what should a school strategic plan include

Future-focused strategic planning for schools: the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ need a ‘how’

10 Sep Future-focused strategic planning for schools: the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ need a ‘how’

The most important skill in today’s world, individually and as an organisation, is focus. In a world of information overload and one distraction after another, it takes focus to achieve anything valuable. Just like individuals, schools have all sorts of different priorities being brought to their attention day to day, but to truly be effective, they must have a clear sense of direction and purpose. This means they must know:

• WHAT they want to achieve (their goals)
• WHY they want to achieve these things (their philosophy, vision and mission), and
• HOW they will achieve it (their strategic plan).

It’s this third thing that we are focused on today: strategic planning establishes how a school will reach its goals and uphold its vision and values. Without a plan to achieve these things, they remain abstract and unattainable, and it’s unlikely progress will be made. A strategic plan is like a road map that gets you where you are aiming to be.

Why a strategic plan is crucial in any school

A strategic plan is a key guiding document for any school, and can have far-reaching effects. Some of these effects include:

A strategic plan can inspire & unite the whole school community

A strategic plan allows you to inspire your whole community to take action and make change. By making your school’s goals or vision achievable with an actionable plan, rather than completely abstract, you engage people and help them own their role in the process. Your strategic plan can capture the hearts and minds of everyone in your community and allow them to be part of something bigger, providing a purpose and process. It’s powerful to commit to something bigger than yourself, and is a significant predictor of happiness. This inspiration can be a vital ingredient to a thriving school community and can lead to positive outcomes like high teacher retention and student engagement. Even the collaborative process of creating a strategic plan alone can have powerful effects on your school community.

A strategic plan helps people keep focus on the big picture

It’s easy for principals, school administrators, teachers and other members of the school community to lose sight of the big picture in the day-to-day demands that come from all sides, from students and parents right through to governments. A future-focused strategic plan helps to lift vision from the present and keep their focus on the things that truly matter most. In an increasingly busy world, focus is everything, and a strategic plan facilitates this in a school setting.

A strategic plan can help schools keep pace in a changing world

We live in a world of rapid change and all sorts of problems, from rising socio-economic inequality to terrorism, environmental challenges to mental illness and lack of wellbeing across all areas of society. These things affect everyone in our schools, from students to school leaders, but strategic planning as a school can help us harness education as a power to change the world. By nurturing a love of learning, goodness, creativity and ingenuity, we give our students the tools they need to make their way through the many challenges we face. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

What a school strategic plan should be

It’s clear – strategic planning for schools is absolutely crucial to their futures, on many levels! But what does an effective strategic plan actually look like? What should it include and focus on? What principles should guide the establishment of a strategic plan? A school strategic plan should always be:

Future-focused

Any strategic plan should be truly focused on the future. This requires intention: when asked what should be in the strategic plan, many people just talk about what they’re already doing. It’s hard to see the future when you’re focused on what you’re currently busy with, but a plan based solely on what you’re already doing will lead to a remake of the same school you already have. Help those involved in strategic planning to be future-focused by sharing resources to inspire them and help them see beyond their current concerns in the lead up to your planning meetings.

Collaborative

Creating a school strategic plan should always be a collaborative process, not something imposed from the top down. Input and buy-in from all stakeholders will not only minimise the chance of blind spots and unlock collective genius, it will ensure that everyone is committed to the plan. Get all members of the community – including students! – involved in considering the possibilities and opportunities the school has, and how you can make the most of them.

Rolled out in stages and reviewed regularly

An effective strategic plan should be concise and actionable, and rolled out in stages so that it’s clear what the focus is at each stage. This might mean a three-year plan, with twelve month action plans in place within that, and ninety day reviews built in. Each of these reviews is an opportunity to celebrate short term wins, recommit to the plan, and of course, to revise the plan. You might even remove some things from the plan, or replace some elements with something new! Don’t be afraid of an agile, dynamic plan that responds to change as it occurs.

There’s no one school strategic plan template that will work for every school: your plan needs to be tailored specifically to your legal, historic and cultural circumstances. The only way to succeed is to align your strategy to the unique challenges and opportunities of your school. A school in the inner city will likely have a very different strategic plan to a rural school, and a brand new school will have different considerations from one that has existed for generations. Even within a single school district strategic plans should look different at each school, based on their own unique context.

Your school’s strategic plan should be consistent with all other guiding documents and ideals of your school, including any sort of vision, mission statement, values or philosophy. Together, these documents set the vision for your school – the ‘what’ and the ‘why’! Your ‘how’ needs to line up with the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. If you look at these and they aren’t in step with the strategic plan you want to write, it’s probably time to review these documents as well. This can be a big task, but it’s worth doing. These documents are only valuable if they reflect the current vision, mission, values, goals and philosophy. If you’re moving in a direction that’s no longer aligned with your old documents, they can’t help you get to where you want to be.

All strategic planning schools need to plan for the practical side of things as well as the broader vision. A strategic plan should always take the triple bottom line into account – People, the Planet & Profit (the three Ps). None of these practical concerns should be neglected. Remember, even if your school is the best in the world, it needs to be financially sustainable to keep reaching students. All your other goals and plans rely on the school existing and being able to afford to do its work. No matter what lofty vision you have for the future, financial sustainability should always be a consideration.

Socially responsible

Schools have a corporate social responsibility, and any sample school strategic plan that doesn’t take this into account is lacking. As you approach your planning, keep in mind ways that you can build trust in the community – both within the school community and the broader community – and promote responsibility, respect and accountability. Schools have a role to play in shaping the future of our world, and that’s a big responsibility! Always consider things like sustainability and wellbeing: a holistic view of people and your plans will help foster social responsibility as a school, and among your teachers and students.

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There may not be one strategic plan template for schools that will work in all contexts, but there are some things that any school will benefit from considering as part of their plan. Some of the things that you might specifically address in your strategic plan include:

• Talent development – empowering and inspiring teachers and students
• Celebrating diversity – across cultures and generations
• Global context
• 21st century skills – the four Cs! Communication, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration
• Asia literacy, and
• Student voice and student agency.

An effective, future-focused strategic plan can be instrumental in your school, inspiring and uniting the community, keeping focus on what matters, and preparing teachers and students alike to be change agents in a world of challenges.

If you would like to talk with someone who understands just what you are going through contact Maxine at [email protected]  for a collaborative, creative and constructive conversation about your next steps.

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Strategic Planning

7 reasons why schools need strategic planning.

By Mary King

20 march 2023.

• 1 1. A strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission and values
• 2 2. A strategic plan effectively organizes schools, staff, and time
• 3 3. A strategic plan defines how success is measured
• 4 4. A strategic plan helps with decision-making, responsiveness, and innovation
• 5 5. A strategic plan increases communication and engagement
• 6 6. A strategic plan keeps everyone in a school—from teachers to administrators—connected
• 7 7. The best reason of all for strategic planning comes back to every great school’s number one priority: students
• 8 Download the guide ↓

The past three years have been disruptive for every sector. For educational institutions, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone–from staff and teachers, to the students who had to switch to a new modality of learning, to the parents supporting them. Strategic planning in education has revealed itself to be a very important part of recovering. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the COVID-19 pandemic forced nearly 55 million children home in the US alone—and at least 1.4 billion children out of school or child care across the globe. Higher education institutions have been profoundly financially impacted , and both the learning experience and mental wellbeing of the students has been negatively affected.

While every educational institution was impacted by this, some schools were more prepared than others to face the unique challenges COVID-19 posed–those schools who had previously established strategic plans were better prepared to navigate the pandemic than those without.

It’s clear to us: Schools that embrace a great strategic plan, and commit to strategic planning in education, have clear advantages over schools that don’t.

We’re going to talk about some of those advantages now, look at some examples of strategic planning in education, and give 7 reasons for why every school with a vision of excellence for their students should embrace a strategic planning process for schools. Whether it’s getting back on track after a hugely disruptive, global event like COVID-19, identifying the most important strategies to improve student outcomes, or increasing staff engagement, all schools benefit from strategic planning and strategic plan implementation.

1. A strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission and values

The ability for schools to collaborate, share, and communicate short and long term goals is a critical part of moving plans forward in line with a vision, mission, and values. Schools benefit from a well communicated and executed strategic plan that keeps everyone informed of their strategic goals, and how their actions are contributing to the achievement of these goals. This enables parents, staff, community members, and stakeholders to work towards a common vision.

A major additional benefit of strategic planning in education is that it provides an opportunity for active employee engagement across an organization. When it comes to strategic planning for educational institutions, that benefit remains present. Research suggests that a leading cause for employee discontent (in general, but especially in the public sector) is that employees don’t understand how the work they’re doing helps their greater organization.

If the school is able to clearly define and remind employees and stakeholders of the shared vision, employees are more likely to feel connected to the work they are doing within that organization. Whether that work is educating students, organizing reports, performing critical administrative duties, or coordinating the process of standardized testing, everyone plays a part in a student’s success.

2. A strategic plan effectively organizes schools, staff, and time

We understand that schools–whether they are elementary schools, high schools, or higher education institutions– are complex institutions, with boards, committees, districts, unions, and many different types of stakeholders involved. Because the organizations themselves are so large, and plans are often multi-year, complex entities built up by multiple stakeholders and workers, struggles with organization and effective time management are common.

Envisio provides strategic planning software for educational institutions , and because Envisio works exclusively with the public sector, we understand the unique, complex, and often large scale planning needs of public sector organizations.

“I see Envisio very much as a focusing tool as I work with my team. If you’ve got great people, your primary job is not to get in their way […] I can stay on top of performance in a way that is really unobtrusive, and I don’t have to necessarily interact directly with an individual to get a sense of what’s going on. I can stay abreast of the action plans in the communications department or the action plans in a particular school. If we’re missing the mark on a key performance measure, I can focus more time on having the right conversations.” – Peter Hilts, Chief Education Officer for District 49

3. A strategic plan defines how success is measured

In order to achieve success, it’s important to know what success means, and where to take action first. It is difficult to get a strategic action plan underway without a firm understanding of what problems you’re wanting to solve. When it comes to strategic planning in the public sector, determining clear benchmarks for success is especially important, because the goals are often a combination of abstract, impact-based metrics, and concrete, output-based goals.

Different types of educational institutions are going to have different challenges, and different metrics of success: the educational strategic plans of a public school board district are going to look a lot different from a college or university! The shared reality is that every school with a strategy is better able to monitor its progress toward key outcomes and evaluate where and how it may have gotten off track. Using a strategy implementation software like Envisio can help with measuring success.

At Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), in Portage County, Ohio, they are measuring success across six pillars, with forty two strategic initiatives . Many of their strategic plan elements (goals, strategies, and actions) include promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion for their students, staff, and employees. Being a major medical research university that is training future medical professionals, diversity, equity, and inclusivity is a critical—and practical—metric! Some of the performance measures that NEOMED tracks include gender demographics, and actionable items towards decreasing disability stigma as part of their Strategic Plan: Creating Transformational Leaders Dashboard .

No matter what your benchmark for “success” is—be it a more impact-focused concept such as “be more welcoming” or more concretely articulated in output terms such as “create a low-cost tutoring center using the library after school”, your strategic plan will provide you with the steps to make get that success underway, and stay on track.

4. A strategic plan helps with decision-making, responsiveness, and innovation

A strategic plan helps educational institutions remain agile during times of change, and also helps them better define what they intend to achieve when it comes to their student success objectives and their greater organizational goals. With a strategic plan in place, educational institutions have a roadmap which they can use to track, evaluate, and modify plans to facilitate better governance decisions and provide clearer direction for the future of the school. This helps a school maintain a steady rhythm of progress towards their goals, and remain ahead of the curve–both in terms of educational innovation, and when (not if) a disruptive change occurs.

“It’s difficult, because you’re trying to help students prepare for the future – to prepare for jobs that might not exist yet. You’re trying to develop educators and an education that gives them the skills to think critically.” – Dr. Alison Gillespie, the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning with White Bear Lake Area School District (WBLAS) in Ramsey County, Minnesota

White Bear Lake Area School District (WBLAS), MN, was able to leverage their strategic plan as a way to embrace change and turn obstacles (like COVID-19) into opportunities for success. They embraced active learning techniques and, through their strategic plan, were able to think ahead to turn disruptions into teachable moments that engaged students and staff alike.

5. A strategic plan increases communication and engagement

A strategic plan ( and particularly, one that is publicly communicated on a dashboard ) helps with overall communication and engagement. For a school board, communicating that your plans and your metrics for success are part of a larger, holistic plan, is critical to building trust with stakeholders and maintaining effective engagement—both internally, and externally.

Strategic planning in education is critical in settings where trust is paramount. Educational institutions—at all levels—work on the understanding that one group (the educators) has knowledge they can impart, share, or coax out in another group (the students). The need for a trusting relationship with the students and everyone involved in that student’s success needs to be central to a positive educational environment.

A strategic plan that can be easily found, referenced, and understood helps assure everyone involved that the school in question is aware of their plans, has them in focus, and has a plan for their shortcomings. Educational strategic planning also has the additional benefit of keeping stakeholders—such as donors—excited about the school’s vision. When it comes to fundraising, donors are more likely to support a school that has a clear vision and a strategy to make it happen.

6. A strategic plan keeps everyone in a school—from teachers to administrators—connected

A well implemented and communicated strategic plan holds all staff accountable for their actions and encourages collaboration. In educational settings, this circle of responsibility is extended out towards the community; providing excellent and accessible education is an effort that requires all hands on deck. Being able to simplify the strategic planning process and make it visible and easy to use is one way to ensure everyone stays connected.

One of the benefits of using a strategic planning software partner like Envisio is that individual action plans (from individual schools or departments) can be aligned, all the way up to a greater strategic objective. For multi-year, complex plans, such as setting a national standard of excellence, or incorporating culturally significant teachings—it’s important that teachers and staff are able to understand who is working on what, and where it fits into the greater whole.

7. The best reason of all for strategic planning comes back to every great school’s number one priority: students

Best of all, strategic planning in education provides a framework so that the most important priority of the school – students’ educational achievement – is taken care of. Having a sturdy educational strategic plan helps keep issues like digital equity , accessibility , literacy , preparation for an ever changing workforce , and social and environmental enrichment , front of mind. When the experience of the student is the priority for the school, the strategic plan becomes a collaborative effort to figure out how best to set students up for success.

Being on the same page for these goals is extremely important for schools: sound planning and communication helps ensure that stakeholders, including parents, teachers, administrators, principals, board members, and the greater community, are all striving for the same overall vision. And, when it comes to putting those plans into action, schools especially benefit from the habit of consistent performance measurement, which is something a strategic plan can help in ingraining.

For complex, multi-layered institutions such as an educational institute to successfully reach their goals—particularly after being so dramatically impacted by COVID-19—it requires not only proper management of human, budgetary, and time resources, but the creation of high-output teams, engaged and effective staff and teachers, and the consistent monitoring of progress. For schools, a strategic plan provides a north star for deepening a sense of community and knowledge, and breaks down the actionable steps to reach critical goals.

Download the guide ↓

Mary King is a professional writer and researcher based in Toronto. She comes to Envisio with a Masters Degree, where she researched the relationship between the disappearance of urban public spaces, and high level decision-making processes in local governments. For nearly a decade, Mary has worked as a community organizer, promoter, and supportive researcher in a variety of nonprofits and think-tanks, and her favorite area of focus was in connecting local artists with marginalized youth. Since 2017, her writings and research on policy, local governance, and its relationship to public art and public space has been presented at conferences internationally. She has also served as both a conference chair and lead facilitator on professional and academic conferences across Canada on how to better bridge academic research with local change-agents, policy makers, artists, and community members. Envisio’s mission of excellence and trust in the public sector maps onto Mary's interest in local government and community mobilization. She loves working at Envisio because she cares about having well organized, strategic, and transparent public organizations and local governments. Mary is also a creative writer and musician and has been supported in her practice by the Canada Council for the Arts. Her stories can be found in literary journals across Canada.

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School Strategic Planning - How To Ensure Success

Great Organizations have Great Plans

In simplest terms, an organization undertakes strategic planning to reaffirm or modify its mission – why it exists, what its purpose is, what it now does – and to agree on its vision – what it wants to be and do in the coming years. The purpose is not to decide what should be done in the future but to decide what should be done now to make desired things happen in an uncertain future.

In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future.

The real value of strategic planning in a school is more than simply the outcome of having a blueprint that guides future leadership decisions. It is a powerful and effective way to build consensus and motivate resource support and is particularly useful in defining priorities for the Board, the Head of School, and the administrative team who are charged with the implementation of the plan.

Pitfalls of Strategic Planning

How many times has your organization embarked on a strategic planning process, only to build a plan that ends up on the shelf? If your organization is like many others, it's because they have failed to avoid the major pitfalls of strategic planning. The main pitfall of planning is falling into the delusion that planning can determine the outcome. Planning cannot guarantee the outcome you want. Instead, it can help you to achieve something integral to any future success, readiness to face the challenges that chance presents.

Rule number one for coping with pitfalls is to know what you're up against. Here's our list of 10 major pitfalls to avoid ensuring your strategic planning effort is successful.

1. Not planning

2. Not including key people in the planning effort

3. Planning before undertaking a “Situation Assessment”

4. Developing a Mission Statement first

5. Confusing goals and objectives

6. Measuring activity instead of results

7. Jumping straight to strategies after developing objectives

8. Not developing detailed action plans for strategies

9. Not gaining buy-in before implementing the plan

10. Not monitoring and revising the plan

Seven Critical Benefits of Effective Plans

Planning consumes resources, a precious commodity for private schools. As a process that defines the direction and activities of the organization, it can be an overwhelming and daunting task. Despite the overwhelming nature of the process, the benefits of planning can far outweigh the hardships. The time devoted to the planning process varies from organization to organization and depends on the resources available to devote to the process. Whether you decide to devote only a 2-day retreat to the process or engage in a 12-month process, your organization will begin to realize the benefits right from the start.

Some of the fundamental benefits to the planning process and the development of the final plan include:

1). Articulates a uniform, shared Mission and Purpose: When the underlying mission of the organization its basic purpose is brought into question. Any thought of changing the basic mission of an organization unquestionably calls for a strategic plan.

2). Organizational Uncertainties and Crisis Management: Private Schools often have to deal with changing circumstances around them and make adjustments less critical than a fundamental mission change. Although the purpose may stay the same, the environment is changing, calling for modifications in how the organization does things to achieve the mission.

3). Creates a Framework and Direction that Guides Decision Making: Boards, Heads, and staff need a comprehensive and understandable basis for day-to-day decision making and yearly operational plans/budgets. Decisions in governance and management are more reliable when made deliberately, with a full examination of possible future consequences, within the framework of priorities, in accordance with the organization’s needs.

4). Foundation for Fundraising: A successful fundraising program rests on both a realistic determination of funding needs and a persuasive statement of why people should contribute financial support. Strategic planning is requisite, especially for organizations that are embarking on a major capital campaign for bricks and mortar or endowments. Comprehensive planning is one of the key marks of readiness to undertake the commitment that such campaigns require – major donors are expecting this.

5). Allocate Resources-to-Opportunities: All organizations must shepherd their resources and constantly be vigilant in expending their revenues and assigning personnel. Board members have a fiduciary role in financial responsibility. Strategic planning enables boards to enact logical resource allocation over longer periods of several budget cycles, and yearly strategic financial plans.

6). A tool to Monitor Performance and Achievement: Criteria against which to measure and evaluate how well an organization and/or individuals are doing are established through strategic plans. There is no way to tell whether an organization is achieving its mission unless somewhere those purposes are clearly stated and measured.

7). Organizational Effectiveness and Commitment: Private schools function as a team; boards, administration, and staff. The process of planning puts a spotlight on team effectiveness. Particularly revealing is the focus it puts onboard leadership; measuring board commitment, fulfillment and belief in the mission (not just today’s problems), board support and oversight of staff; and any micromanagement or blurring of boundaries and/or channels. Planning can strengthen the organization’s fabric, becoming the adhesive of an emerging team effort.

Eleven Secrets to Making Your Plan Work

1). Carefully select the members of your planning team. Use 2 criteria for selection –make sure you include those who can, and will, contribute positively to the content of your resultant plan; and secondly make sure you also include those who are positioned to drive the successful implementation of the strategies within the plan. That means leaders both formal and informal.

2) Remember that strategic planning is more than an event, it’s a process. Once you’ve developed the plan, your work is just beginning. Implementation is where you’ll spend the bulk of your time and resources. Make sure you take implementation seriously. Integrate your plan into the day-to-day operation of your organization, the yearly agenda for the board, the “charge” for the committees; even the Head’s and Board’s yearly goals for evaluation.

3). Educate your administrators on the strategic planning process. Make sure they all understand the definitions and the importance, of terms like “mission” and “goals.” And make sure they all understand the critical role they play in both strategy development and implementation.

4). Involve employees beyond those on your planning team. Ask them for help. Have them participate in pre-planning surveys to “bubble up” issues for discussion at your up-coming strategy sessions. And be sure to offer them feedback on the outcome of those sessions. Remember, asking for their input implies a promise to feedback. If you forget that feedback, they’ll feel cheated.

5). Gather applicable information prior to your strategy sessions. Have your planning team think through the issues you’ll likely discuss at your up-coming strategy sessions and decide on the information they’ll need to deal with those issues and arrive at strategic decisions. Then, prior to your strategy sessions, gather and share that information among the members of your planning team.

6). Hold your strategy sessions away from your place of work. Avoid the interruptions and distractions that often arise when planning team members’ offices are “just down the hall.” It’s too easy to step down the hall to check a message and return much, much later.

7). Allow enough time for your strategy sessions. Strategic thinking involves thoughtful discussion. This simply takes time. Those who rush, end up with inferior plans.

8). Encourage open communication. If you’re the leader, you’ll play the most difficult role in the process. For you’ll walk the fine line between being an active participant and coming across as “too strong.” As the boss, you’re in a position of leadership. Others will simply hear your voice as a bit more loud than any of the others. Tone it down and encourage others to participate.

9). Communicate your strategy. Once you’ve developed your strategic plan, let your employees and stakeholders know your plan. After all, they’re the ones who will help with implementation. And don’t just tell them once. Tell them over and over again; put it into your communication documents; put up posters, hold annual progress meetings, involve them in the action plans and annual implementation reviews.

10). Keep your plan alive. Have your employees develop specific action steps (tactics) to implement your strategy. Monitor the progress of those action steps at quarterly review meetings. Remember, it’s one thing to develop a strategy, and quite another to implement it. This is real work! You’ll need to manage it as such.

11). Link your strategic plan to your budgeting process. As part of your action plan development, estimate the resources required to accomplish all of the action steps; thus to implement the strategy. Those resources should include people, money, facilities, and equipment. These estimates feed nicely into the budgeting process. So your budgeting cycle should follow your strategy development and your action plan development.

Questions? Contact us on Facebook. @privateschoolreview

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About the author

Doug Halladay is the President of Halladay Education Group Inc ., and is experienced in strategic planning for private schools in Canada and the US. In his free resource, Strategic Planning Readiness Assessment Checklist , he provides a helpful assessment tool to determine if your school is ready for a strategic plan.

To receive your free copy of this resource, visit his site at: http://www.HalladayEducationGroup.com/strategic.php

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Strategic Planning for Schools: What Is It, and How Does It Work?

Business growth , school , school development.

A crucial factor that sets good private schools apart from bad ones is strategic planning. When school leaders strategically plan, they can see the future and identify where their school is going. This allows them to plan for things like facilities, staffing, and even curriculum in advance.

Having a strategic plan is not optional anymore. It’s almost a given for schools to have one in place. And this article will briefly explain how it works.

But before we get into the meat of the matter, let’s get some basics out of the way.

What is strategic planning for schools?

Strategic planning is a process that helps schools identify the goals they want to achieve and then figure out the steps they need to take to achieve those goals. Strategic planning involves:

• Defining the goals of the school
• Setting measurable objectives that will help achieve those goals
• Creating timelines for when these steps will be completed
• Creating a process to ensure those steps are completed

This process helps chart out the “Strategic Plan”. A strategic plan lays down the foundation for the school’s operations and provides a roadmap for its future.

The six key components of a School’s Strategic Plan

A strategic plan is a document that outlines the school’s vision, mission, and goals. It also includes the resources required to achieve those goals. It should be a living document that can be updated periodically to reflect changes in the environment or in the school’s objectives.

The six key components of a school’s strategic plan are:

• Mission statement : This defines the purpose of the school. It is usually short, concise, and inspirational.
• Vision statement : How does a private school want its students to achieve when they finish their program?
• Goals : These are specific statements of what you want to achieve in the next year or so. These should align with the mission and vision statements.
• Objectives : These are detailed statements about how you will reach your goals. They include measurable targets for each goal and deadlines for achieving them.
• Policies : Policies are rules that govern how things should be done in your organization. They do not change from year to year, and they remain in force until they are changed by new policies or terminated by management action.
• Measurements and Evaluation : The different ways that a school measures success, and the methods it uses to evaluate its performance.

Strategic planning for private schools: The step-by-step process

Developing a strategic plan may appear to be simple at first glance, but it’s anything but. A strategic plan bridges the gap between where a school is and where it wants to be by setting the best course of action. Which is why it requires careful planning and forethought.

While the process of developing a strategic plan may vary, the steps involved remain more or less the same.

1. Identify the stakeholders

The first step in strategic planning is to create an organizational chart that includes all stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, and administrators. This will help you understand how your school functions as a whole and who you should be working with when making decisions about your school’s direction.

2. Prepare the Vision and the Mission statements

A vision statement is a long-term goal or aspiration, while a mission statement is the organization’s purpose. The vision and mission statements should align with one another to form the school’s goals. You can also identify the goals and objectives of your school in this step.

3. Review the strengths and weaknesses

This step entails reviewing all of your school’s data, including data that may be hard to measure, such as teacher satisfaction levels and student involvement rates. This will help you understand what strengths your school has and how best to capitalize on them. For instance, if you find that one of your strengths is recruiting students from outside the school for internships, consider whether there are ways in which you could improve these programs to attract more students from different backgrounds or different regions.

4. Identify goals and the overall objectives

Following the above assessment, the next step is to develop goals for your school based on input from stakeholders and analyzing data points such as enrollment, demographics, budgeting projections, etc. Once these goals are established, then it’s important to create strategies for achieving these goals and assign responsibilities among stakeholders who will work on them together.

5. Develop a policy outline

A policy outline is a guideline for creating your school’s policy. This outlines policies in categories such as admissions and enrollment, assessment, curriculum and instruction, classroom management and student activities, club policies, financial reporting, and fundraising accountability. A sound policy outline aims at aligning your vision and your mission statement. This means that your policies should be easy to find, easy to understand, and in line with your mission statement.

The district of the school must approve the outline before it can be used. The district will look over the outline and see if there are any cultural references or language-based issues that may not have been covered in the first draft of your policy. This should take place before creating a final version of the draft policy.

6. Create a plan for implementation

The concluding step of strategic planning involves creating a plan for implementing your school’s policy. This involves creating a timeline for each phase of the implementation. Creating an implementation plan helps break down the big task into smaller next steps that can be consumed by day-to-day tasks that need to get done to progress through the process.

Wrapping up

Strategic planning is essential for private schools. A school without one ends up floundering in the dark and failing to live up to its potential. Strategic plans need to be practical, implementable, and easy to follow.

Unsure about where to start?

We can help .

At JAG Consultancy Services, we are a team of experienced professional consultants committed to helping private schools all over the globe find surefire success.

We are ready to talk if you are. Simply head here to get in touch with us. We promise to get back to you as soon as we can.

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Implementing Your School District’s Strategic Plan: Four Keys to Success

By: Erin Kane, Dwight Jones and Mike Poore • Oct. 23, 2023

A well-developed and thoughtfully executed strategic plan can motivate and unite an entire school community, ensuring that students, educators and board members are all working toward common goals. It shapes the direction in which the whole district must travel as a team and aids in establishing realistic objectives that are in line with the overall mission—ultimately leading to better student outcomes.

However, the strategic planning and implementation process can prove challenging, as most districts are large and complex, consisting of multiple stakeholders with varying opinions. Below are some best practices we have found to smooth the process and help move the needle with strategic planning:

Step 1: Work From the Outside In

A strategic plan will not be successful without a strong level of community involvement and support at the district level. The fabric of this community is made up not only of families, students and educators, but other key constituents such as local business leaders and taxpayers without children in the district that offer an “investor” perspective.

Surveys—particularly those that include open-ended questions—are a good starting point to gather input, collect feedback, and help the community understand key issues. There are many outside resources available to help facilitate and interpret the data, as most of us are staffed only for the work we are in. Especially in large districts, bringing in a partner to do the heavy lift of evaluating and presenting the key findings in a digestible way can be invaluable.

Also, it’s important to provide continuous communication to your community to maintain a high level of engagement and support. Regular emails that celebrate successes like awards and recognitions, as well as address challenges facing the district, will help to further educate the community and help them understand how resources (both time and money) have been allocated. Additionally, a simple, one-page report or brief summary can be sent in the mail one to two times a year, offering assurance that the community’s input was valuable and that their voice was heard. This also creates confidence by demonstrating progress toward meeting short-term goals.

Engaging the community with a district’s strategic plan allows the board to understand multiple perspectives and identify key issues from all stakeholders, ultimately building trust and adding value on both sides.

Step 2: Identify Overarching Objectives

As leaders within the district, the role of the Board of Education in the strategic planning process should be to identify and prioritize all high-level objectives. In order to achieve success with a strategic plan, it’s important to initially agree on what that success will look like with each goal. It is also crucial that every objective be quantifiable and measurable in order to track progress.

These long term, overarching goals should always revolve around student success, framed as working toward academic excellence, achievement or growth. Other high-level objectives might include the development of essential skills—i.e. the ability to collaborate, and develop a sense of teamwork, respect and belonging, etc. Additionally, many boards have begun including safety as a priority objective—making sure students feel and are safe at school, both physically and psychologically.

Step 3: Develop a Tactical Plan

As the “boots on the ground,” staff play an integral role in executing the strategic plan by breaking down the board’s broader goals into smaller subcategories, and creating tactical action plans to connect to these objectives in the classroom.

For instance, if an end goal is to improve academic growth and achievement for students in order for the state to consider the district accredited with distinction, staff must divide this into smaller goals—perhaps honing in on literacy. This could be achieved by first obtaining baseline measurements of current performance via local and state assessments. Next, a new goal of how many students should read at or above grade level would be established, along with a timeline and an action plan to implement evidence-based reading strategies in the classroom. These smaller benchmarks also create opportunities for achievement that are easier to recognize and celebrate.

Step 4: Maintain Flexibility

Finally, educators, administrators and board members know all too well that educational priorities can change in the blink of an eye. The ability to adapt to unexpected circumstances can be challenging, but leaders must be versatile enough to switch gears when necessary. Strategic flexibility is critical; be ready to engage with your community to meet them where they are, and then help bring them to where they need to be.

Every district’s strategic process is understandably unique, as each community has its own dynamic set of needs and different visions of success. Ultimately, by engaging the community and connecting classroom tactics to big-picture objectives, school districts can create far-reaching opportunities for growth and become well positioned for success.

Step 5: Partner Up

A seasoned strategic planning partner who aligns with your district’s philosophical approach can be extremely beneficial in facilitating the implementation, communication and measurement of a strategic plan. An outside entity has the ability to objectively identify goals that are in the best interest of your district, and they can leverage the knowledge and experience they’ve gained with other similarly structured districts to help guide the planning team through a smooth process.

About the authors

Erin Kane is Superintendent of the Douglas County School District in Colorado, serving over 63,000 students. She is a member of the Institute for Education Innovation .

Dwight Jones is a 38 year educator who served as the Superintendent in Fountain Fort Carson in Colorado, the former Commissioner of Education in Colorado, the Superintendent of Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Interim-Superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

Mike Poore is a 38-year educator who served as the Superintendent in Sheridan School District in Colorado, and Bentonville Schools in Arkansas and Little Rock School District in Arkansas.

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Ensure your strategic plan succeeds with your educational partners’ input

September 29, 2023

Sarah Mathias

Strategic planning in education – 3 keys to success.

Effective strategic planning is critical for creating positive change in your district. Among the many benefits, strategic plans align educational partners with a shared vision, mission, and values; promote productive decision-making; and help students reach their full potential.

While having a plan in place will usually improve results, strategic planning can present challenges—resulting in endless meetings, countless goal and tactic revisions, and plans that are never fully realized.

In this post, we explore strategic planning in education, touch on some K-12 planning tips, and share three best practices for making strategic planning successful in your school district. With your community’s insights and the right tools, you can win at strategic planning. Here’s how.

In this Article

• What is Strategic Planning in Education?

Strategic planning tips for K12

See thoughtexchange in action — watch the product tour, what is strategic planning in education.

Strategic planning is the process of setting goals, deciding on actions to achieve those goals, and mobilizing the resources needed to take those actions. A strategic plan describes how goals will be achieved using available resources.

While the concept initially stemmed from business practices due to people moving from the private sector into educational leadership positions, many strategic planning tools and paradigms have been adapted to focus on engagement and consensus.

This is because effective strategic planning requires community support at the school district level, both functionally and legislatively. School districts of all sizes use strategic planning to improve student outcomes and respond to changing demographics while staying within the given funding box.

In top-performing schools, leaders have proactively shifted their strategic planning process to include their educational partners. They know that their strategic plans are more likely to succeed with community support and the insights that come with community engagement.

Strategic planning is key to setting students up for success in K-12 and beyond. A solid strategic plan articulates a shared vision, mission, and values, increasing engagement while providing a framework to ensure students’ needs are met so they can reach their full potential.

Your strategic plan will benefit from your district’s input. Here are a few effective ways to engage your district in K-12 strategic planning.

Tap into your educational partners’ wisdom

Your educational partners have valuable insights. Consult teachers, staff, students , parents, and community members throughout the planning process, so your strategy aligns with their perspectives.

Whether you’re setting strategy at the district, school, or department level, consulting diverse participants will uncover unbiased insights, enhance trust and buy-in, and ensure greater success with new strategic directions.

Using ThoughtExchange , leaders can scale their engagement to efficiently and effectively include their community in their district strategic plans.

Use climate surveys

Completed by all students, parents/guardians, and staff, school climate surveys allow leaders to collect participants’ perceptions about issues like school safety, bullying, and mental health and well-being, as well as the general school environment.

ThoughtExchange Surveys get you both nuanced qualitative and robust quantitative data with instant in-depth analysis, ensuring your district understands all angles of school climate. Run surveys independently or combine them with Exchanges for faster, more accurate results.

• Collect benchmark comparisons while tracking and measuring improvements over time
• Gather quality quantitative data for reporting to state agencies or funders
• Identify outliers and trends across demographic groups

Put in some face time with town halls, meetings, or listening tours

In-person gatherings like town halls, meetings, and listening tours are effective ways to understand your educational partners’ wants and needs to ensure they line up with your strategic priorities.

When managed effectively, they give staff and other educational partners the chance to closely interact. In-person gatherings can build trust and morale, promote transparency, and help create a sense of purpose.

Leverage community engagement platforms

Community engagement software lets you streamline your community engagement initiatives. It allows education leaders to gather feedback and get tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people on the same page in just days. It also facilitates candid, collaborative community conversations that help districts realize their goals.

A comprehensive community engagement platform like ThoughtExchange allows you to integrate your strategy with your community and take decisive, supported action in less time. It provides planning, scheduling, and analysis tools to help you quickly set strategy and monitor execution.

3 keys to strategic planning success

1. get everyone on the same page.

Make sure your educational partners are on the same page by allowing them to contribute to and shape your strategy from the start. Lack of alignment about what strategy involves can hinder even the best plans. So the first step in creating a successful strategic plan is getting everyone involved to provide their insights and opinions.

Letting your people know you’re listening and that their insights affect decisions, builds trust and buy-in. Your community will be much more likely to support—not sabotage—a strategy or decision.

2. Be a collaborative leader

According to ThinkStrategic , creating a school strategic plan should always be a collaborative process. Avoiding a top-down approach and getting input from educational partners will help minimize blind spots and unlock collective intelligence. It will also ensure everyone is committed to the plan. Get all community members involved in how to make the most of the school’s possibilities.

Commit to becoming a collaborative leader and put a plan in place to ensure you can achieve that goal. That may include implementing technology that can support scaled, real-time discussion safely and inclusively for students, teachers, and other educational partners.

3. Get a holistic view of your district

Getting a holistic view of your educational partners’ wants and needs helps you build more inclusive, supported strategic plans.

Depend on a platform that meets all your engagement needs in one place—from surveys to Exchanges—and allows you to consult more people in an inclusive, anti-biased environment. You’ll reduce the time and resources spent on town halls and meetings, and reach your district’s goals more efficiently and effectively.

Engagement and survey software has been proven to contribute to more effective strategic planning in education. It empowers leaders to run and scale unbiased engagement initiatives where they can learn what the people who matter really think— explore ThoughtExchange success stories to learn more .

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Strategic Planning & Refresh

The strategic planning process is as important as the plan, strategic planning is a crucial step to ensure your district vision is inspiring and actionable. the strategic planning process needs to be dynamic, responsive, and focused on changes that are successful, sustainable and scalable., the strategic planning process is as critical as the actual plan.

We help you to build and execute an inclusive, responsive, and effective strategic planning process.

• We start first by understanding existing strategic planning beliefs and processes to align on goals, roles, and structure.
• We engage with your community to assess strengths and capabilities while identifying room for growth.
• We define a vision and a set of initiatives that prioritize what matters most to your community, creating a communication plan.
• And we help you develop metrics to monitor progress so that you know when you are achieving your goals and when you need to pivot.

Examples of Strategic Planning in Schools

How we helped south brunswick school district.

Your district strategy will be stronger if you work with the right partner

Though many districts do a great job articulating their mission and vision statements, it’s hard work to effectively communicate this vision and to define and implement the right strategies and actions. 

Education Elements will support your team in identifying and addressing your district’s key priorities and support your organization to achieve your best possible outcomes. We create a customized strategy based on the needs of the district we are serving. Our team provides coaching, support and facilitated experiences to create meaningful change in leadership practices that drive growth for leaders, teachers and students.

Our clients work with us, and refer us to others, for three key reasons:

• We are expert facilitators, who engage diverse groups and bring in processes and protocols that drive collaboration, alignment, and action.
• We customize our approach based on your unique needs, taking time to learn your context. We never bring in a one-size-fits-all solution.
• We get results. We are one of the few education consulting companies that publishes an annual impact report showing how visions and plans translated into results at the district, school, and community level.

Our Guiding Principles

In order to become a learning organization, we believe sharing information is a vital practice. Teams often get bogged down in determining the right size, the right audience, and the right time for sharing information. By developing district and school-wide systems for sharing information we can find new ways to increase alignment and collaboration across the organization. Through our work together, we will co-design teaming practices that are centered around the following:

• Planning: We will build responsiveness into plans, with integrated opportunities to reflect, refine, and adjust to keep progressing toward strategic goals.
• Teaming : We will define new ground rules for how to align on purpose, how to share authority, and how to structure team meetings across the district.
• Managing Roles: We will reimagine the different roles, accountabilities, and people to change how the work gets done within and across teams in the district.
• Communicating : We will map out a communications plan to maximize transparency and accountability among all members of the community.
• Decision Making: We will rethink our systems for sharing information and find new ways to increase alignment and collaboration across the district.

Education Elements will host virtual strategy sessions, deliver onsite sessions and check in through regular support calls. These touchpoints will provide development opportunities and model progress monitoring sessions, with the goal of enabling the district and school leaders to lead more effective meetings moving forward and strategically implement and monitor plans. 

Speak with an Ed Elements Team Member About How We Can Work With You to Develop Your District's Strategic Plan

The Complete Guide to Writing a Strategic Plan

By Joe Weller | April 12, 2019 (updated March 26, 2024)

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Writing a strategic plan can be daunting, as the process includes many steps. In this article, you’ll learn the basics of writing a strategic plan, what to include, common challenges, and more.

Included on this page, you'll find details on what to include in a strategic plan , the importance of an executive summary , how to write a mission statement , how to write a vision statement , and more.

The Basics of Writing a Strategic Plan

The strategic planning process takes time, but the payoff is huge. If done correctly, your strategic plan will engage and align stakeholders around your company’s priorities.

Strategic planning, also called strategy development or analysis and assessment , requires attention to detail and should be performed by someone who can follow through on next steps and regular updates. Strategic plans are not static documents — they change as new circumstances arise, both internally and externally.

Before beginning the strategic planning process, it’s important to make sure you have buy-in from management, a board of directors, or other leaders. Without it, the process cannot succeed.

Next, gather your planning team. The group should include people from various departments at different levels, and the planning process should be an open, free discussion within the group. It’s important for leaders to get input from the group as a whole, but they don’t necessarily need approval from everyone — that will slow down the process.

The plan author is responsible for writing and putting the final plan together and should work with a smaller group of writers to establish and standardize the tone and style of the final document or presentation.

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to hire an external party to help facilitate the strategic planning process.

“It often can be helpful to have a really good facilitator to organize and pursue strategic conversations,” 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 .

Byson says the facilitator can be in-house or external, but they need experience. “You need to make sure someone is good, so there needs to be a vetting process,” he says.

One way to gauge a facilitator’s experience is by asking how they conduct conversations. “It’s important for facilitators to lead by asking questions,” Bryson says.

Bryson says that strong facilitators often ask the following questions:

What is the situation we find ourselves in?

What do we do?

How do we do it?

How do we link our purposes to our capabilities?

The facilitators also need to be able to handle conflict and diffuse situations by separating idea generation from judgement. “Conflict is part of strategic planning,” Bryson admits. “[Facilitators] need to hold the conversations open long enough to get enough ideas out there to be able to make wise choices.”

These outside helpers are sometimes more effective than internal facilitators since they are not emotionally invested in the outcome of the process. Thus, they can concentrate on the process and ask difficult questions.

A strategic plan is a dynamic document or presentation that details your company’s present situation, outlines your future plans, and shows you how the company can get there. You can take many approaches to the process and consider differing ideas about what needs to go into it, but some general concepts stand.

“Strategic planning is a prompt or a facilitator for fostering strategic thinking, acting, and learning,” says Bryson. He explains that he often begins planning projects with three questions:

What do you want to do?

How are we going to do it?

What would happen if you did what you want to do?

The answers to these questions make up the meat of the planning document.

A strategic plan is only effective when the writing and thinking is clear, since the intent is to help an organization keep to its mission through programs and capacity, while also building stakeholder engagement.

Question 1: Where Are We Now?

The answer (or answers) to the first question — where are we now? — addresses the foundation of your organization, and it can serve as an outline for the following sections of your strategic plan:

Mission statement

Core values and guiding principles

Identification of competing organizations

Industry analysis (this can include a SWOT or PEST analysis)

Question 2: Where Are We Going?

The answers to this question help you identify your goals for the future of the business and assess whether your current trajectory is the future you want. These aspects of the plan outline a strategy for achieving success and can include the following:

Vision statement about what the company will look like in the future

What is happening (both internally and externally) and what needs to change

The factors necessary for success

Question 3: How Do We Get There?

The answers to this question help you outline the many routes you can take to achieve your vision and match your strengths with opportunities in the market. A Gantt chart can help you map out and keep track of these initiatives.

You should include the following sections:

Specific and measurable goals

An execution plan that identifies who manages and monitors the plan

An evaluation plan that shows how you plan to measure the successes and setbacks that come with implementation

What to Include in a Strategic Plan

Strategic planning terminology is not standardized throughout the industry, and this can lead to confusion. Instead, strategic planning experts use many names for the different sections of a strategic plan.

“The terms are all over the map. It’s really the concept of what the intention of the terms are [that is important],” says Denise McNerney, President and CEO of iBossWell, Inc. , and incoming president of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP). She recommends coming up with a kind of glossary that defines the terms for your team. “One of the most important elements when you’re starting the strategic planning process is to get some clarity on the nomenclature. It’s just what works for your organization. Every organization is slightly different.”

No matter what terms you use, the general idea of a strategic plan is the same. “It’s like drawing a map for your company. One of the first steps is committing to a process, then determining how you’re going to do it,” McNerney explains.

She uses a basic diagram that she calls the strategic plan architecture . The areas above the red dotted line are the strategic parts of the plan. Below the red dotted line are the implementation pieces.

While the specific terminology varies, basic sections of a strategic plan include the following in roughly this order:

Executive summary

Elevator pitch or company description

Vision statement

Industry analysis

Marketing plan

Operations plan

Financial projections

Evaluation methods

Signature page

Some plans will contain all the above sections, but others will not — what you include depends on your organization’s structure and culture.

“I want to keep it simple, so organizations can be successful in achieving [the strategic plan],” McNerney explains. “Your plan has to be aligned with your culture and your culture needs to be aligned with your plan if you’re going to be successful in implementing it.”

The following checklist will help you keep track of what you have done and what you still need to do.

‌ Download Strategic Plan Sections Checklist

How to Write a Strategic Plan

Once you’ve assembled your team and defined your terms, it’s time to formalize your ideas by writing the strategic plan. The plan may be in the form of a document, a presentation, or another format.

You can use many models and formats to create your strategic plan (read more about them in this article ). However, you will likely need to include some basic sections, regardless of the particular method you choose (even if the order and way you present them vary). In many cases, the sections of a strategic plan build on each other, so you may have to write them in order.

One tip: Try to avoid jargon and generic terms; for example, words like maximize and succeed lose their punch. Additionally, remember that there are many terms for the same object in strategic planning.

The following sections walk you through how to write common sections of a strategic plan.

How to Write an Executive Summary

The key to writing a strong executive summary is being clear and concise. Don’t feel pressured to put anything and everything into this section — executive summaries should only be about one to two pages long and include the main points of the strategic plan.

The idea is to pique the reader’s interest and get them to read the rest of the plan. Because it functions as a review of the entire document, write the executive summary after you complete the rest of your strategic plan.

“If you have a plan that’s really lengthy, you should have a summary,” says Jim Stockmal, President of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP). He always writes summaries last, after he has all the data and information he needs for the plan. He says it is easier to cut than to create something.

For more information about writing an effective executive summary, a checklist, and free templates, read this article .

If you want a one-page executive summary, this template can help you decide what information to include.

Download One-Page Executive Summary Template

Excel | Word | PDF

How to Write a Company Description

Also called an elevator pitch , the company description is a brief outline of your organization and what it does. It should be short enough that it can be read or heard during the average elevator ride.

The company description should include the history of your company, the major products and services you provide, and any highlights and accomplishments, and it should accomplish the following:

Define what you are as a company.

Describe what the company does.

Identify your ideal client and customer.

Highlight what makes your company unique.

While this may seem basic, the company description changes as your company grows and changes. For example, your ideal customer five years ago might not be the same as the current standard or the one you want in five years.

Share the company description with everyone in your organization. If employees cannot accurately articulate what you do to others, you might miss out on opportunities.

How to Write a Mission Statement

The mission statement explains what your business is trying to achieve. In addition to guiding your entire company, it also helps your employees make decisions that move them toward the company’s overall mission and goals.

“Ideally, [the mission statement is] something that describes what you’re about at the highest level,” McNerney says. “It’s the reason you exist or what you do.”

Strong mission statements can help differentiate your company from your competitors and keep you on track toward your goals. It can also function as a type of tagline for your organization.

Mission statements should do the following:

Define your company’s purpose. Say what you do, who you do it for, and why it is valuable.

Use specific and easy-to-understand language.

Be inspirational while remaining realistic.

Be short and succinct.

This is your chance to define the way your company will make decisions based on goals, culture, and ethics. Mission statements should not be vague or generic, and they should set your business apart from others. If your mission statement could define many companies in your line of work, it is not a good mission statement.

Mission statements don’t have to be only outward-facing for customers or partners. In fact, it is also possible to include what your company does for its employees in your mission statement.

Unlike other parts of your strategic plan that are designed to be reviewed and edited periodically, your company’s mission statement should live as is for a while.

That said, make the effort to edit and refine your mission statement. Take out jargon like world class, best possible, state of the art, maximize, succeed , and so on, and cut vague or unspecific phrasing. Then let your strategic planning committee review it.

How to Write a Vision Statement

Every action your company does contributes to its vision. The vision statement explains what your company wants to achieve in the long term and can help inspire and align your team.

“The vision is the highest-ordered statement of the desired future or state of what you want your business to achieve,” McNerney explains.

A clear vision statement can help all stakeholders understand the meaning and purpose of your company. It should encourage and inspire employees while setting your company’s direction. It also helps you rule out elements that might not align with your vision.

Vision statements should be short (a few sentences). They should also be memorable, specific, and ambitious. But there is a fine line between being ambitious and creating a fantasy. The vision should be clearly attainable if you follow the goals and objectives you outline later in your strategic planning plan.

Because you need to know your company’s goals and objectives to create an accurate vision statement, you might need to wait until you have more information about the company’s direction to write your vision statement.

Below are questions to ask your team as you craft your vision statement:

What impact do we want to have on our community and industry?

How will we interact with others as a company?

What is the culture of the business?

Avoid broad statements that could apply to any company or industry. For example, phrases like “delivering a wonderful experience” could apply to many industries. Write in the present tense, avoid jargon, and be clear and concise.

Vision statements should accomplish the following:

Be inspiring.

Focus on success.

Look at and project about five to 10 years ahead.

Stay in line with the goals and values of your organization.

Once you write your vision statement, communicate it to everyone in your company. Your team should be able to easily understand and repeat the company’s vision statement. Remember, the statements can change as the environment in and around your company changes.

The Difference Between Mission and Vision Statements

Mission and vision statements are both important, but they serve very different purposes.

Mission statements show why a business exists, while vision statements are meant to inspire and provide direction. Mission statements are about the present, and vision statements are about the future. The mission provides items to act upon, and the vision offers goals to aspire to.

For example, if a vision statement is “No child goes to bed hungry,” the accompanying mission would be to provide food banks within the city limits.

While many organizations have both mission and vision statements, it’s not imperative. “Not everyone has a vision statement,” McNerney says. “Some organizations just have one.”

If you choose to have only one statement, McNerney offers some advice: “Any statement you have, if you have just one, needs to include what [you do], how [you do it], why [you do it], and who you do it for.”

During the planning process, these key statements might change. “Early on in the process, you need to talk about what you are doing and why and how you are doing it. Sometimes you think you know where you want to go, but you’re not really sure,” McNerney says. “You need to have flexibility both on the plan content and in the process.”

How to Write Your Company’s Core Values

Company core values , sometimes called organizational values , help you understand what drives the company to do what it does. In this section, you’ll learn a lot about your company and the people who work with you. It should be relatively easy to write.

“The values are the core of how you operate [and] how you treat your people, both internally and externally. Values describe the behaviors you really want to advance,” McNerney says.

There are both internal and external values looking at your employees and coworkers, as well as customers and outside stakeholders. Pinpointing values will help you figure out the traits of the people you want to hire and promote, as well as the qualities you’re looking for in your customers.

Your values should align with your vision statement and highlight your strengths while mitigating weaknesses. McNerney says many organizations do not really consider or are not honest about their company’s values when working on strategic plans, which can lead to failure.

“Your strategies have to align with your values and vice versa,” she explains.

Many companies’ values sound like meaningless jargon, so take the time to figure out what matters to your company and push beyond generic language.

How to Write about Your Industry

When planning ahead for your business, it’s important to look around. How are matters inside your company? What are your competitors doing? Who are your target customers?

“[If you don’t do a thorough industry analysis], you’re doing your planning with your head in the sand. If you’re not looking at the world around you, you’re missing a whole dimension about what should inform your decision making,” McNerney advises.

Writing about your industry helps you identify new opportunities for growth and shows you how you need to change in order to take advantage of those opportunities. Identify your key competitors, and define what you see as their strengths and weaknesses. Performing this analysis will help you figure out what you do best and how you compare to your competition. Once you know what you do well, you can exploit your strengths to your advantage.

In this section, also include your SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. You can choose from many templates to help you write this section.

Next, identify your target customers. Think about what they want and need, as well as how you can provide it. Do your competitors attract your target customers, or do you have a niche that sets you apart?

The industry analysis carries a price, but also provides many benefits. “It takes some time and money to do [a thorough industry analysis], but the lack of that understanding says a lot about the future of your organization. If you don’t know what is going on around you, how can you stay competitive?” explains McNerney.

How to Write Strategic Plan Goals and Objectives

This section is the bulk of your strategic plan. Many people confuse goals and objectives, thinking the terms are interchangeable, but many argue that the two are distinct. You can think of them this way:

Goals : Goals are broad statements about what you want to achieve as a company, and they’re usually qualitative. They function as a description of where you want to go, and they can address both the short and long term.

Objectives : Objectives support goals, and they’re usually quantitative and measurable. They describe how you will measure the progress needed to arrive at the destination you outlined in the goal. More than one objective can support one goal.

For example, if your goal is to achieve success as a strategic planner, your objective would be to write all sections of the strategic plan in one month.

iBossWell, Inc.’s McNerney reiterates that there are not hard and fast definitions for the terms goals and objectives , as well as many other strategic planning concepts. “I wouldn’t attempt to put a definition to the terms. You hear the terms goals and objectives a lot, but they mean different things to different people. What some people call a goal , others call an objective . What some people call an objective , others would call a KPI. ” They key, she explains, is to decide what the terms mean in your organization, explain the definitions to key stakeholders, and stick to those definitions.

How to Write Goals

Goals form the basis of your strategic plan. They set out your priorities and initiatives, and therefore are critical elements and define what your plan will accomplish. Some planning specialists use the term strategic objectives or strategic priorities when referring to goals, but for clarity, this article will use the term goals.

“[Goals] are the higher level that contain several statements about what your priorities are,” McNerney explains. They are often near the top of your plan’s hierarchy.

Each goal should reflect something you uncovered during the analysis phase of your strategic planning process. Goals should be precise and concise statements, not long narratives. For example, your goals might be the following:

Eliminate case backlog.

Lower production costs.

Increase total revenue.

Each goal should have a stated outcome and a deadline. Think of goal writing as a formula: Action + detail of the action + a measurable metric + a deadline = goal. For example, your goal might be: Increase total revenue by 5 percent in three product areas by the third quarter of 2020.

Another way to look at it: Verb (action) + adjective (description) = noun (result). An example goal: Increase website fundraising.

Your goals should strike a balance between being aspirational and tangible. You want to stretch your limits, but not make them too difficult to reach. Your entire organization and stakeholders should be able to remember and understand your goals.

Think about goals with varying lengths. Some should go out five to 10 years, others will be shorter — some significantly so. Some goals might even be quarterly, monthly, or weekly. But be careful to not create too many goals. Focus on the ones that allow you to zero in on what is critical for your company’s success. Remember, several objectives and action steps will likely come from each goal.

How to Write Objectives

Objectives are the turn-by-turn directions of how to achieve your goals. They are set in statement and purpose with no ambiguity about whether you achieve them or not.

Your goals are where you want to go. Next, you have to determine how to get there, via a few different objectives that support each goal. Note that objectives can cover several areas.

“You need implementation elements of the plan to be successful,” McNerney says, adding that some people refer to objectives as tactics , actions , and many other terms.

Objectives often begin with the words increase or decrease because they are quantifiable and measurable. You will know when you achieve an objective. They are action items, often with start and end dates.

Use the goal example from earlier: Increase total revenue by 5 percent in three product areas by the third quarter of 2020. In this example, your objectives could be:

Approach three new possible clients each month.

Promote the three key product areas on the website and in email newsletters.

Think of the acronym SMART when writing objectives: Make them specific, measurable, achievable, realistic/relevant, and time-bound.

Breaking down the process further, some strategic planners use the terms strategies and tactics to label ways to achieve objectives. Using these terms, strategies describe an approach or method you will use to achieve an objective. A tactic is a specific activity or project that achieves the strategy, which, in turn, helps achieve the objective.

How to Write about Capacity, Operations Plans, Marketing Plans, and Financial Plans

After you come up with your goals and objectives, you need to figure out who will do what, how you will market what they do, and how you will pay for what you need to do.

“If you choose to shortchange the process [and not talk about capacity and finances], you need to know what the consequences will be,” explains McNerney. “If you do not consider the additional costs or revenues your plan is going to drive, you may be creating a plan you cannot implement.”

To achieve all the goals outlined in your strategic plan, you need the right people in place. Include a section in your strategic plan where you talk about the capacity of your organization. Do you have the team members to accomplish the objectives you have outlined in order to reach your goals? If not, you may need to hire personnel.

The operations plan maps out your initiatives and shows you who is going to do what, when, and how. This helps transform your goals and objectives into a reality. A summary of it should go into your strategic plan. If you need assistance writing a comprehensive implementation plan for your organization, this article can guide you through the process.

A marketing plan describes how you attract prospects and convert them into customers. You don’t need to include the entire marketing plan in your strategic plan, but you might want to include a summary. For more information about writing marketing plans, this article can help.

Then there are finances. We would all like to accomplish every goal, but sometimes we do not have enough money to do so. A financial plan can help you set your priorities. Check out these templates to help you get started with a financial plan.

How to Write Performance Indicators

In order to know if you are reaching the goals you outline in your strategic plan, you need performance indicators. These indicators will show you what success looks like and ensure accountability. Sadly, strategic plans have a tendency to fail when nobody periodically assesses progress.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) can show you how your business is progressing. KPIs can be both financial and nonfinancial measures that help you chart your progress and take corrective measures if actions are not unfolding as they should. Other terms similar to KPIs include performance measures and performance indicators .

Performance indicators are not always financial, but they must be quantifiable. For example, tracking visitors to a website, customers completing a contact form, or the number of proposals that close with deals are all performance indicators that keep you on track toward achieving your goals.

When writing your performance indicators, pay attention to the following:

Define how often you need to report results.

Every KPI must have some sort of measure.

List a measure and a time period.

Note the data source where you will get your information to measure and track.

ASP’s Stockmal has some questions for you to ask yourself about picking performance indicators.

Are you in control of the performance measure?

Does the performance measure support the strategic outcomes?

Is it feasible?

Is data available?

Who is collecting that data, and how will they do it?

Is the data timely?

Is it cost-effective to collect that data?

ls the goal quantifiable, and can you measure it over time?

Are your targets realistic and time-bound?

Stockmal also says performance indicators cannot focus on only one thing at the detriment of another. “Don’t lose what makes you good,” he says. He adds that focusing on one KPI can hurt other areas of a company’s performance, so reaching a goal can be short-sided.

Some performance indicators can go into your strategic plan, but you might want to set other goals for your organization. A KPI dashboard can help you set up and track your performance and for more information about setting up a KPI dashboard, this article can help.

Communicating Your Strategic Plan

While writing your strategic plan, you should think about how to share it. A plan is no good if it sits on a shelf and nobody reads it.

“After the meetings are over, you have to turn your strategy into action,” says Stefan Hofmeyer, an experienced strategist and co-founder of Global PMI Partners . “Get in front of employees and present the plan [to get everyone involved].” Hofmeyer explains his research has shown that people stay with companies not always because of money, but often because they buy into the organization’s vision and want to play a part in helping it get where it wants to go. “These are the people you want to keep because they are invested,” he says.

Decide who should get a physical copy of the entire plan. This could include management, the board of directors, owners, and more. Do your best to keep it from your competitors. If you distribute it outside of your company, you might want to attach a confidentiality waiver.

You can communicate your plan to stakeholders in the following ways:

Hold a meeting to present the plan in person.

Highlight the plan in a company newsletter.

Include the plan in new employee onboarding.

Post the plan on the employee intranet, along with key highlights and a way to track progress.

If you hold a meeting, make sure you and other key planners are prepared to handle the feedback and discussion that will arise. You should be able to defend your plan and reinforce its key areas. The goal of the plan’s distribution is to make sure everyone understands their role in making the plan successful.

Remind people of your company’s mission, vision, and values to reinforce their importance. You can use posters or other visual methods to post around the office. The more that people feel they play an important part in the organization’s success, they more successful you will be in reaching your goals of your strategic plan.

Challenges in Writing a Strategic Plan

As mentioned, strategic planning is a process and involves a team. As with any team activity, there will be challenges.

Sometimes the consensus can take priority over what is clear. Peer pressure can be a strong force, especially if a boss or other manager is the one making suggestions and people feel pressured to conform. Some people might feel reluctant to give any input because they do not think it matters to the person who ultimately decides what goes into the plan.

Team troubles can also occur when one or more members does not think the plan is important or does not buy into the process. Team leaders need to take care of these troubles before they get out of hand.

Pay attention to your company culture and the readiness you have as a group, and adapt the planning process to fit accordingly. You need to find the balance between the process and the final product.

The planning process takes time. Many organizations do not give themselves enough time to plan properly, and once you finish planning, writing the document or presentation also takes time, as does implementation. Don’t plan so much that you ignore how you are going to put the plan into action. One symptom of this is not aligning the plan to fit the capacity or finances of the company.

Stockmal explains that many organizations often focus too much on the future and reaching their goals that they forget what made them a strong company in the first place. Business architecture is important, which Stockmal says is “building the capabilities the organization needs to fulfill its strategy.” He adds that nothing happens if there is no budget workers to do the work necessary to drive change.

Be careful with the information you gather. Do not take shortcuts in the research phase — that will lead to bad information coming out further in the process. Also, do not ignore negative information you may learn. Overcoming adversity is one way for companies to grow.

Be wary of cutting and pasting either from plans from past years or from other similar organizations. Every company is unique.

And while this may sound obvious, do not ignore what your planning process tells you. Your research might show you should not go in a direction you might want to.

Writing Different Types of Strategic Plans

The strategic planning process will differ based on your organization, but the basic concepts will stay the same. Whether you are a nonprofit, a school, or a for-profit entity, strategic plans will look at where you are and how you will get to where you want to go.

How to Write a Strategic Plan for a Nonprofit

For a nonprofit, the strategic plan’s purpose is mainly how to best advance the mission. It’s imperative to make sure the mission statement accurately fits the organization.

In addition to a SWOT analysis and other sections that go into any strategic plan, a nonprofit needs to keep an eye on changing factors, such as funding. Some funding sources have finite beginnings and endings. Strategic planning is often continuous for nonprofits.

A nonprofit has to make the community care about its cause. In a for-profit organization, the marketing department works to promote the company’s product or services to bring in new revenue. For a nonprofit, however, conveying that message needs to be part of the strategic plan.

Coming up with an evaluation method and KPIs can sometimes be difficult for a nonprofit, since they are often focused on goals other than financial gain. For example, a substance abuse prevention coalition is trying to keep teens from starting to drink or use drugs, and proving the coalition’s methods work is often difficult to quantify.

This template can help you visually outline your strategic plan for your nonprofit.

Download Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

How to Write a Strategic Plan for a School

Writing a strategic plan for a school can be difficult because of the variety of stakeholders involved, including students, teachers, other staff, and parents.

Strategic planning in a school is different from others because there are no markets to explore, products to produce, clients to woo, or adjustable timelines. Schools often have set boundaries, missions, and budgets.

Even with the differences, the same planning process and structure should be in place for schools as it is for other types of organizations.

This template can help your university or school outline your strategic plan.

‌ ‌Download University Strategic Plan Outline – Word

How to Write a 5-Year Strategic Plan

There is no set time period for a strategic plan, but five years can be a sweet spot. In some cases, yearly planning might keep you continually stuck in the planning process, while 10 years might be too far out.

In addition to the basic sections that go into any strategic plan, when forecasting five years into the future, put one- and three-year checkpoints into the plan so you can track progress intermittently.

How to Write a 3-Year Strategic Plan

While five years is often the strategic planning sweet spot, some organizations choose to create three-year plans. Looking too far ahead can be daunting, especially for a new or changing company.

In a three-year plan, the goals and objectives have a shorter timeframe and you need to monitor them more frequently. Build those checkpoints into the plan.

“Most organizations do a three- to five-year plan now because they recognize the technology and the changes in business that are pretty dynamic now,” Stockmal says.

How to Write a Departmental Strategic Plan

The first step in writing a strategic plan for your department is to pay attention to your company’s overall strategic plan. You want to make sure the plans align.

The steps in creating a plan for a department are the same as for an overall strategic plan, but the mission statement, vision, SWOT analysis, goals, objectives, and so on are specific to only the people in your department. Look at each person separately and consider their core competencies, strengths, capabilities, and weaknesses. Assign people who will be responsible for certain tasks and tactics necessary to achieve your goals.

If you have access to a plan from a previous year, see how your department did in meeting its goals. Adjust the new plan accordingly.

When you finish your departmental plan, make sure to submit it to whomever is responsible for your company’s overall plan. Expect to make changes.

How to Write a Strategic Plan for a Project

A strategic plan is for the big picture, not for a particular project for an organization. Instead of a strategic plan, this area would fall under project management.

If you have a failing project and need to turn it around, this article might help.

How to Write a Personal Strategic Plan

Creating a strategic plan isn’t only for businesses. You can also create a strategic plan to help guide both your professional and personal life. The key is to include what is important to you. This process takes time and reflection.

Be prepared for what you discover about yourself. Because you will be looking at your strengths and weaknesses, you might see things you do not like. It is important to be honest with yourself. A SWOT analysis on yourself will give you some honest feedback if you let it.

Begin with looking at your life as it is now. Are you satisfied? What do you want to do more or less? What do you value most in your life? Go deeper than saying family, happiness, and health. This exercise will help you clarify your values.

Once you know what is important to you, come up with a personal mission statement that reflects the values you cherish. As it does within a business, this statement will help guide you in making future decisions. If something does not fit within your personal mission, you shouldn’t do it.

Using the information you discovered during your SWOT and mission statement process, come up with goals that align with your values. The goals can be broad, but don’t forget to include action items and timeframes to help you reach your goals.

As for the evaluation portion, identify how you will keep yourself accountable and on track. You might involve a person to remind you about your plan, calendar reminders, small rewards when you achieve a goal, or another method that works for you.

Below is additional advice for personal strategic plans:

There are things you can control and things you cannot. Keep your focus on what you can act on.

Look at the positive instead of what you will give up. For example, instead of focusing on losing weight, concentrate on being healthier.

Do not overcommit, and do not ignore the little details that help you reach your goals.

No matter what, do not dwell on setbacks and remember to celebrate successes.

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School operations

School Strategic Plan

Guidance for school strategic plans.

A School Strategic Plan is a 4-year plan for school improvement, completed by schools after their school review. The plan is based on the key directions recommended by the school review panel and an analysis of school performance data and evidence conducted during the review.

The School Strategic Plan:

• outlines the school's vision and values
• sets goals and targets for improved student outcomes
• lists the key improvement strategies that will help achieve these goals and targets
• is sensitive to local needs

Preparing the School Strategic Plan

Develop the key directions.

At the end of the school review process, the school review panel reflects on the outcomes of the review and develops the key directions for the new School Strategic Plan.

These key directions inform the goals, targets and key improvement strategies for school performance for the next 4 years, captured in the strategic plan. These then inform annual implementation planning and staff performance and development plans from year-to-year.

Engage your school community

After the school review is complete, schools should discuss the recommended directions with school staff and the wider school community. This will help generate ownership and support for the direction of the School Strategic Plan over the next 4 years. Discussions can also include a review of the school’s vision and values.

Complete the School Strategic Plan

Schools can complete their School Strategic Plan in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) External Link .

After the school review report is endorsed by the senior education improvement leader (SEIL), a central office team enters the recommended goals, targets and key improvement strategies into the school strategic plan section of SPOT.

SPOT guides you through the strategic planning process, and provides guidance, examples and resources to support you in completing the plan.

Approval of the School Strategic Plan

After your school has completed the School Strategic Plan, your SEIL will provide any feedback and endorse the plan. SPOT will then send an email to your school council president so they can endorse the plan on behalf of the school council.

Schools must complete their strategic plan in the term after their school review.

The plan must be completed and endorsed before beginning their Annual Implementation Plan.

Reviewed 25 February 2021

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How to develop your long-term strategic plan, long-term strategic planning will give you an overview of the direction of your school improvement over the next 3 to 5 years. find out how to develop a robust plan that will help you achieve your school's vision. plus, download our template plan to save you time writing your own., how is a long-term strategic plan different to a sip , make sure your vision statement reflects your school's aspirations .

• Collaborate with governors to develop your strategy 
• Identify priorities
• Once you have your priorities, check they tie into your vision 
• How to write clear objectives and actions
• Map out what you can realistically achieve each year 
• Use our template to write up your plan 

A long-term strategic plan will: 

• Outline a top-level overview of the direction of your school improvement over the next 3/4/5 years
• Help you break down how you're going to achieve your school's vision

A school improvement plan (SIP) will:

• Outline how you'll achieve part of that strategy across a 1/2/3 year period
• Include specific actions you need to take to meet your medium-term objectives
• Keep you on track for achieving your overall long-term strategy

Get more detail on the differences and learn how the two feed into your school improvement planning in this article .

You likely won't need to review your vision statement in light of the changes over the past year and the issues

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• Subject leadership: how to develop and embed a vision
• School vision statements: examples
• How to develop and embed your school's vision
• School improvement planning: how to work with your governors
• SIP vs strategic plan: what the difference is and why it matters
• Writing an effective SIP: planning guide

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• Action plan for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
• Action plans for writing (primary)
• Collaborating with other trusts and schools
• Creating a school improvement framework for your MAT
• Getting the most out of your Ofsted feedback
• How to deliver school improvement across your trust

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How to write a strategic plan and what it should include

As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Whether you’re a lumberjack or not, there’s a powerful truth to Lincoln’s wise words. And that’s the importance of planning.

Coming up with a solid strategic plan is a crucial aspect of any business. How can you expect to achieve your objectives if you don’t know what you’re aiming for? And how can you efficiently reach your goals without deciding on the appropriate method first?

You need a plan. More specifically, you need a strategic plan.

Sharpen your axes and get comfortable because we’re going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to write a strategic plan like a total boss.

• What is a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is a document that lays out how an organization plans to realize its long-term ambitions. Think of it as your roadmap. It establishes the direction a company is going to take by considering its goals and objectives. But it also includes the specific actions you are going to take to achieve your goal.

A strategic plan should essentially answer three questions:

• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to go?
• How will we get there?

There are a lot of terms around strategic plans that sound similar. But it’s important for your team to understand what each of them means and how they are different. Let’s clarify some common terms:

• Strategic plan is your roadmap document.
• Strategic planning is the process of developing your strategic plan.
• Strategic planning meeting is the session or event during which strategic planning takes place.
• Strategic planning frameworks are the tools and methodologies to help your team develop different elements of your strategic plan.
• Strategic planning model is the overarching approach for how you are going to structure your strategic ideas. You should decide on which model you are going to use before you begin the strategic planning process.
• Why is a strategic plan important?

Now you know what a strategic plan is. But why do you need one? Here are just some of the reasons developing a strategic plan is so important to your organization

Helps you come up with goals that direct your actions

How can you expect to get anywhere if you don’t know where you’re going? A key aspect of the strategic planning process is establishing goals and objectives. These goals will help build momentum within your team and keep them focused on the overarching goal of the business.

Keeps you on track toward achieving your goals

A well-written strategic business plan gives your organization direction. As well as what you want to achieve, strategic plans require you to get specific about how you are going to achieve your goals. Having this plan of action in one consolidated document helps your team stay on track and achieve their goals faster and with more efficiency.

Focus your resources better

Taking the time to write a well-thought-out strategic plan means carefully considering what actions are going to best serve your company. This prevents wasting time, money, and effort on projects that are not going to take your business to where it wants to go.

The clarity that comes from a strategic plan sets you up for successful resource allocation, which is essential for growing your business.

Aligns team members

A robust strategic plan becomes a source of truth for your team. It keeps all team members on the same page regarding the company’s mission and strategy. When confused about why they are doing something or how they fit into the bigger picture, they can refer to the team’s strategic plan.

As well as team members, a strategic plan keeps stakeholders in the know. They should be involved in the development of the strategic plan so that the goals and strategies are aligned with their expectations.

• What is included in a strategic plan?

These are the key elements that make up a strategic plan.

Vision statement

The vision statement gives a clear picture of what your organization wants to achieve in the long run. It is an aspirational statement that describes the ideal future state of your business.

Many great vision statements use emotional language to paint a picture of what impact the group hopes to make on the world. For example, IKEA’s vision statement is “To create a better everyday life for the many people.”

Mission statement

While a vision statement looks toward the future, a mission statement considers the present. It should describe the core purpose of the company and why it exists. Your mission statement should provide context for all other goals and actions.

IKEA’s mission statement is “to offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

Your objectives are what you plan to achieve. They are the specific results that your organization wants to accomplish within a certain time frame. Strategic objectives aim to bridge the gap between your overall vision and the goals needed to achieve it.

Strategic objectives can be financial, growth-related, or customer-related. An example of a strategic objective is “Enter three new foreign markets in the next five years.”

This section of your strategic plan is where you turn the focus from your vision to execution. Your strategy is the blueprint for how to achieve your goals and objectives.

If your objective is to “Enter three new foreign markets in the next five years,” you need to develop a strategy for how you are going to do this. Which markets are you going to target? What products or services are you going to introduce? What are the current market trends? Asking and answering these questions will help you design a specific market entry strategy.

This is where strategic planning frameworks become so useful. For example, the Ansoff Matrix helps you evaluate opportunities for growth. Also known as the product-market expansion grid, the Ansoff Matrix helps you review the potential risks and opportunities of each growth plan option.

By using frameworks like the Ansoff Matrix, you can analyze each strategic option. All the data gathered and your team’s insights on this data will help determine your strategic approach.

After writing a strategic plan and implementing it, you need to track its progress. Metrics are a way for you to measure the success of your actions. If you find that your strategic plan isn’t giving you the results you expected, you can make changes to your strategic approach.

Metrics can be milestones, such as launching a product or completing a certain project. Or your metrics can be quantifiable performance measures, like KPIs.

• How to write a strategic plan

Now that you know what a strategic plan should include, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to write a strategic plan for your business.

1. Hold a strategic planning meeting

No man is an island, especially in the realm of strategic planning. You want to get your entire team involved in the strategic planning process. To ensure everyone is part of the process, you need to hold a strategic planning meeting . This meeting is about collaboration and openly sharing ideas around your strategic plan.

Start by making an invite list and sending out calendar invites to the people you want to attend the session. This should include people from different departments, executives, and stakeholders.

2. Use a template

To save you time and hassle, use a customizable Strategic Planning Template . Businesses have been writing strategic plans for years and years, so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Using a template will also help ensure that you don’t miss out on any important aspects of the strategic planning process.

3. Determine your position

Before you look towards the future about where you want to be, you need to understand where you currently stand. This means looking internally at who you are as a company and conducting market and competitor analysis to fully understand your external environment.

A popular method for taking stock of your company’s current position is a SWOT analysis . This framework helps you map out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business.

4. Decide where you want to go

Now it’s time to look toward the future and decide on what you are aiming for. This is where you articulate what you want to achieve. Some examples of thought-provoking questions to ask your team include:

• What do we want to accomplish?
• Where do we want to be?
• How many products would we sell?
• How many countries will we be based in?
• Who would our customers be?

This part of writing a strategic plan is where you develop the strategic objectives, goals, and action items. We’re big fans of setting OKRs: Objectives and their related Key Results. This OKR Template will ensure your business goals are structured and clearly defined.

5. Decide how you are going to get there

Now that you know where you’re going, you need to decide how to get there. This phase involves deciding how you’re going to make your goals a reality. And that means coming up with an action plan.

An action plan is a detailed set of lists outlining the steps you are going to take to complete your objectives. Our Action Plan Template promotes clarity and transparency around assigned tasks. As a team, you need to decide who needs to do what and by when. Everyone should be aware of their role in executing the overall strategic plan.

• Tips for writing a strategic plan

Keep these tips in mind when writing your strategic plan to make the process more efficient.

Use the right tools

Developing a strategic plan has a lot of moving parts. From running a strategic planning session to capturing your team’s ideas, there’s a lot to stay on top of. But an online collaborative tool like Miro can make the process a whole lot easier.

With Miro, you collaborate with your team from anywhere, at any time. Not to mention safely store all your mindmaps , boards, and diagrams in one consolidated place. To get a real sense of what’s possible, have a look at our list of features .

Be SMART with your goals

Whenever you create goals or objectives, ensure that they are SMART . This means they should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. It’s no use coming up with a long list of impressive goals that aren’t realistic or focused.

Don’t be afraid to change your plan

Strategic plans aren’t set in stone. They should be used more as a guideline that is adjusted as needed. Your company will no doubt face new challenges or identify new opportunities as time goes on. So it’s important to revisit your strategic plan and make necessary adjustments based on changes in your organization’s environment and situation.

Strategic plans are usually developed for the next two to five-year period. Some companies reconsider their strategic plan every year, while others hold strategic planning sessions every quarter.

It’s up to you and your team how often you revisit your strategic plan, but the key takeaway is that you should be open to changing your plan.

• Get starting writing your strategic plan

We’re not going to lie to you — creating a strategic plan isn’t the easiest process to execute. From capturing your company’s vision to measuring your strategy’s success, there’s a lot to do. But that shouldn’t deter you.

Knowing how to write a strategic plan is a valuable skill to have, no matter what industry you’re in. And tools like Miro are there to make the process a whole lot easier and more efficient.

Miro is your team's visual platform to connect, collaborate, and create — together.

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