provide advanced analytics and forecasting. These AI-infused features help organizations gain deeper insights into their budget data, identify trends and make more accurate predictions, enabling them to make data-driven budgeting decisions.
• Integration capabilities: IBM Planning Analytics integrates seamlessly with other systems and data sources, such as accounting platforms or ERP systems. This integration ensures the availability of accurate financial data for budgeting decisions, eliminating the need for manual data entry and reducing errors.
• Scalability and flexibility: IBM Planning Analytics is highly scalable and suitable for organizations of all sizes. It can adapt to changing business needs and accommodate complex budgeting requirements. Whether it’s a small organization or a large enterprise, IBM Planning Analytics can effectively support the ZBB process.
• User-friendly interface: IBM Planning Analytics offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies the budgeting process. Its intuitive design and interactive dashboards allow users to navigate through budget data, perform analyses and generate reports with ease.

While there are other tools available for zero-based budgeting, IBM Planning Analytics stands out due to its powerful and flexible platform that allows for comprehensive functionality, AI-infused capabilities and user-friendly interfaces. These factors make IBM Planning Analytics a preferred choice for organizations seeking to implement ZBB effectively and achieve cost optimization and accountability throughout the budgeting cycle.

Zero-based budgeting is an innovative type of budgeting that challenges conventional financial practices. By reevaluating expenses from scratch and aligning them with strategic objectives, ZBB promotes cost optimization, efficiency, and accountability. While implementing ZBB requires significant effort and change management, the benefits of this approach can outweigh the challenges.

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World Brief: Putin, Xi Deepen ‘Strategic Partnership’ in Beijing

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Putin, Xi Deepen ‘Strategic Partnership’ in Beijing

The leaders committed to expanding space, military, and energy cooperation to counter “washington’s destructive and hostile” behavior..

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Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to China , the Netherlands ’ new far-right governing coalition, and a U.S. -built floating pier off the Gaza Strip .

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Show of unity.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday for the second time in less than a year. To celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations, they agreed to deepen their “ strategic partnership ,” bolstering military, economic, and energy cooperation. The two-day trip is Putin’s first foreign travel since beginning his fifth term in May.

“The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it,” Xi said on Thursday, with Putin adding that they are working to create “a more just and democratic multipolar world order.”

The two leaders released a 7,000-word joint statement on Thursday addressing everything from space collaboration to nuclear power research to strategies for circumventing Western sanctions. The document also stressed Russian and Chinese opposition toward the United States, accusing Washington of attempting to disrupt the region’s “strategic security balance” and pledging “to counter Washington’s destructive and hostile move toward the so-called ‘dual containment’ of our countries.”

The attendance of both newly appointed Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and his predecessor, Sergei Shoigu, demonstrated the central role that Russia’s war in Ukraine played in Thursday’s talks. Beijing remains one of Moscow’s closest partners while Western nations seek to isolate the Kremlin for its war in Kyiv. Since the conflict began, China has provided Russia with advanced technology for civilian and military uses, and in February 2023, it proposed a 12-point peace plan that would allow Moscow to retain its territorial gains in Ukraine.

“Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month, warning Beijing that “if China does not address this problem, we will.” The United States and European Union have criticized Xi’s peace plan.

Despite many topics up for discussion on Thursday, it is unclear whether the two leaders debated a proposed pipeline that would redirect Russian gas supplies heading to Europe toward China instead. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller did not travel with Putin’s delegation this week and instead met with officials in Iran . “Gazprom’s losses demonstrate the extent to which the Kremlin’s decision to turn off the gas tap to Europe in 2022 has backfired,” FP columnist Agathe Demarais argued .

Throughout the two leaders’ reigns, Xi and Putin have met more than 40 times , either in person or virtually. In February 2022, just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin declared a “no limits” partnership. And last year, bilateral trade hit a record $240 billion. On Friday, Putin will visit the Chinese city of Harbin, which was once home to tens of thousands of ethnic Russians.

Today’s Most Read

• The Day After Iran Gets the Bomb by Stephen M. Walt
• The Woman Inheriting AMLO’s Revolution by Ana Sofía Rodríguez Everaert
• Gazprom’s Declining Fortunes Spell Trouble for Moscow by Agathe Demarais

What We’re Following

A win for Wilders. Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom struck a coalition deal with three other party leaders on Thursday, including the party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. After nearly six months of negotiations, this forms the Netherlands’ most right-wing government in decades. The so-called Hope, Courage, and Pride agreement places strict measures on asylum-seekers, aims to reduce the number of foreign students studying in the country, and halts family reunification plans for refugees, among other controversial policies.

The coalition must now select a prime minister, a position that Wilders has previously promised not to take. Last November, the Party for Freedom swept national elections , in large part due to Wilders’s anti-Islam rhetoric, including advocating for banning the Quran. Far-right and populist parties are now part of or leading a half-dozen governments in the European Union ahead of European Parliament elections in June.

Floating Gaza pier. The U.S. military finished constructing a floating pier off the Gaza Strip on Thursday that will be used to transport humanitarian aid into the region. As much as 500 tons of food will begin arriving within days, U.S. Central Command said, where it will then be placed onto delivery trucks and brought to aid distribution groups. No U.S. troops will set foot on Gaza’s soil. The roughly $320 million project aims to eventually ship 2 million meals to the enclave every day.

Gaza is facing famine , with some 700,000 Palestinians in Rafah currently displaced by fighting. The Rafah border crossing into Egypt, which once served as the primary aid delivery route into Gaza, is now under Israeli control. “It is time for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza,” United Nations chief António Guterres said on Thursday.

Attack on Fico. Slovakian police charged a 71-year-old man on Thursday with the attempted murder of Prime Minister Robert Fico. Local media described the suspect as an amateur poet , and officials said the man, radicalized after Slovakia’s presidential election in April, was a “lone wolf” who “cited his dissatisfaction with several of Fico’s policies as motivation for the attack.”

Fico was shot several times on Wednesday outside a cultural center in the city of Handlova, where he was meeting with supporters. He is now in stable but serious condition at a hospital in Banska Bystrica. No one else was injured in the attack. Fico is a three-time premier known for his populist policies, anti-Western rhetoric , and history of corruption allegations.

Chart of the Week

Steel may not grab headlines like cobalt or lithium, but it still plays a vital role in modern infrastructure and trade politics. Global production of crude steel hit $1.89 billion last year, FP’s Keith Johnson reported , continuing its overall steep upward trajectory since 2000. U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are capitalizing on this growth ahead of the November presidential election, with both candidates criticizing Japan’s proposed $14 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel.

Odds and Ends

More than 51,000 people flocked to Hong Kong’s Cheung Chau island this week for Thursday’s annual bun-scrambling competition . Tree-climbing athletes scaled a 46-foot tower, grabbing plastic buns along the way, as part of a festival to ward off disaster and plague. Around 9,000 buns marked with different point values decorated the structure, and contestants had three minutes to collect as many as possible. Congratulations are in order for Yip Kin-man, who won “Bun King” for his 776 points, and Kung Tsz-shan, aka the “Bun Queen,” for her 842 points.

Alexandra Sharp is the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter:  @AlexandraSSharp

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