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How to create your personal strategic plan

A personal strategic plan is a clear plan for achieving your goals. The exercise of creating your own personal strategic plan can help you identify what’s most important to you and can define what success means to you.

This article is part of my article series 5 Key Principles for Intentional Living  and provides a step by step process for creating your own personal strategic plan. It also discusses the benefits of creating a personal strategic plan. This includes getting really clear about what’s most important to you. Also included is a personal strategic plan example.

What is a strategic plan?

Strategic plans are common with businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations. They act as a compass for the organization and are typically a one-page document. A strategic plan is a clear road map for where the organization wants to be, and includes its core focus areas and actions.

What are the benefits of creating a personal strategic plan?

Like organizations, a personal strategic plan can be your compass. It can help you be intentional and proactive in reaching your goals. Not only that, creating your own plan will help you identify the goals that are most in line with what you truly want to become and what you want your life to become. Further, a personal strategic plan can be a planning tool for you to achieve your version of an extraordinary life. It can also help you achieve your own definition of success.

The process of creating your own plan can help you define what success means to you. Success means different things for different people. I believe that success is defined as achieving the goals that are in line with our core values and what’s most important to us.

A strategic plan can help you identify focused objectives and goals for you to work toward, and help you reach your version of success. A personal strategic plan moves you forward. As a key planning tool, a strategic plan becomes your action plan for a set period of time. Thus, I suggest creating a one or two-year personal strategic plan, and revisiting and revising it once a year.

Personal strategic plan example

I developed a strategic plan for the last organization I worked for. It was a very small program, and I learned a lot from the process. Thus, I decided to create my own personal strategic plan. This personal strategic plan will guide me for the next year. It will help me to stay focused on what I decided my largest priorities are and what I want to accomplish. A link to my personal strategic plan example is provided below. Please take a look and use it as a guide for creating your own personal strategic plan.

Shanda’s Personal Strategic Plan 2018

Personal strategic plan elements.

A personal strategic plan has the following elements:

• Personal purpose statement
• Personal vision statement
• Top 5 personal core values
• Strategic focus areas
• Objectives and SMART goals for each focus area

Steps to creating your personal strategic plan

You’ll want to set aside a good chunk of personal time in a location free of distractions. You may need to schedule a few different blocks of time for the different steps. It probably took me a total of 4 hours and four different blocks of time. You’ll want to have a notebook, notepad, or your journal, and your favorite writing utensil handy.

Step 1: Download your free personal strategic plan template

I have created a personal strategic plan template just for you. You can use it to easily fill in the elements as you go. This free template is in the same format as my example personal strategic plan . To get the free template, fill in your email in the form below and it will be sent directly to your inbox.

Step 2: Identify your top 5 personal core values

The starting point for developing your personal strategic plan is to assess and define your personal core values. Defining your core values will ensure the strategic plan you create is the right plan for achieving what’s most important to you. Personal values are what we care about most in life and are signified by words that resonate deep in our hearts.

For step by step guidance on defining your top 5 persona core values, see my article: Personal core values assessment: Success and fulfillment begins with determining what you value in life

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Step 3: identify your 3 strategic areas of focus.

Your 3 strategic areas of focus should be the most important areas of your life that you want to focus on and prioritize this coming year.

First, you’ll want to identify the most important areas of your life. You can keep your top 5 personal core values in mind as you begin. On a blank sheet of paper list at least 5, but no more than 7 most important areas of your life. You can use the list below as guidance, but there may be areas you come up with that are not on the list. If you come up with more than 7, try combining two areas into one. For example, I combined Family and Community into one area.

Areas of Life

Next, you’ll determine how balanced your most important areas of life are. Draw a circle and slice it like a pie with the total number of slices representing each of your important areas of life. Next, write your most important areas of life in each of the slices. You should not have more than 7 slices.

For each slice of the pie, guesstimate how much of your time (using percentages) you currently spend on each of the important areas of your life. Then add the percentages to the slices. The slices should add up to 100%.

Next, reflect on each area of your life. Consider if there are one or more areas that have been more neglected or out of balance from other areas, or don’t receive as much of your time as you’d like. Put a star next to the important areas of life where you would like to put more focus and get more in balance with. Think about what is most important to you right now. What would you most like to focus on over the next year or two? For example, perhaps your career is going well, so in the next year you would like to put more focus on health and fitness.

Last, choose three of the areas of your life you would like to focus on over the next year or two. These will become your strategic areas of focus in your personal strategic plan. In Step 6 below, you’ll learn how to create specific objectives and SMART goals for each of these three areas of focus.

Here are my 3 strategic areas of focus over the next two years:

• Family & Community
• Passion Projects & Financial Freedom
• Health, Fitness, and Adventure

Step 4: Write your personal purpose statement

The definition of purpose is the reason for which something exists. A personal purpose statement describes your intention and the impact you want to make in the world. It also defines who you are. Having a purpose in life is what gets you out of bed in the morning.

Again, like your values, your purpose statement is aligned with what is important to you and aligned with your core values. A personal purpose statement is a clear and concise action statement of one or two sentences. In addition, a purpose statement is aligned with and creates a target for your goals in life.

As an example, my personal purpose statement is: To inspire and guide others to live their version of an extraordinary life.

Maybe you have already articulated your purpose in life, but if you haven’t, this is a key step toward living an intentional life. Your purpose is a large part of who you are. In many cases, one’s purpose statement is related to their career and making a difference through their life work. If you don’t already have an identified purpose, follow these steps to create your own personal purpose statement.

First, grab a blank sheet of paper and reflect on these questions:

• What am I passionate about?
• What most inspires me?
• What gets me out of bed in the morning?
• What do I want to be remembered for?
• How do I want to make a difference in the world?
• What do I do and why do I do it?

Next, draft your purpose statement. Write it in the present tense. Make it positive and action-oriented. Also, write it as concise as possible. Rewrite your statement as many times as you need to refine it until it feels just right.

For additional examples of personal purpose statements, check out this article: Examples of Life Purpose Statements

Step 5: Write your personal vision statement

A vision statement represents what you wish to become or wish your life to be like. It is aspirational. It also embodies what your future self and future life will look like.

This next step helps you get in touch with your vision for the future. It is an inspirational statement. Moreover, it is a sentence or paragraph that captures who you would like to be, do, and have, and it reflects your values and aspirations. Also, it defines what it will be like to be living your ideal life and will guide your way.

Here’s an example of the vision statement my husband and I came up with when we were still a few years away from realizing our current life of travel: The freedom to explore new places, passions, and opportunities while connecting with others and enriching our lives.

My own personal vision statement is: To live a long healthy and fulfilling life and to have the financial freedom to pursue my passions

To create your own personal vision statement:

• Take a few moments with a blank sheet of paper and jot down what comes to mind when you imagine what you aspire your future life to look like. Write down your intentions and review your values. Write down what you would like to do, to be, and to have in your life.
• Next summarize your ideas and create a vision statement that is as concise as possible. Then rewrite your statement as many times as you need to refine it until it feels just right.

Step 6: Determine your objectives and SMART goals

For your three focus areas, identify one or more objectives. An objective is a target or intention. For example, for my Health, Fitness, and Adventure strategic area of focus, one objective is to reach and maintain good physical fitness so I can enjoy an active lifestyle. Your objectives are attainable and they can also be something that you want to maintain or sustain.

For each objective, identify one or more SMART goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound.

For my objective to reach and maintain good physical fitness so I can enjoy an active lifestyle, here are my specific SMART goals:

Goal 1: Get at least 70,000 steps or equivalent per week (average of 10,000 steps per day)

Goal 2: Do a full body strengthening workout at least 3 times per week

Both SMART goals are specific. They are measurable, which means I know whether I have achieved them each week or not. I have also determined that they are achievable and realistic given my abilities. These goals are also time bound, in that they include what I need to do each week.

I encourage you to read my article on SMART goals:  Achieving your ideal life starts with planning and setting SMART goals . This article further explains what SMART goals are and how to create them. What’s more, it provides a SMART goal template and additional SMART goal examples.

Step 7: Put it all together on one page

Place all the elements of your personal strategic plan on one page. You can get creative and hand write your template or use my free personal strategic plan template. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, sign up to receive it below.

Once you have created your personal strategic plan, print it and place it in a prominent place. You could even frame it and hang it in your office. In addition, you could put a copy in your planner or store it on your smart phone.

Make a weekly date with yourself to review your personal strategic plan and create a weekly plan that will move you toward reaching the SMART goals outlined in your plan. For example, I like to schedule a date with myself for at least an hour every Friday afternoon to review my personal strategic plan. This is also a good time for me to reflect on my week and to set goals for the next week.

Make a plan to revisit your personal strategic plan each new year or on your birthday. Then review and revise it annually, even if it is a two-year plan.

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How to write a strategic plan.

How do you know if you have a complete strategic plan? A complete strategic plan has several components, but the various parts fall into three categories. Following our step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a strategic plan quickly.

Not to oversimplify how to write a strategic plan, but by placing all the parts of a strategic plan into three areas or categories of focus, you can see how the pieces fit together.

The three pieces of the puzzle are:

Where are we now?

Where are we going?

• How will we get there?

Get the Free Guide to Build Your Strategic Objectives (with Examples!)

Each part has certain elements to show you how and where things fit. Our 4-Phase Guide to Strategic Planning lays out each step of the planning process. You can also watch our video, The Complete Strategic Planning Checklist” for a brief overview.

Get the Free Guide for Setting OKRs that Work (with 100 examples!)

Video Transcript – The Complete Strategic Plan

Hi everyone, its Erica Olsen from OnStrategy. Welcome to today’s whiteboard video on “How do you know if you have a complete strategic plan?”

As you would expect from us, we’re going to make that as easy as possible and give you a checklist — and a checklist not only for a complete plan — but for an awesome plan. So, let’s jump in.

First things first, you need a couple of things that set your strategic direction: your mission statement, which tells us why you exist, your reason for being, and your vision statement of where you’re going. You’ve heard me say it a million times, strategic plans are all about going to a place that you are not today. And your vision statement answers that. We often lump values in this area: mission, vision, and values, because it sounds good.

But I would say that a strategic plan does not have to have values if you don’t have them already articulated. And the only reason for that is because I would highly recommend that you take a values process and run that separately from a strategic planning process, because there’s a lot of work there. And it deserves its own time and attention. And if you have your values, they should go in here if you don’t put a placeholder.

So then we move to strategy. In order to articulate your strategy, you’ve got to understand where you are today. And we use a trusty tool that is a SWOT–Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. So once you have a clear understanding of where you are today, and where the opportunities are for growth, you can build out the strategy areas of your plan, which look like this: your strategic goals.

Those are the four, or five, or six big areas of focus that make up the framework of your plan that are super important. Everything rises and falls here–your vision connects to your goals and your goals connect your objectives.

Also, in your strategy is your org-wide strategies or your organizational-wide strategies. Those are the differentiation statements, or how you’re different. Strategy is about being unique. And that’s what that statement does for you.

And then of course, clarifying where are we going to play? How are we going to win? That’s your growth strategy. Strategic plans have got to have a growth section. That’s your competitive advantages and your customer segments. So, once you have all that articulated, we can move to your annual plan, which looks like organization-wide objectives.

Those are your SMART objectives. They should be measurable, time bound, accountable, all that good stuff. And each initiative should have at least one or two quarterly action items to make sure that you can really move them in to execution. And of course, no good plan is done unless you’re clear about how you’re going to measure your success–key performance indicators or KPIs. So with that, there’s your checklist for a complete and awesome strategic plan.

Hit the like button if you like our content, and please subscribe to our channel. We’re dropping videos every Friday. Happy strategizing.

Plan Writing Step 1: Establish Your Strategic Foundation

The first step in any business strategy or organizational strategy is to start by establishing or confirming your strategic foundation – in simple terms, we mean clearly articulating why your organization exists and how you expect your team to behave (Mission and Core values). This phase of the strategic planning process creates the foundation of your strategic plan as it tells you and the rest of your organization what your starting point is and why you generally exist (your core purpose or mission).

After setting up the foundation, you can determine where you’re going or hope to go in the future and exactly how you will get there by steering your organization in the right direction.

As you think about where your organization is now, you want to look at the foundational elements of your organization’s purpose and culture (mission + values) and assess your organization’s current state (SWOT and competitive advantages).

This portion of strategic planning is designed to outline the core foundation of your organization, like why you exist and how you behave, while looking at the internal and external factors that will influence your planning elements. Below is a quick overview of those elements, which include a breakdown of your mission statement, core values, and SWOT analysis.

Who are we, and how do we behave?

Mission statement.

The mission describes your organization’s purpose – the purpose for which you were founded and why you exist.

Some mission statements include the business of the organization. Others explain what products or services they produce or the customers they serve. Does your mission statement say what you do? Why does your organization exist?

Core Values:

This clarifies what you believe and how you expect your team to behave.

Three questions to ask to clarify your core values include:

• What are the core values and beliefs of your organization?
• What values and beliefs guide your daily interactions?
• What are you and your people committed to?

While a values statement is foundational to your overall strategy, the values process can be run separately from the strategic planning process as it needs its own time and attention. Your value statements are the barometer to determine whether you are conducting your business in a way that stays true to your organization’s purpose.

Video Transcript – Overview of the Strategic Planning Process

Hi, my name is Erica Olsen. Today’s whiteboard video is an overview of the strategic planning process. Instead of going through a bullet pointed list, we’ll do it in the form of an illustration.

To orient ourselves, I want to outline the four phases of the process over here: assess, design, build, and manage. The phases of planning include assessing, designing, and building, and we spend a couple of months per year doing that.

We spend the rest of the year managing the performance and the execution of our plan. Oftentimes, we get into execution, and we’re not exactly realizing the results that we want. In which case, we go back into some parts of the planning process, and sort of rinse and repeat. Today’s video is going through the whole process, but sometimes you just make big pieces of it. So, let’s jump in.

Great strategic plans start with understanding where we are today–assessing the current state– point A. We do that by gathering an external perspective, opportunities and threats, and an internal perspective, strengths, and weaknesses. And we summarize all that information and do a SWOT analysis. And as a little Asterix, we have detailed whiteboard videos on each point today. So, if you need to dig deeper, check those out.

So, once we’re clear about where we are today, we can move into the second part of our process, which is designing the strategy, starting with our mission statement. Our mission statement is a square here because great mission statements tell us what’s in and what’s out. Why do we exist as an organization, what’s our core purpose, and then by default, what’s not. With clarity on our mission, we can move to casting our vision or our future state.

Strategic plans are all about moving organizations from where we are today to where we want to be in the future. And that’s what our vision statement does for us. It tells us where we want to go.

The rest of our plan builds a roadmap from today to tomorrow. Starting with a couple of things that help us answer, “How will we succeed?” our competitive advantages, and our long-term, organization-wide strategies. These come in different names, but let’s just use the analogy and the visual to keep us grounded.

These help as guides. They act as an umbrella over our entire plan to make sure that we’re building a plan that we can succeed and be successful and be competitive with. So, with that guideline in place, we can move to building our framework–our long-term strategic objectives. Again, there are different names for this, but let’s just use that for today. I like to see them in four categories because we want a holistic framework. We want to make sure that our plan covers our financial perspective, our customer perspective, our operational and internal perspective, and our people perspective.

Less than six strategic objectives is a pretty good idea when you’re looking at your framework because we’re going to cascade the rest of the plan from these. From there, we’re ready to move into the next phase, which is building our plan.

That looks like starting with our goals, or our corporate goals. And we’re using the word ‘goals’ to articulate quantifiable, outcome-based statements. Where do you want to be in year one, and year two, and year three? And most of the time, we use key performance indicators to help guide us along the way.

So, we like our corporate goals. And again, we’re going to cascade from our strategic objectives. We like our corporate goals to be SMART. SMART is a great acronym to make sure that you have good, quantifiable, outcome-based goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

Once we have our corporate goals in place, a couple per each long-term, strategic objective, we’re ready to move into annual operating plans. And that looks like building goals and cascading into each level of the organization. So that looks like corporate goals being cascaded into department goals, and department goals being cascaded into individual, contributor goals.

Once we’ve cascaded it down that far, we have a plan, and we’re done with the third phase. So now we have a plan. Now what? We want to move into managing execution because nobody wants to build a plan that sits on a shelf. So, there are three things you need to have in place to effectively execute.

Number one: people. You need to make sure that every person in your organization has an individual action plan that expresses ownership and accountability for what they need to get done by when. And with that, that matters because all the rest of this is just on paper if we’re not clear about that very specific piece.

The second thing is we need to make sure that we have a system in place to track and manage performance. A software system, spreadsheets, whatever it looks like, you’re going to gather a lot of data on a monthly, or quarterly and annual basis, you need a place to put that, and everybody needs to be working on the same system.

The third thing is process. You need to schedule at least monthly, or quarterly reviews of your performance because without that review, all the rest of this is just again, good ideas on paper.

So, with that, that’s an overview of the strategic planning process. Subscribe to our channel. Happy strategizing.

Plan Writing Step 2: Conduct a Current State Assessment

As you think about where your organization is now, you want to look at the foundational elements of your organization’s purpose and culture (mission + values) and assess your organization’s current state (SWOT and competitive advantages).

This portion of strategic planning is designed to outline the core foundation of your organization, like why you exist and how you behave, while looking at the internal and external factors that will influence your planning elements. Below is a quick overview of those elements, which include a breakdown of your mission statement, core values, SWOT analysis, and business objectives..

When assessing your current position, you must conduct a thorough internal and external analysis of your organization. This includes assessing two major things:

• How well you are meeting your customer and market needs.
• How well do your internal processes and employees rate in terms of efficiency and satisfaction?

It may be tempting to skip this step or feel like you know where your organization stands and can make do with a less formal process, but this is not the case. Conducting a formal internal/external analysis via a SWOT, PESTLE , market analysis, or even employee surveys will help you lay the groundwork for your strategic plan.

Successful attributes of an internal and external analysis:

• Your organization’s strengths
• Weaknesses for your organization to improve upon
• A clearly defined competitive advantage
• Market opportunities to pursue
• An understanding of your competitor’s competitive advantages
• Strategic themes that serve as the framework of your plan

SWOT is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These elements are crucial in assessing your strategic position within your organization. You want to build on your organization’s strengths, shore up the weaknesses, capitalize on the opportunities, and recognize the threats.

The SWOT can also be used as a forward-looking tool to determine where you want to go, as it allows you to see where your opportunities or threats may be in the future. These can help you pinpoint what some of your growth opportunities are.

Plan Writing Step 3: Create Your Vision of the Future

The elements of the question “Where are we going?” help you answer other questions such as “What will my organization look like in the future?”, “Where are we headed?”, and “What is my vision of the future I want to create for my company?” Because the future is hard to predict, you can have fun imagining what it may look like. The following elements help you define the future for your business:

Vision Statement

Your organization’s vision statement is the articulation of what your organization’s future makeup will be and where the organization is headed. What will your organization look like in 5 to 10 years from now? What are your company’s goals that you seek to accomplish?

It’s important that your organization’s vision always remains relevant and clear. We recommend a vision that is big, bold, and audacious—like “All children achieve their full potential” from Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

A vision statement like this would probably be true and relevant to the organization for its entirety. A vision statement may only need to change if the organization is making big moves or pivoting to address major shifts in the market or industry.

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

A sustainable competitive advantage explains what you are best at compared to your competitors. Each company strives to create an advantage that continues to be competitive over time. What can you be best at? What is your uniqueness? What can your organization potentially do better than any other organization?

Growth Strategy

Strategy is ultimately about being unique. It is about playing to the strengths that make your organization different from the others in your market. It establishes a way to match your organization’s strengths with market opportunities so that your organization comes to mind when your customer has a need.

This section explains how you travel to your final destination. Does your strategy match your strengths in a way that provides value to your customers? Does it build an organizational reputation and recognizable industry position?

Your growth strategy should clarify:

• Where are we going to play?
• How are we going to win?

Growth strategies are where your competitive advantages and your customer segments come into play. Once you have all that articulated, you can move to your annual plan, which looks like organization-wide objectives.

Plan Writing Step 4: Build Your Plan

How will we achieve our vision with action?

Strategic objectives are the steps that bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. They also connect your big, bold vision to the annual goals you need to achieve it and establish the boundaries for your organization’s focus.

Strategic Objectives

Knowing how you’ll reach your vision is the meat of your strategic plan, and it’s also the most time consuming. The reason it takes so much time to develop your strategic priorities is because there are a number of routes from your current position to your vision. Picking the right one determines how quickly or slowly you’ll get to your final destination.

Strategic objectives are long-term, continuous strategic areas that help you connect your growth strategy and annual actions to your long-term vision of success. Strategic planning with holistic objectives encompasses four areas:

• Operational

Ask yourself what the key activities within these four areas are that you need to perform in order to achieve your vision.

It’s also important to separate your strategic objectives from your day-to-day operational objectives. They almost act like ‘mini vision statements’ as they support the overall vision of success by focusing on manageable focus areas.

Ultimately, your strategic objectives are not a mishmash of department goals. Instead, they embody the company-wide direction. They are what drive the direction and growth.

It is recommended to have at least four to six strategic objectives. They are your areas of focus that create the framework for your plan, and this should stem from your vision. Your vision connects your goals, and your goals connect your objectives. Your objectives should be SMART–specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Short-term Goals/Priorities/Initiatives

Short-term strategic goals convert your strategic objectives into specific performance targets. You can use goals, priorities, or initiatives interchangeably. Here, the term ‘goals’ defines short-term action. Effective goals clearly state:

• What you want to accomplish.
• When you want to accomplish it.
• How you’re going to accomplish it.
• Who is going to be responsible.

Each goal should be specific and measurable:

• What are the 1- to 3-year goals you’re trying to achieve to reach your vision?
• What are your specific, measurable, and realistic targets of accomplishment?

Within your strategic plan, you should set milestones to measure achievement and motivate your team. Setting milestones also sets clear expectations of who is in charge of specific tasks and results.

Additionally, milestones help teams determine whether resource allocations serve to assess risks or upcoming obstacles. Strategic plans are iterative rather than sequential, so setting milestones can allow your plan to be more adaptive to address changes in the market rather than changing the overall strategic goals.

Action Items

Action items are plans that set specific actions that lead to implementing your goals. They include start and end dates and appoint a person responsible. Are your action items comprehensive enough to achieve your goals?

KPIs and Scorecards

A scorecard measures and manages your strategic plan. Each goal should have some form of measurement, whether that is through key performance indicators (KPIs) or some other method of measurement. What are the key metrics and KPIs you need to track to monitor whether you’re achieving your mission? Pick 5 to 10 goal-related measures you can use to track the progress of your plan and plug them into your scorecard.

In executing the plan, identify issues that surround the management and monitoring of the plan and how the plan is communicated and supported throughout your entire organization. How committed are you to implementing the plan to move your organization forward? Will you commit money, resources, and time to support the plan?

As you’ve been going through the planning and assessment phase of your strategic plan, you’ve hopefully thought of the resources needed to achieve this, including team members who will play a crucial role in executing the plan. Clear communication and support from your entire organization are essential for the successful execution of your strategic plan.

Before you begin executing your plan, it is essential to ensure that you have your resource allocation fully ironed out. This will prevent the possibility of ‘scope creep’ and keep you and your team aligned on your needs.

Another consideration for successful strategic plan implementation is ensuring stakeholder and employee buy-in. Stakeholder buy-in is crucial for any strategic plan.

• Identify your key stakeholders.
• Make sure you and your team understand everyone’s role in the process.
• Establish communication channels.
• Offer active listening and transparency.
• Celebrate the milestones.

However, buy-in really begins before the execution of your plan. If you’re waiting until it’s time for them to act on the plan before you consider whether they are bought in, then it’s a little late in the game. If you aren’t giving your team a voice in the planning and analysis stage and getting their input on the issues your organization faces, it will be harder to get them to buy-in to the implementation stage.

Revisiting and Refining your Strategic Plan

As stated before, the strategic planning process is iterative. It won’t always be a linear process with linear progress and achievements. This is why regularly revisiting your plan and making adjustments as needed is essential. Monitoring the pulse of your strategic plan is something that can be done by implementing a regular review cycle quarterly and revisiting your annual goals at the beginning of each fiscal year to determine what is working and what isn’t.

PS – Strategic planning is best supported by an agile review process.

We’ve covered this extensively, but the most successful strategic planning processes are supported by a consistent, rigorous review process where teams review performance monthly, review and refresh the plan quarterly, and then do a bigger plan refresh annually.

Check out our agile strategy guide here.

Challenges in Strategic Planning

The strategic planning process can be very involved and complex. It is definitely not a quick fix and it is not a one person job. Some common issues that many organizations come across in the planning and execution stages of their plans can be your team’s resistance to change, misalignment of resources, setting unrealistic goals, or a failure to adapt to external market shifts. However, with proper strategic thinking, strategy execution, and alignment with key stakeholders, these challenges can be overcome.

These challenges can be overcome by a consistent and open method of communication, a regular review process where you’re discussing your success and the things that may hinder it and fostering a culture of adaptability and ownership of your organization’s goals and accomplishments.

12 Principles to maintain your momentum during a planning and execution process:

• Make sure you have CEO buy-in to your plan and process.
• One-page plans are amazing executive summaries for your plan.
• Create a “final plan” when you move to execution. But adapt it quarterly as needed.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning.
• Empower your decision-makers.
• Celebrate the small successes.
• Encourage feedback.
• Seek internal and external feedback.
• Don’t be afraid to adapt.
• Practice open communication.
• Don’t get tangled up in the business-as-usual tasks.
• Keep your eye on the big picture.

28 Comments

Very useful to me and for my organization as formulation of strategic plans is my job

A good introduction

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I am going to write a strategic plan, but not before I read this!

Very resourceful not only for my exams but for my work as well. Thanks.

Good information, but you might want to check the typos.

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Excellent and simple answer to plan, and deliver a strategy to my business

The information is so ressourcefull. Am now a real strategic planner. Thanks.

Critical tool for advancing the management of my enterprises towards attaining sustainable ,growth projections.

IS BEEN REALLY HELPFUL THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Eeh! Its Gud information. I will use it for my LIFE strategic PLAN.

Though it was my first time to visit this site, it was very good and opened up mind more especially on what I didn’t know and thus will give it a closure look to build my confident and more knowledge

Thank you Kristin,

This has helped me to design my strategic plan well for my on coming NGO after a struggle with the old version which was not giving me a lead of how to fit in information in their right places.

I agree other than I’m missing the question “What might prevent us from coming there?”

hi fine can yaou help me about nutrition roadmap models

Hi, thank you for the helps. I am not familiar of strategic planning and this article is a good help.

now i know, i will write my strategic plan now. am grateful to the organizers this article.

Very informative. This is a good reference. Thank you.

thank you for sharing.. very clear explanation

Thanks Erica because of strong and brief text about strategy.i am strategic planner in petroleum industries health organization in Iran.

Thanks for three points for stategy .

very Nice..This article Helped me alott. Please keep doing this.Inspiration and guidence is very importatnt for someone to reach to his destination.And i think you are doing a good job. 🙂

Fantastic information, just in line with my outline. Thank you

Good information. However, I think this strategic plan process was designed for private sector more than any other sector!

I need to write a strat for the Africa expansion for a cinema group . Any ideas .

it’s really good and good introduction, thanks

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How To Write A Strategic Plan That Gets Results + Examples

Are you feeling overwhelmed with the thought of writing a strategic plan for your business? Do you want to create a plan that will help you move your team forward with inspired alignment and disciplined execution? You're not alone.

Gone are the days of rigid, 5- or 10-year planning cycles that do not leave room for flexibility and innovation. To stay ahead of the curve, you need a dynamic and execution-ready strategic plan that can guide your business through the ever-evolving landscape.

At Cascade, we understand that writing a strategic plan can be dreadful, especially in today's unpredictable environment. That's why we've developed a simple model that can help you create a clear, actionable plan to achieve your organization's goals. With our tested and proven strategic planning template , you can write a strategic plan that is both adaptable and effective .

Whether you're a seasoned strategy professional or a fresh strategy planner, this guide will walk you through the process step-by-step on how to write a strategic plan. By the end, you'll have a comprehensive, easy-to-follow strategic plan that will help you align your organization on the path to success.

Follow this guide step-by-step or skip to the part you’re most interested in: 

• Pre-Planning Phase: Build The Foundation

Cascade Model For Strategic Planning: What You Need To Know

• Key Elements of a Strategic Plan

How To Write A Strategic Plan In 6 Simple Steps

3 strategic plan examples to get you started, how to achieve organizational alignment with your strategic plan.

• Quick Overview of Key Steps In Writing A Strategic Plan

Create An Execution-Ready Strategic Plan With Cascade 🚀

*Editor’s note: This article is part of our ‘How to create a Strategy’ collection. At the end of this article, you’ll find a link to each piece within this collection so you can dig deeper into each element of an effective strategic plan and more related resources to master strategy execution.

Pre-Planning Phase: Build The Foundation 

Before we dive into writing a strategic plan, it's essential to know the basics you should cover before the planning phase. The pre-planning phase is where you'll begin to gather the data and strategic insights necessary to create an effective strategic plan.

1. Run a strategic planning workshop

The first step is to run a strategic planning workshop with your team. Get your team in the room, get their data, and gather their insights. By running this workshop, you'll foster collaboration and bring fresh perspectives to the table. And that’s not all. 

The process of co-creating and collaborating to put that plan together with stakeholders is one of the most critical factors in strategy execution . According to McKinsey’s research , initiatives in which employees contribute to development are 3.4 times more likely to be successful. They feel like the plan is a result of their efforts, and they feel ownership of it, so they're more likely to execute it. 

💡 Tip: Use strategy frameworks to structure your strategy development sessions, such as GAP analysis , SWOT analysis , Porter’s Five Forces , Ansoff matrix , McKinsey 7S model , or GE matrix . You can even apply the risk matrix that will help you align and decide on key strategic priorities.

2. Choose your strategic planning model

Before creating your strategic plan, you need to decide which structure you will use. There are hundreds of ways to structure a strategic plan. You’ve likely heard of famous strategic models such as OKRs and the Balanced Scorecard .

But beyond the well-known ones, there's also a myriad of other strategic planning models ranging from the extremely simple to the absurdly complex.

Many strategic models work reasonably well on paper, but in reality, they don't show you how to write a strategic plan that fits your organization's needs.

Here are some common weaknesses most popular strategic models have:

• They're too complicated. People get lost in terminology rather than focus on execution.
• They don’t scale. They work well for small organizations but fail when you try to extend them across multiple teams.
• They're too rigid. They force people to add layers for the sake of adding layers.
• They're neither tangible nor measurable. They’re great at stating outcomes but lousy at helping you measure success.
• They're not adaptable. As we saw in the last years, the business environment can change quickly. Your model needs to be able to work in your current situation and adapt to changing economic landscapes.

Our goal in this article is to give you a simpler, more effective way to write a strategic plan. This is a tested and proven strategic planning model that has been refined over years of working with +20,000 teams around the world. We call it the Cascade Strategy Model.

This approach has proven to be more effective than any other model we have tried when it comes to executing and implementing the strategy .

It’s easy to use and it works for small businesses, fast-growing startups, as well as multinationals trying to figure out how to write a fail-proof strategic plan.

We’ve created a simple diagram below to illustrate what a strategic plan following the Cascade Model will look like when it's completed:

Rather than a traditional roadmap , imagine your strategy as a flowchart. Each row is a mandatory step before moving on to the next.

We call our platform  Cascade for a reason: strategy must cascade throughout an organization along with values, focus areas, and objectives.

Above all, the Cascade Model is intended to be execution-ready —in other words, it has been proven to deliver success far beyond strategic planning. It adds to a successful strategic management process.Key elements of a Strategic Plan

Key Elements Of A Strategic Plan

The key elements of a strategic plan include: 

• Vision : Where do you want to get to? 
• Values : How will you behave on the journey? 
• Focus Areas : What are going to be your strategic priorities? 
• Strategic objectives : What do you want to achieve? 
• Actions and projects : How are you going to achieve the objectives? 
• KPIs : How will you measure success?

In this part of the article, we will give you an overview of each element within the Cascade Model. You can follow this step-by-step process in a spreadsheet , or sign up to get instant access to a free Cascade strategic planning template and follow along as we cover the key elements of an effective strategic plan.

Your vision statement is your organization's anchor - it defines where you want to get to and is the executive summary of your organization's purpose. Without it, your strategic plan is like a boat without a rudder, at the mercy of strong winds and currents like Covid and global supply chain disruptions.

A good vision statement can help funnel your strategy towards long-term goals that matter the most to your organization, and everything you write in your plan from this point on will help you get closer to achieving your vision.

Trying to do too much at once is a surefire way to sink your strategic plan. By creating a clear and inspiring vision statement , you can avoid this trap and provide guidance and inspiration for your team. A great vision statement might even help attract talent and investment into your organization.

For example, a bike manufacturing company might have a vision statement like, “To be the premier bike manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest.” This statement clearly articulates the organization's goals and is a powerful motivator for the team.

In short, don't start your strategic plan without a clear vision statement. It will keep your organization focused and help you navigate toward success.

📚 Recommended read: How to Write a Vision Statement (With Examples, Tips, and Formulas)

Values are the enablers of your vision statement —they represent how your organization will behave as you work towards your strategic goals. Unfortunately, many companies throw around meaningless words just for the purpose of PR, leading to a loss of credibility.

To avoid this, make sure to integrate your organization’s core values into everyday operations and interactions. In today's highly-competitive world, it's crucial to remain steadfast in your values and cultivate an organizational culture that's transparent and trustworthy.

Companies with the best company cultures consistently outperform competitors and their average market by up to 115.6%, as reported by Glassdoor . 

For example, a bike manufacturing company might have core values like:

• Accountability

These values reflect the organization's desire to become the leading bike manufacturer, while still being accountable to employees, customers, and shareholders.

👉 Here’s how to add vision and values to your strategic plan in Cascade: 

After you sign up and invite your team members to collaborate on the plan, navigate to Plans and Teams > Teams page, and add the vision, mission and values. This will help you to ensure that the company’s vision, mission statement, and values are always at top of mind for everyone.

📚When you're ready to start creating some company values, check out our guide, How To Create Company Values .

3. Focus Areas

Your focus areas are the strategic priorities that will keep your team on track and working toward the company’s mission and vision. They represent the high-level areas that you need to focus on to achieve desired business outcomes.

In fact, companies with clearly defined priorities are more likely to achieve their objectives. According to a case study by the Harvard Business Review , teams that focus on a small number of key initiatives are more likely to succeed than those that try to do too much. 

That’s also something that we usually recommend to our customers when they set up their strategic plan in Cascade. Rather than spreading your resources too thin over multiple focus areas, prioritize three to five. 

Following our manufacturing example above, some good focus areas include:

• Aggressive growth
• Producing the nation's best bikes
• Becoming a modern manufacturer
• Becoming a top place to work

Your focus areas should be tighter in scope than your vision statement, but broader than specific goals, time frames, or metrics. 

By defining your focus areas, you'll give your teams a guardrail to work within, which can help inspire innovation and creative problem-solving. 

With a clear set of focus areas, your team will be better able to prioritize their work and stay focused on the most important things, which will ultimately lead to better business results.

👉Here’s how you can set focus areas in Cascade: 

In Cascade, you can add focus areas while creating or importing an existing strategic plan from a spreadsheet. With Cascade’s Focus Area deep-dive functionality , you will be able to: 

• Review the health of your focus areas in one place.
• Get a breakdown by plans, budgets, resources, and people behind each strategic priority. 
• See something at-risk? Drill down into each piece of work regardless of how many plans it's a part of.

📚 Recommended read: Strategic Focus Areas: How to create them + Examples

4. Strategic Objectives

The importance of setting clear and specific objectives for your strategic plan cannot be overstated. 

Strategic objectives are the specific and measurable outcomes you want to achieve . While they should align with your focus areas, they should be more detailed and have a clear deadline. 

According to the 2022 State of High Performing Teams report , there is a strong correlation between goals and success not only at the individual and team level but also at the organizational level. Here’s what they found: 

• Employees who are unaware of their company's goals are over three times more likely to work at a company that is experiencing a decline in revenue than employees who are aware of the goals. 
• Companies with shrinking revenues are almost twice as likely to have employees with unclear work expectations. 

Jumping straight into actions without defining clear objectives is a common mistake that can lead to missed opportunities or misalignment between strategy and execution.

To avoid this pitfall, we recommend you add between three and six objectives to each focus area .

It's here that we need to start being a bit more specific for the first time in your strategic planning process . Let's take a look at an example of a well-written strategic objective:

• Continue top-line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2023.

This is too specific to be a focus area. While it's still very high level, it indicates what the company wants to accomplish and includes a clear deadline. Both these aspects are critical to a good strategic objective.

Your strategic objectives are the heart and soul of your plan, and you need to ensure they are well-crafted. So, take the time to create well-planned objectives that will help you achieve your vision and lead your organization to success. 

👉Here’s how you can set objectives in Cascade: 

Adding objectives in Cascade is intuitive, straightforward, and accessible from almost anywhere in the workspace. With one click, you’ll open the objective sidebar and fill out the details. These can include a timeline, the objective’s owner, collaborators, and how your objective will be measured (success criteria).

📚 Recommended read: What are Strategic Objectives? How to write them + Examples

5. Actions and projects

Once you’ve defined your strategic objectives, the next step is to identify the specific strategic initiatives or projects that will help you achieve those objectives . They are short-term goals or actionable steps you or your team members will take to accomplish objectives. They should leverage the company’s resources and core competencies. 

Effective projects and actions in your strategic plan should: 

• Be extremely specific. 
• Contain a deadline.
• Have an owner.
• Align with at least one of your strategic objectives.
• Provide clarity on how you or your team will achieve the strategic objective.

Let's take a look at an example of a well-written project continuing with our bike manufacturing company using the strategic objective from above:

Strategic objective: Continue top-line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2023.

Project: Expand into the fixed gear market by 31st December 2023.

This is more specific than the objective it links to, and it details what you will do to achieve the objective.

Another common problem area for strategic plans is that they never quite get down to the detail of what you're going to do.

It's easier to state "we need to grow our business," but without concrete projects and initiatives, those plans will sit forever within their PowerPoint templates, never to see the light of day after their initial creation.

Actions and projects are where the rubber meets the road. They connect the organizational strategic goals with the actual capabilities of your people and the resources at their disposal. Defining projects is a vital reality check every strategic plan needs.

👉Here’s how you create actions and projects in Cascade: 

From the Objective sidebar, you can choose to add a project or action under your chosen objective. In the following steps, you can assign an owner and timeline to each action or project.

Plus, in Cascade, you can track the progress of each project or action in four different ways. You can do it manually, via milestones, checklists, or automatically by integrating with Jira and 1000+ other available integrations .  

📚 Recommended read: How to create effective projects

Measuring progress towards strategic objectives is essential to effective strategic control and business success. That's where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in. KPIs are measurable values that track progress toward achieving key business objectives . They keep you on track and help you stay focused on the goals you set for your organization.

To get the most out of your KPIs, make sure you link them to a specific goal or objective. In this way, you'll avoid creating KPIs that don't contribute to your objectives and distract you from focusing on what matters. 

Ideally, you will add both leading and lagging KPIs to each objective so you can get a more balanced view of how well you're progressing. Leading KPIs can indicate future performance while lagging KPIs show how well you’ve done in the past. Both types of KPIs are critical for operational planning and keeping your business on track.

Think of KPIs as a form of signpost in your organization. They provide critical insights that inform business leaders of their organization’s progress toward key business objectives. Plus, they can help you identify opportunities faster and capitalize on flexibility. 

👉Here’s how you can set and track KPIs in Cascade: 

In Cascade , you can add measures while creating your objectives or add them afterward. Open the Objective sidebar and add your chosen measure. 

When you create your Measure, you can choose how to track it. Using Cascade, you can track it manually or automatically. You can automate tracking via 1000+ integrations , including Excel spreadsheets and Google Sheets. In this way, you can save time and ensure that your team has up-to-date information for faster and more confident decision-making.

📚 Recommended reads:

• 10 Popular KPI Software Tools To Connect & Visualize Your Data (2023 Guide)
• ‍ How To Track KPIs To Hit Your Business Goals

Corporate Strategic Plan 

Following the steps outlined above, you should end up with a strategic plan that looks something like this:

This is a preview of a corporate strategic plan template that is pre-filled with examples. Here you can use the template for free and begin filling it out to align with your organization's needs. Plus, it’s suitable for organizations of all sizes and any industry. 

Once you fill in the template, you can also switch to the timeline view. You’ll get a complete overview of how the different parts of your plan are distributed across the roadmap in a Gantt chart view.

This template will help you create a structured approach to the strategic planning process, focus on key strategic priorities, and drive accountability to achieve necessary business outcomes. 

👉 Get your free corporate strategic plan template here.

Coca-Cola Strategic Plan 

Need a bit of extra inspiration to start writing your organization’s strategic plan? Check out this strategic plan example, inspired by Coca-Cola’s business plan: 

This template is pre-filled with Coca-Cola’s examples so you can inspire your strategic success on one of the most iconic brands on the planet. 

👉 Grab your free example of a Coca-Cola strategic plan here.

The Ramsay Health Care expansion strategy

Ramsay Health Care is a multinational healthcare provider with a strong presence in Australia, Europe, and Asia.

Almost all of its growth was organic and strategic. The company founded its headquarters in Sydney, Australia, but in the 21st century, it decided to expand globally through a primary strategy of making brownfield investments and acquisitions in key locations.

Ramsay's strategy was simple yet clever. By becoming a majority shareholder of the biggest local players, the company expanded organically in each region by leveraging and expanding their expertise.

Over the last two decades, Ramsay's global network has grown to 460 locations across 10 countries with over $13 billion in annual revenue.

📚 Recommended read: Strategy study: The Ramsay Health Care Growth Study

✨ Bonus resource: We've created a list of the most popular and free strategic plan templates in our library that will help you build a strategic plan based on the Cascade model explained in this article. You can use these templates to create a plan on a corporate, business unit, or team level.

We highlighted before that other strategic models often fail to scale strategic plans and goals scales across multiple teams and organizational levels. 

In an ideal world, you want to have a maximum of two layers of detail underneath each of your focus areas. This means you'll have a focus area, followed by a layer of objectives. Underneath the objectives, you'll have a layer of actions, projects, and KPIs.

If you have a single team that’s responsible for the strategy execution, this works well. However, how do you implement a strategy across multiple and cross-functional teams? And why is it important? 

According to LSA research of 410 companies across 8 industries, highly aligned companies grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable. And this is what Cascade can help you achieve. 

To achieve achieve organization-wide alignment with your strategic plan and impact the bottom line, there are two ways to approach it in Casade: through contributing objectives or shared objectives .

1. Contributing objectives

This approach involves adding contributing objectives that link to your main strategic objectives, like this:

For each contributing objective, you simply repeat the Objective → Action/Project → KPI structure as follows:

Here's how you can create contributing objectives in Cascade: 

Option A: Create contributing objectives within the same plan 

This means creating multiple contributing objectives within the same strategic plan that contribute to the main objective. 

However, be aware that if you have a lot of layers, your strategic plan can become cluttered, and people might have difficulty understanding how their daily efforts contribute to the strategic plan at the top level. 

For example, the people responsible for managing contributing objectives at the bottom of the plan ( functional / operational level ) will lose visibility on how are their objectives linked to the main focus areas and objectives (at a corporate / business level ). 

This approach is best suited to smaller organizations that only need to add a few layers of objectives to their plan.

Option B: Create contributing objectives from multiple plans linking to the main objective

This approach creates a network of aligned strategic plans within your organization. Each plan contains a set of focus areas and one single layer of objectives, each with its own set of projects, actions, and KPIs. This concept looks like this:

This example illustrates an objective that is a main objective in the IT strategic plan , but also contributes to the main strategic plan's objective.

For example, let’s say that your main business objective is to improve customer satisfaction by reducing product delivery time by 25% in the next quarter. This objective requires multiple operational teams within your organization to work together to achieve a shared objective. 

Each team will create its own objective in its plan to contribute to the main objective: 

• Logistics team: Reduce the shipment preparation time by 30%
• IT team: Implement new technology to reduce manual handling in the warehouse
• Production team: Increase production output by hour for 5%   

Here’s how this example would look like within Cascade platform:

Although each contributing objective was originally created in its own plan, you can see how each contributing objective relates to the main strategic objective and its status in real-time.

2. Shared objectives

In Cascade, shared objectives are the same objectives shared across different strategic plans.

For example, you can have an objective that is “Achieve sustainable operations”. This objective can be part of the Corporate Strategy Plan, but also part of the Operations Plan , Supply Chain Plan , Production Plan, etc. In short, this objective becomes a shared objective between multiple teams and strategic plan. 

This approach helps you to:

• Cascade your business strategy as deep as you want across a near-infinite number of people while maintaining strategic alignment throughout your organization .
• Create transparency and a much higher level of engagement in the strategy throughout your organization since objective owners are able to identify how their shared efforts contribute to the success of the main business objectives.

The more shared objectives you have across your organization, the more your teams will be aligned with the overarching business strategy. This is what we call " alignment health ”. 

Here’s how you can see the shared objectives in the alignment map and analyze alignment health within Cascade:

You get a snapshot of how is your corporate strategic plan aligned with sub-plans from different business units or departments and the status of shared objectives. This helps you quickly identify misaligned initiatives and act before it’s too late.  Plus, cross-functional teams have better visibility of how their efforts contribute to shared objectives. 

So whether you choose contributing objectives or shared objectives, Cascade has the tools and features to help you achieve organization-wide alignment and boost your bottom line.

Quick Overview Of Key Steps In Writing A Strategic Plan

Here’s a quick infographic to help you remember how everything connects and why each element is critical to creating an effective strategic plan:

This simple answer to how to write a strategic plan avoids confusing jargon and has elements that the whole organization can both get behind and understand. 

💡Tip: Save this image or bookmark this article for your next strategic planning session.

If you're struggling to write an execution-ready strategic plan, the Cascade model is the solution you've been looking for. With its clear, easy-to-understand terminology, and simple linkages between objectives, projects, and KPIs, you can create a plan that's both scalable and flexible.

But why is a flexible and execution-ready strategic plan so important? It's simple: without a clear and actionable plan, you'll never be able to achieve your business objectives. By using the Cascade Strategic Planning Model, you'll be able to create a plan that's both tangible and measurable, with KPIs that help you track progress towards your goals.

However, the real value of the Cascade framework lies in its flexibility . By creating links between main business objectives and your teams’ objectives, you can easily scale your plan without losing focus. Plus, the model's structure of linked layers means that you can always adjust your strategy in response to new challenges or opportunities and keep everyone on the same page. 

So if you want to achieve results with your strategic plan, start using Cascade today. With its unique combination of flexibility and focus, it's the perfect tool for any organization looking to master strategy execution and succeed in today's fast-paced business world. 

Want to see Cascade in action? Get started for free or book a 1:1 demo with Cascade’s in-house strategy expert.

This article is part one of our mini-series "How to Write a Strategic Plan". This first article will give you a solid strategy model for your plan and get the strategic thinking going.

Think of it as the foundation for your new strategy. Subsequent parts of the series will show you how to create the content for your strategic plan.

Articles in our How to Write a Strategic Plan series

• How To Write A Strategic Plan: The Cascade Model (This article)
• How to Write a Good Vision Statement
• How To Create Company Values
• Creating Strategic Focus Areas
• How To Write Strategic Objective
• How To Create Effective Projects
• How To Write KPIs + Ultimate Guide To Strategic Planning

More resources on strategic planning and strategy execution: 

• 6 Steps to Successful Strategy Execution
• 4-Step Strategy Reporting Process (With Template)
• Annual Planning: Plan Like a Pro In 5 Steps (+ Template) 
• 18 Free Strategic Plan Templates (Excel & Cascade) 2023
• The Right Way To Set Team Goals
• 23 Best Strategy Tools For Your Organization in 2023

Popular articles

Viva Goals Vs. Cascade: Goal Management Vs. Strategy Execution

What Is A Maturity Model? Overview, Examples + Free Assessment

How To Implement The Balanced Scorecard Framework (With Examples)

The Best Management Reporting Software For Strategy Officers (2024 Guide)

Your toolkit for strategy success.

How to Write a Strategic Plan: The Fundamentals

Topic: Strategic Planning

“I don’t know where to start.” 

With so many thoughts and ideas swirling around, it is easy to feel overwhelmed when embarking on a strategy development and planning process. Many a strategy coaching client will start the engagement with a long PowerPoint full of ideas and analyses — their head swimming with more questions than answers. It can be hard to get your footing when creating the future.

At its most fundamental level, a strategic plan outlines:

• Where are you NOW? This is your current state (internal and external landscape).
• Where do you want to BE? This is your desired future state.
• How will you GET there? This is the pathway from here to there.

This graphic remains my favorite reference to strategy development, both for its playfulness and its simplicity. 

[Note: This article is oriented toward strategic planning in established businesses and assumes foundational elements like mission, vision, and values already exist. They are the broader container to this next‑level strategy work.]

HERE: Where are you now?

An easy way for strategic leaders to begin is by looking at what IS — internally and externally. This determines your current strategic position and assesses how you may need to change. 

Many strategy frameworks have been created to derive strategic insight into your “Here,” such as the age‑old SWOT :

• Strengths (internal)
• Weaknesses (internal)
• Opportunities (external)
• Threats (external)

SWOT has staying power for a reason. It is a quick way to assess your current state. 

There are plenty more frameworks that you can explore, AND it is easy to invest a lot of time here without sufficient impact .

PRO TIP: When I led corporate strategy, we used a simple litmus test to guide our analytic work. We considered the “so what” of analysis before we started it. If we couldn’t envision a potential insight or strategic direction‑setting decision that would be informed by the analysis, we let it go. 

Watch out for the comfort and false sense of “knowing” that analytics can provide. We can’t analyze, or know, our way into the future. Don’t let analyses seduce you away from the hard work of creating the future. 

Plan/Pathway: How will you get from here to there?

The strategic plan is the most tangible part of strategy development. Just like an operating plan, it includes goals, objectives, and key activities to deliver the desired results.

Outlining your key initiatives can be a practical place to start your strategic plan as you likely already have a sense for what needs to be different from today. What new capabilities need to be built by when (think people, skills, process, system, culture)? 

For example:

• A sales channel to a new customer type 
• A different way of selling (i.e. product to solution)
• Systems and automation to support scaling and financial viability
• A product development process to accelerate new product introduction and increase the likelihood of market success

Where do you need to invest resources to position the business for the future ?

Core Elements

Following are the core elements of your strategic plan. Each brings greater and greater focus and specificity of action that will move you toward your envisioned future state. 

1. Strategic Imperatives  

These are the long-term focus areas of change that move you toward your desired future state. They should sustain over the planning horizon and focus the organization on the most critical change state for the business. I recommend no more than three to five strategic imperatives. Areas of change may include who you serve (core customers/market geographies), how you serve them (sources of value creation), and the enabling capabilities.

While different labels may be used — strategic imperatives, objectives, priorities — whatever you call them, they are overarching statements of what you must achieve. What must be different in three to five years for you to have positioned the business for the future? 

Transform cancer standard of care

Be our customers’ scientific partner of choice

Establish global presence

Scale the organization 

2. Strategic Objectives or Measures

Strategic measures tell us how we will know that we are advancing our goals. They provide a tangible way to measure progress toward a goal that should be tracked and monitored on a regular basis.

Strategic measures should sustain over the planning horizon, with annual targets set for each year that put the organization on the right  trajectory to achieving its desired future state.

3. Strategic Initiatives

This is where the plan becomes actionable as you invest limited resources to advance your strategic objectives. Strategic initiatives are projects that include a scope, budget, start/end date, and a responsible party/function. They are the specific actions that close the gap from “here” to “there” and allow you to hit your targets. 

What makes these different from an operational initiative? Operations preserve value. Strategy increases value. Operational initiatives tend to be continuous improvement of existing processes. At this point, the Southwest example above is an existing process. But when they were creating their differentiated strategy, this was a new organizational capability. Strategic initiatives focus on creating new capability and value to … you guessed it, “position the organization for the future.”  

Organizations often have a long list of initiatives — much longer than the resources available to fund the plan. Prioritization will be a combination of relative priority across initiatives and relative priority over the planning horizon. This HBR article outlines a helpful approach to determining relative priorities.

The strategic roadmap guides prioritization, focus, and resource allocation over the planning horizon. In this step we envision what needs to happen (strategic initiatives) in the next 1-2 years, 2-3 years, 3+ years … to realize your “there”? 

5. Long-Range Financial Plan

The larger your organization, the more likely a long-range financial planning process exists to create a three- to five-year income statement. As the P&L is the common language of business (and investors), it becomes a way to speak to your business future.

Ideally, the financial plan is rooted in your strategic thinking and represents the quantification of your strategic initiatives. It is a way to envision/confirm your long-term growth drivers and how the overall investment profile of the organization may change over time (i.e., expense ratios like R&D or SG&A as a percent of sales). 

The key is to use the financial plan as a strategic thinking exercise versus a budgeting exercise. Despite the concrete nature of numbers, we are still creating an unknowable future.  

PRO TIP: Link your strategic imperatives to a revenue growth walk from “here” to “there.” So if you will increase revenue by $100M over the planning horizon, how much of that comes from new products/services, new customers, geographic expansion?

THERE: Where do you want to be?

You might be wondering why we didn’t focus on “There” before the strategic plan. No doubt it sets the strategic direction, and all other decisions should flow from it. AND “There” can be the hardest of the three core elements because it forces us to make bets on a future we can only guess at. 

This is where we flex our strategic thinking . Where we anticipate, challenge the status quo, rethink opportunities, and create new realities. 

In creating your strategic plan and key initiatives, you inherently are defining a change state. A list of goals to achieve — things to make different over the planning horizon. It is easy for the plan to be just that — a list of goals and initiatives. A number of “go do’s,” but to what end? What do they all add up to? 

This is the art of strategy and what makes your plan truly strategic. 

A strategist’s job is to create, differentiate, and … surprise! … position for the future . To build an organization in a way that creates distinct value for customers AND is difficult for competitors to replicate.

What is your vision for that future? And how will you describe it in a way that drives aligned action throughout the organization? 

Most organizations have a high-level vision statement that describes the impact the company wants to make on a community or on the world as a result of their services. Like “a world without cancer.” I refer to this as “Big V” — Vision. It should be inspirational, foundational, and built to last. 

PRO TIP: Visions often endure for decades, which makes them too broad to guide nearer-term strategic decision-making. For those, I think about “little v” vision, which describes that future position in the next three to five years.

In a previous article , I shared different approaches to defining your “there” (“little v”) with an emphasis on where you want to go instead of what you want to achieve. This clarity of strategic direction provides the strategic basis to decide where to focus resources for greatest impact. 

Picking Your Point of Entry

As you embark on your next strategy development and planning process, remember the purpose of your strategic plan is to align short-term actions with long-term direction . 

You will need to create a point of view about:

• Your HERE. Your current state (internal and external landscape).
• Your THERE. Where do you want to BE? What is your desired future state?
• Your PLAN/PATHWAY. How will you GET from here to there?

Perhaps not in that order. Before you jump into the deep end of the “strategy pool,” play around with the core elements of your strategic plan.

The plan is the most actionable. It also leverages your business insight and acumen. Many leaders can articulate what needs to change, even when it may be harder for them to articulate the why — the strategic logic behind their recommendations. And many a plan has been created without this strategic clarity that still created greater organizational alignment. 

From there you can experiment with ways to make your plan more strategic , distinct, and transformational. What new or distinct insight from your “here” might inform your “there”?

The art of strategy will emerge as you go.

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What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

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

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

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

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

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What is strategic planning?

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

What is a strategic plan?

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

Typically, your strategic plan should include: 

Your company’s mission statement

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

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

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?

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

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

Step 1: Assess your current business strategy and business environment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does your organization currently do well?

What separates you from your competitors?

What are your most valuable internal resources?

What tangible assets do you have?

What is your biggest strength? 

Weaknesses:

What does your organization do poorly?

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

What do your competitors do better than you?

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

What processes or products need improvement? 

Opportunities:

What opportunities does your organization have?

How can you leverage your unique company strengths?

Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?

How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?

Is there an emerging need for your product or service? 

What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?

Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?

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

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

Step 2: Identify your company’s goals and objectives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 3: Develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics

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

As you build your strategic plan, you should define:

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

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

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

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

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

Step 4: Implement and share your plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed

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

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

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

Build a smarter strategic plan with a work management platform

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

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

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

Strategic planning FAQs

Still have questions about strategic planning? We have answers.

Why do I need a strategic plan?

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

When should I create a strategic plan?

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

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

What is a strategic planning template?

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

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

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

You should create a business plan when you’re: 

Just starting your business

Significantly restructuring your business

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

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

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

Simply put: 

A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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• Section 2. Proclaiming Your Dream: Developing Vision and Mission Statements

Chapter 8 Sections

• Section 1. An Overview of Strategic Planning or "VMOSA" (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans)
• Section 3. Creating Objectives
• Section 4. Developing Successful Strategies
• Section 5. Developing an Action Plan
• Section 6. Obtaining Feedback from Constituents: What Changes are Important and Feasible?
• Section 7. Identifying Action Steps in Bringing About Community and System Change
• Main Section

Creating your organization's vision and mission statements are the first two steps in the VMOSA action planning process. Developing a vision and mission statement is crucial to the success of community initiatives. These statements explain your group's aspirations in a concise manner, help your organization focus on what is really important, and provide a basis for developing other aspects of your strategic plan. This section provides a guide for developing and implementing your organization's vision and mission statements.

What is a vision statement?

Your vision is your dream. It's what your organization believes are the ideal conditions for your community; that is, how things would look if the issue important to you were completely, perfectly addressed. It might be a world without war, or a community in which all people are treated as equals, regardless of gender or racial background.

Whatever your organization's dream is, it may be well articulated by one or more  vision statements , which are short phrases or sentences that convey your community's hopes for the future. By developing a vision statement or statements, your organization clarifies the beliefs and governing principles of your organization, first for yourselves, and then for the greater community.

There are certain characteristics that most vision statements have in common. In general, vision statements should be:

• Understood and shared by members of the community
• Broad enough to include a diverse variety of local perspectives
• Inspiring and uplifting to everyone involved in your effort
• Easy to communicate - for example, they are generally short enough to fit on a T-shirt

Here are some examples of vision statements that meet the above criteria:         

• A community where all individuals and families achieve their human potential. 
• CALCASA  envisions a world free from sexual violence.  
• A future where tobacco is a thing of the past. ( Truth Initiative ) 
• A world without Alzheimer’s Disease. ( Alzheimer’s Association )
• The United States is a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness. ( ASPCA )
• A world where everyone has a decent place to live. ( Habitat for Humanity )

What is a mission statement?

The next step of the action planning process is to ground your vision in practical terms. This is where developing a  mission statement comes in. An organization's mission statement describes  what  the group is going to do and  why  it's going to do that. An example is "Promoting care and caring at the end of life through coalitions and advocacy."

Mission statements are similar to vision statements, in that they, too, look at the big picture. However, they're more concrete, and they are definitely more "action-oriented" than vision statements. Your vision statement should inspire people to dream; your mission statement should inspire them to action.

The mission statement might refer to a problem, such as an inadequate housing, or a goal, such as providing universal access to health care. And, while they don't go into a lot of detail, they hint - very broadly - at how your organization might fix these problems or reach these goals. Some general guiding principles about mission statements are that they are:

• Concise . While not as short as vision statements, mission statements generally still get their point across in one sentence.
• Outcome-oriented . Mission statements explain the fundamental outcomes your organization is working to achieve.
• Inclusive . While mission statements do make statements about your group's key goals, it's very important that they do so very broadly. Good mission statements are not limiting in the strategies or sectors of the community that may become involved in the project.

The following examples should help you understand what we mean by effective mission statements.

• Promoting community health and development by connecting people, ideas and resources. (Community Tool Box)
• The California Coalition Against Sexual Assault ( CALCASA ) provides leadership, vision and resources to rape crisis centers, individuals and other entities committed to ending sexual violence.
• Our mission is to eliminate Alzheimer's disease through the advancement of research; to provide and enhance care and support for all affected; and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. ( Alzheimer’s Association )
• The mission of the ASPCA , as stated by Henry Bergh in 1866, is "to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States”.
• Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.

Why should you create vision and mission statements?

Why is it important that your organization develops vision and mission statements like those above? First of all, these statements can help your organization focus on what is really important. Although your organization knows what you are trying to do to improve your community, it's easy to lose sight of this when dealing with day-to-day organizational hassles. Your vision and mission statements remind members what is important.

Second, your vision and mission statements give other individuals and organizations a snapshot view of what your group is and what it wants to accomplish. When your vision and mission statements are easily visible (for example, if they are on the letterhead of your stationery), people learn about your organization without having to work hard for the information. Then, those with common interests can take the time necessary to learn more. This efficiency is very helpful when you are recruiting other people and organizations to join your effort.

Finally, vision and mission statements focus members on their common purpose . Not only do the statements themselves serve as a constant reminder of what is important to your organization, the process of developing them allows people to see the organization as "theirs”. Creating these statements builds motivation as members will believe in something more completely if they had a hand in developing it.

Having a clear and compelling vision statement has other advantages, such as:

• Drawing people to common work
• Giving hope for a better future
• Inspiring community members to realize their dreams through positive, effective action
• Providing a basis for developing the other aspects of your action planning process: your mission, objectives, strategies, and action plans

Having a clear and compelling mission statement also has more advantages, such as:

• Converting the broad dreams of your vision into more specific, action-oriented terms
• Explaining your goals to interested parties in a clear and concise manner
• Enhancing your organization's image as being competent and professional, thus reassuring funding sources that their investment was (or would be!) a smart choice

How do you create vision and mission statements?

Now having a better understanding of vision and mission statements, your organization has the tools to develop your unique statements. If your group has already developed vision and mission statements, you might wish to look at them in light of the criteria we discussed above. If members of your organization feel your current statements could be improved, this process can be easily used to modify them. Let’s begin.

Learn what is important to people in your community

As developing your vision and mission statements is the first step in creating your action plan, it is especially important that these first steps are well grounded in community beliefs and values. Awareness of the important issues in your community is critical for the development of a strong, effective, and enduring action group.

Therefore, one of the first steps you should take when developing the vision and mission of your organization is to define the issue(s) that matter most to people in your community. How do you go about doing so?

There are many different ways you can gather this information, including:

Conducting  "public forums" or "listening sessions" with members of the community to gather ideas, thoughts, and opinions about how they would like to see the community transformed.

In public forums or listening sessions, people gather from throughout the community to talk about what is important to them. These meetings are usually led by facilitators, who guide a discussion of what people perceive to be the community's strengths and problems, and what people wish the community was like. Someone typically records these meetings, and a transcript of what is said provides a basis for subsequent planning.

Holding focus groups  with the people interested in addressing the issue(s), including community leaders, people most affected by the issues, businesses, church leaders, teachers, etc.

Focus groups are similar to public forums and listening sessions, but they are smaller and more intimate. Generally speaking, they are comprised of small groups of people with similar backgrounds, so they will feel comfortable talking openly about what concerns them. For example, the group members are generally about the same age, are of the same ethnic group, or have another common identity and/or experience. Focus groups function like public forums, and also use facilitators and recorders to focus and document discussion.

Your organization may hold focus groups with several different groups of people to get the most holistic view of the issue at hand. For example, if your organization is involved in child health, you might have one focus group with health care providers, another with parents or children, and still another with teachers. Once you have a rough mission statement, you might again hold a focus group for feedback.

Obtaining interviews  with people in leadership and service positions, including such individuals as local politicians, school administrators, hospital and social service agency staff, about what problems or needs they believe exist in your community.

Often, these individuals will have both facts and experiences to back up their perspectives. If so, this data can be used later if and when you apply for funding, or when you request community support to address the issues. More information on this topic can be found in Chapter 3, Section 12: Conducting Interviews.

It’s important to realize that these different ways of gathering information from your community are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if you have the resources, it is recommended to do all of the above: to have some time for the community at large to respond, then spend more time in focus groups with the people you believe might contribute greatly to (or be most affected by) some of the issues brought up in the public forum. And finally, some one-on-one time with community leaders can strengthen your knowledge and purpose; remember, there are community members who have been wrestling with the same issues you are now looking at for a long time. Take advantage of that experience so you don’t waste time on something that’s already been done.

Decide what to ask

No matter if you are talking to one person or a crowd, your purpose is the same: to learn what matters in your community. Here's a list of questions you might use to focus your discussions with community members. These questions may be used for individual interviews, focus groups, public forums, or in  any other way you choose  to gather information.

• What is your dream/vision for our community?
• What would you like to see change?
• What kind of community (or program, policy, school, neighborhood, etc.) do we want to create?
• What do you see as the community's (or school's, neighborhood's, etc.) major issues or problems?
• What do you see as the community's major strengths and assets?
• What do you think should be the purpose of this organization (or effort)?
• Why should these issues be addressed?
• What would success look like?

When your organization is gathering input, the facilitator should encourage everyone to share their most idealistic, hopeful, and positive ideas. Don't worry right now about what's practical and what's not - this can be narrowed down later. Encourage everyone to be bold and participate, and to remember that you are trying to articulate a vision of a better community.

Decide on the general focus of your organization

Once members of your organization have heard what the community has to say, it's time to decide the general focus of your organization or initiative. First of all, what topic is most important to your organization and your community? For example, will you tackle urban development or public health issues? Racism or economic opportunity?

A second question to answer is at what level will your organization work. Will your organization begin only in one school, or in one neighborhood, or in your city? Or will your initiative's focus be broader, working on a state, national, or even international level?

These are questions for which there are no easy answers. Your organization will need to consider lessons learned from the community and decide through thoughtful discussion the best direction for your organization. We suggest you  open this discussion up  to everyone in your organization to obtain the best results.

However, if your organization is receiving grant money or major funding from a particular agency, the grant maker may specify what the general goal of your group should be. For example, if your group accepts a grant to reduce child hunger, at least part of its mission will be devoted to this purpose. Even in these circumstances, however, the community should determine the ultimate vision and mission that will best advance what matters to local people.

Develop your vision and mission statements

Now that your organization has a clearer understanding of what the group will do and why, you are in a prime position to develop the statements that will capture your ideas.

As you are looking at potential statements, remember to keep them broad and enduring. Vision and mission statements wide in scope allow for a sense of continuity with a community's history, traditions, and broad purposes. Additionally, vision and mission statements that are built to last will guide efforts both today and tomorrow.

Vision Statements

First of all, remind members of your organization that it often takes several vision statements to fully capture the dreams of those involved in a community improvement effort. You don't need - or even want - just one "perfect" phrase. Encourage people to suggest all of their ideas and write them down, possibly on poster paper at the front of the room, so people can be further inspired by the ideas of others. As you do this, remind the group of:

• What you have learned from your discussions with community members
• What your organization has decided will be your focus
• What you learned about vision statements at the beginning of this section

If you have a hard time getting started, you might wish to check out some of the vision statements in this section's Examples. You might ask yourself how well they meet the above suggestions.

After you have brainstormed a list of suggestions, your group can discuss critically the different ideas. Oftentimes, some of the vision statements will jump out at you - someone will suggest it, and people will just instantly think, "That's it!"

If it’s more complicated than that, you should ask yourselves the following questions:

• Will it draw people to common work?
• Does it give hope for a better future?
• Will it inspire community members to realize their dreams through positive, effective action?
• Does it provide a basis for developing the other aspects of your action planning process?

A final caution: try not to get caught up in having a certain number of vision statements for your organization. Whether you ultimately end up with two vision statements or ten, what is most important is that the statements together provide a holistic view of your organization’s vision.

Mission Statements

The process of writing your mission statement is similar to developing your vision statements. The same brainstorming process can help you develop possibilities for your mission statement. Remember, though, that unlike vision statements, you will want to develop a single mission statement for your work. After brainstorming possible statements, you will want to answer questions for each one:

• Does it describe what your organization will do and why it will do it?
• Is it concise (one sentence)?
• Is it outcome oriented?
• Is it inclusive of the goals and people who may become involved in the organization?

Together, your organization can decide on a statement that best meets these criteria.

Obtain consensus on your vision and mission statements

Once members of your organization have developed your vision and mission statements, your next step might be to learn what other community members think of them before you use the statements regularly.

To do this, you could talk to the same community leaders or focus group members you spoke to originally. First of all, this can help you ensure that they don't find the statements offensive in any way. For example, an initiative that wants to include young men more fully in its teen pregnancy prevention project might have "Young men in Asheville are the best informed" as one of their vision statements. But taken out of context, some people community members might believe this statement means young men are given better information or education than young women, thus offending another group of people.

Second, you will want to ensure that community members agree that the statements together capture the spirit of what they believe and desire. Your organization might find it has omitted something very important by mistake.

Decide how you will use your vision and mission statements

Finally, it's important to remember that while developing the statements is a huge step for your organization worth celebration, there is more work to be done. Next, you have to decide how to use these statements. Otherwise, all of your hard work would lead to nothing. The point is to get the message across.

There are many ways in which your organization may choose to spread its vision and mission statements. To name just a few examples, you might:

• Add them to your letterhead or stationery
• Use them on your website
• Give away T-shirts, or bookmarks, or other small gifts with them
• Add them to your press kit
• Use them when you give interviews
• Display them on the cover of your annual report

...and so on. Again, this is a step that will use all of your creativity.

Developing effective vision and mission statements are two of the most important tasks your organization will tackle because almost everything else you do is affected by these statements. We hope that this section has allowed you to feel more confident in your group's ability to create successful and inspiring vision and mission statements. Remember, think broadly and boldly! Good luck!

Online Resources

Coalition Vision, Mission, and Goals defines SWOT Analysis, coalition vision and mission statements, and goals and strategies.

Print Resources

Barry, B. (1982). Strategic planning workbook for non-profit organizations . St. Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.

Bryson, J. (1988).  Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Coover, V., et al. (1985).   Resource manual for a living revolution: a handbook of skills & tools for social change activists . Philadelphia: New Society Publisher.

Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Richter, K. P., Lewis, R., Williams, E., Harris, K., Winter, K., in collaboration with Bradley, B. & Copple, J. (1992). Preventing adolescent substance abuse: an action planning guide for community -based initiatives . Lawrence, KS: Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development, University of Kansas.

Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Richter, K., Lewis, R., Harris, K., Williams, E., & Fischer, J., in collaboration with Vincent, M., & Johnson, C. (1992). Preventing adolescent pregnancy: an action planning guide for community-based initiatives. Lawrence, KS: Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development, University of Kansas.

Kansas Health Foundation.  VMOSA: An approach to strategic planning. Wichita, KS: Kansas Health Foundation.

Lord, R. (1989). The non-profit problem solver: A management guide . New York, NY: Praeger Publishers.

Olenick, J., & Olenick, R. (1991). A non-profit organization operating manual: planning for survival and growth . New York, NY: Foundation Center.

Stonich, P. (1982). Implementing strategy: making strategy happen . Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Company.

Unterman, I., & Davis, R.  (1984). Strategic management of not-for-profit organizations . New York, NY: CBS Educational and Professional Publishing.

Wolff, T. (1990). Managing a non-profit organization . New York, NY: Prentice Hall Press.

Organizations

American Planning Association 1776 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20036 (202) 872-0611 FAX: (202) 872-0643

Free Strategic Planning Templates

By Joe Weller | May 16, 2018

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The success of your organization — no matter what size or industry — depends on the thoroughness of your planning and vision. A strategic plan can provide a roadmap for accomplishing specific goals, and will increase your chances of reaching objectives on time and budget. In this article, we’ve rounded up the top strategic planning templates in Microsoft Word and Excel, all of which are free to download and fully customizable.

Additionally, we've provided customizable strategic planning templates in Smartsheet, a collaborative, real-time work execution platform that empowers you to better plan, manage, and report on strategic initiatives.

Strategic Business Plan Template

Download Strategic Business Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

A comprehensive, strategic business plan may include company information, SWOT analysis, research, goals, resources, risks and more. A template provides structure for your business planning process as well as a communication tool that’s simple to update or modify. Use the template as a guide for evaluating your business, identifying opportunities for growth and development, and creating a strategic plan.

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Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

Download Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

A nonprofit strategic plan often emphasizes vision, values, and mission as the foundation for future objectives. A template can be used to clearly define who is being served and what issues need to be addressed. As with a business plan, nonprofit planning may include sections for evaluating risks and opportunities, measuring financial resources, developing a marketing plan, and creating objectives for organizational change.

HR Strategic Plan Template

‌ Download HR Strategic Plan Template

Create a detailed human resources strategic plan for your organization, or modify the template to focus on one specific area, such as recruitment or employee relations. Use the template to translate strategies into measurable action plans. This simple layout makes it easy for readers to quickly view key information.

IT Strategic Planning Template

‌ Download IT Strategic Planning Template

IT is an essential part of any business, nonprofit, school, or government agency. While information technology is just one part of an overall business strategy, creating a separate strategic plan for IT will help ensure that you have a comprehensive roadmap to follow for managing and purchasing new assets, understanding your current and potential technology usage, and aligning your IT goals with business objectives.

Strategic Marketing Plan Template

‌ Download Strategic Marketing Plan Template

Use this free template to help shape your marketing strategy. It combines information on your target market and business with marketing tactics to help you think strategically and create a plan of action. The template can guide your research process or be used as a simple brainstorming tool.

Social Media Strategy Plan Template

‌ Download Social Media Strategy Plan Template

Social media is an integral part of online marketing, and creating a strategic plan can help ensure that you are using your time and resources effectively. Consider your branding, mission, target audience, competition and other factors to determine which social networks and types of content will perform best for your company. Keep track of KPIs and adjust your social media plan accordingly.

SWOT Analysis Strategy Template

‌ Download SWOT Analysis Strategy Template

This matrix template combines SWOT analysis with strategic planning. Examine the relationships between your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and then list related strategies to tackle your goals. The layout of this template allows you to view the SWOT categories and strategies side-by-side, which may be useful for a presentation or summary.

One-Page Strategic Planning Template

Download One-Page Strategic Planning Template

Excel | Word | Smartsheet

A one-page strategic plan is perfect for small businesses or for summarizing a longer planning process. Use this template as is, or edit the layout or included information to better suit your needs. This template includes all the essentials on one page, including values, strengths and weaknesses, goals, and actions.

Strategic Vision Template

Download Strategic Vision Template

Excel | Word

Summarize your strategic vision and plan, highlighting key information for stakeholders, management, investors, or for your own reference. Combining a vision statement with a brief summary of goals, actions and KPIs makes it easy to see how your business values and purpose relate to your objectives. It also provides a succinct summary for use in a presentation or meeting.

University Strategic Plan Outline

‌ Download University Strategic Plan Outline

This template provides an outline for university strategy planning. The actual strategic plan may cover multiple pages and provide an in-depth analysis and detailed mission and vision statements. Strategic planning is an opportunity for universities to look closely at campus needs, institutional values, infrastructure, long-term goals, important obstacles, and more. The strategic plan will be a guiding document that is reviewed and updated regularly.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organization’s process for defining their strategy so that they can accomplish specific goals and objectives. Strategic planning may be utilized on a large scale, such as planning for business growth over several years or to help a nonprofit or governmental organization reach its stated mission. A strategic plan can also be used on a smaller scale, such as crafting a marketing plan or developing strategy for the goals of one department within a business or organization. It is important to note that strategy is distinct from planning: While strategy looks at why certain steps should be taken, a plan outlines how to enact those steps. strategic planning marries these two concepts in order to determine the best possible course of action. The purpose of strategic planning is to provide a thoughtful, deliberate approach to reaching objectives based on an in-depth analysis of both internal and external factors affecting an organization.

A strategic plan often covers multiple years, addressing both short- and long-term goals. It also provides a way of tracking progress and measuring success. However, it’s not a document that is fixed in stone — instead, it’s wise to revisit and adjust a strategic plan periodically based on the evolving vision, objectives, needs, and resources of a business or institution.

Depending on the scope of your plan, you may be working with a team of multiple stakeholders during the strategic planning process. To keep the process running smoothly, make roles and responsibilities clear. Different parties may be responsible for providing data, reviewing the plan, or authorizing strategic decisions. As you prepare for planning, make sure all participants understand what’s involved in the process and have received any relevant information prior to meeting.

Benefits of Strategic Planning

There are benefits of strategic planning, including the following:

• Align the goals of a department or project with larger business goals
• Provide clear communication to team members, stakeholders, or clients
• Clearly define the vision and mission of an organization
• Provide clarity on how to deal with internal or environmental changes

Parts of a Strategic Plan

One way to think about strategic planning is that it identifies any gaps between a current state and desired future state, and then dictates how to close those gaps — how you get from where you are to where you want to be. To that end, various factors are taken into consideration in order to formulate an effective plan. Here are some of the elements often included in a strategic plan.

• Introductory Statement: The introductory statement should briefly describe why the strategic plan was developed and for what time period, and list the authors of the plan.  
• Background Statement: This section may provide information about the organization, such as history, management structure, and supporting partners or agencies. Alternatively, you could use this section as a brief business statement — more of an elevator pitch — to concisely describe your business.  
• Organizational Structure: Include this information if it’s relevant to evaluate how your business or organization operates and is structured, from governing board to staffing.  
• Vision: A vision statement should briefly describe what a company wants to achieve or become. This is one of the primary organizational tenets to consider, along with values and mission.  
• Values: These are the principles that an organization stands for and abides by. Many businesses create core value statements to guide company culture.  
• Mission Statement: A mission statement describes the purpose of a business or organization. This is distinct from a vision statement because it is not a projected goal for the future.  
• Problem Statement: Some plans include a problem statement, which can outline key or discrete issues that need to be addressed.  
• SWOT Analysis: A SWOT analysis provides a foundation and context for developing strategy by examining the strengths and weaknesses within and organization as well as external opportunities and threats.  
• Goals: As stated earlier, a strategic plan may include long-term as well as short-term (i.e, monthly or quarterly) goals. Objectives should be measurable and broken down into actionable steps, and the action plan for each goal should specify who is responsible for implementing the strategy, a timeline for starting and ending the action, and how the outcome will be evaluated.  
• Evaluation: Methods for evaluation should be spelled out in the strategic plan. This could include tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and documenting the progress of action steps on an ongoing basis.  
• Executive Summary : This final summary helps employees, investors, or other readers quickly understand your plan.

No matter what type of strategic plan you are working on, using a template provides a simple and quick outline to organize your process. In the following sections, you’ll find free, downloadable planning templates for business, nonprofit, human resources, marketing, IT strategic planning, and more.

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Article • 14 min read

Personal Goal Setting

Planning to live your life your way.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile.

A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!

How to Set Personal Goals

First consider what you want to achieve, and then commit to it. Set SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goals that motivate you and write them down to make them feel tangible. Then plan the steps you must take to realize your goal, and cross off each one as you work through them.

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Why Set Goals?

Top-level athletes, successful businesspeople and achievers in all fields all set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation . It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence , as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

You set your goals on a number of levels:

• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of setting goals by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):

• Career – What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve?
• Financial – How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals?
• Education – Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?
• Family – Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
• Artistic – Do you want to achieve any artistic goals?
• Attitude – Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.)
• Physical – Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure – How do you want to enjoy yourself? (You should ensure that some of your life is for you!)
• Public Service – Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals that you can focus on.

As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want. (If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants – however, make sure that you also remain true to yourself!)

You may also want to read our article on Personal Mission Statements . Crafting a personal mission statement can help bring your most important goals into sharp focus.

Step 2: Setting Smaller Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.

Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.

Then create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.

Finally, review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

If you feel that you're not paying enough attention to certain areas of your life, you'll find our articles on The Wheel of Life and the Life/Career Rainbow useful.

Staying on Course

Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.

Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

• S – Specific (or Significant).
• M – Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
• R – Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

For example, instead of having "to sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to use the SMART goal "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2027." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

Tips to Set Personal Goals

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

• State each goal as a positive statement – Express your goals positively – "Execute this technique well" is a much better goal than "Don't make this stupid mistake."
• Be precise – Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you'll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
• Set priorities – When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down – This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
• Keep operational goals small – Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals – You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control! In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.
• Set realistic goals – It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

Achieving Goals

When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals.

If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

• If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal harder.
• If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier.
• If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so.
• If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Our article, Golden Rules of Goal Setting , will show you how to set yourself up for success when it comes to your goals. If you're still having trouble, you might also want to try Backward Goal Setting .

It's important to remember that failing to meet goals does not matter much, just as long as you learn from the experience.

Feed lessons you have learned back into the process of setting your next goals. Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, consider letting them go.

Example Personal Goals

For her New Year's Resolution, Susan has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life.

Her lifetime goals are as follows:

• Career – "To be managing editor of the magazine that I work for."
• Artistic – "To keep working on my illustration skills. Ultimately I want to have my own show in our downtown gallery."
• Physical – "To run a marathon."

Now that Susan has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller, more manageable goals.

Let's take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal – becoming managing editor of her magazine:

• Five-year goal: "Become deputy editor."
• One-year goal: "Volunteer for projects that the current Managing Editor is heading up."
• Six-month goal: "Go back to school and finish my journalism degree."
• One-month goal: "Talk to the current managing editor to determine what skills are needed to do the job."
• One-week goal: "Book the meeting with the Managing Editor."

As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller, more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished.

Goal setting is an important method for:

• Deciding what you want to achieve in your life.
• Separating what's important from what's irrelevant, or a distraction.
• Motivating yourself.
• Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

Set your lifetime goals first. Then, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Keep the process going by regularly reviewing and updating your goals. And remember to take time to enjoy the satisfaction of achieving your goals when you do so.

If you don't already set goals, do so, starting now. As you make this technique part of your life, you'll find your career accelerating, and you'll wonder how you did without it!

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Hello everyone my name is Kiara Hahn from California US. I’m here to testify of a great and powerful spell caster called Dr Jakuta. I was so confused and devastated when my fiance left me without a word, I've spent the last month crying and feeling guilty. I wasn't talking to anybody, so one day I search online on love tips because I needed him back desperately and I loved him so much, until I found Dr Jakuta who has solved so many relationship problems then I contacted him and he promised that in less than 72hrs he will come back to me. After I did all he asked, to my greatest surprise my fiance who had refused to speak with me came to my house and asked for forgiveness for all he had made me go through and now we are living happily together, if you have any relationship problem you can contact him Below are his contact details: Email him at doctorjakutaspellcaster24@gmail. com WhatsApp +2349161779461

Shanice Bell

My husband filed for a divorce after 8 years of marriage it was difficult on me and the kids I did all I could to save my marriage and my family but all fail until a friend of mine told me about the wonderful work of Priest Ade I contacted him and he assured me 24hours all will be well the next day to my greatest surprise my husband came back home and he went on his knees and was crying begging me for forgiveness I’m so happy right now thank you so much Priest Ade, One message to him today can change your life too for the better.Email: [email protected] Read more on his website: ancientspellcast.wordpress.com WhatsApp  ‪ +2348100170928

I just want to share this great testimony to appreciate Lord Vasikar. Few months back l found out I have HERPES. I had used different kinds of medication which didn't help. Then I have to do a research and found so many interesting testimonies on the internet how Lord Vasikar helped people to cure herpes, I took his contact I found in the internet and I contacted him and he sent me herbal medication via courier service. Then i start taking the medicine according to his instruction and within 6 weeks I was free from HERPES. And for that I will always be grateful to Lord Vasikar. If you need his help, kindly contact him on WhatsApp +44(791)5646138. Email:[email protected] Or visit his page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088110402630 He also cures , HEPATITIS B, ALS, EPILEPSY, LEUKEMIA, ASTHMA, CANCER, GONORRHEA, EMPHYSEMA, GENITAL WARTS, ES, ULCER, HERPES, HSV-1, HSV-2, INFERTILITY, and lots more. There's no side infects when you take this herbal medicine.

Amazing Love Spell To Get Back With your Partner and Fix Your Broken Relationship  WHATSAPP+2349161779461 My wife broke up with me 3 months ago, and forced me to sign the divorce papers, and I was completely heartbroken. And I could not get back into any shape emotionally. I Thank God for this astonishing and brilliant spell caster that came to my rescue. Wow! This spell caster has helped me so much. Dr Jakuta guaranteed me an urgent 24hrs spell casting, of which I accepted it. Shockingly! this month my wife called me back with lots of apologies after 48hrs which he assured me, and he did everything possible to withdraw the divorce papers which was previously ongoing with the power of this miracle working spell caster. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he restores womb, cure cancer, herpes simplex virus and other sickness, Thank you so so so much Lord for your powerful spells. expressions are not sufficient to say thank you. Email doctorjakutaspellcaster24@gmail. com. You can also WhatsApp him on +2349161779461

Amazing Love Spell To Get Back With your Partner and Fix Your Broken Relationship My wife broke up with me 3 months ago, and forced me to sign the divorce papers, and I was completely heartbroken. And I could not get back into any shape emotionally. I Thank God for this astonishing and brilliant spell caster that came to my rescue. Wow! This spell caster has helped me so much. Dr Jakuta guaranteed me an urgent 24hrs spell casting, of which I accepted it. Shockingly! this month my wife called me back with lots of apologies after 48hrs which he assured me, and he did everything possible to withdraw the divorce papers which was previously ongoing with the power of this miracle working spell caster. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he restores womb, cure cancer, herpes simplex virus and other sickness, Thank you so so so much Lord for your powerful spells. expressions are not sufficient to say than you. Email doctorjakutaspellcaster24@gmail. com. You can also WhatsApp him on +2349161779461

Meaghan Kane

Whatever you are going through should only be temporary but if going on for too long then you should seek spiritual prayers and support. My story might inspire you but trust me yours could be the light someone else is seeking. Life almost takes a wrong turn on me and my partner due to past karma. All thanks to Dr Mandla for the spiritual prayers and support. A lot of people struggle because they haven't found the right path, You can be praying and still not getting the blessings and answers you deserve. Almost left my relationship due broken promises and setbacks but today life has been great, Your current partner could be your soulmate if only we can have a little faith and try to fix things. Get your life together, it could be financial setback, Broken marriage, Relationship crisis WhatsApp Dr Mandla +27723985283 for spiritual breakthrough.

Anna Waston

Anna is my name and I am here to tell of the reconnection with my ex boyfriend who happened to break up with me for another lady some months ago. I was devastated as I missed him around me. I couldn’t bring myself to not have him in my life. I was going through a forum where I saw someone who Dr Hamu helped in bringing back his ex-girlfriend. I decided to try my luck by contacting him on his what app line. To my surprise I got my boyfriend back to me less than 3days after contacting the spell caster Dr Hamu. For more information visit his webpage: https://drhamu.carrd.co/#

Darien Mitchel

I want to thank Dr Kala for what he did for me by helping me to get my ex back. Dr Kala is the best spell caster online and he has helped so many people to get their love back. If you are in need of help to get your ex back or stop your ongoing divorce case? I urge you to contact Dr Kala and he will help you to get your ex back and put an end on your ongoing divorce case. You can contact Dr Kala on email: [email protected] or Contact him through WhatsApp +2347051705853

Amazing Love Spell To Get Back With your Partner and Fix Your Broken Relationship My wife broke up with me 3 months ago, and forced me to sign the divorce papers, and I was completely heartbroken. And I could not get back into any shape emotionally. I Thank God for this astonishing and brilliant spell caster that came to my rescue. Wow! This spell caster has helped me so much. Dr Jakuta guaranteed me an urgent 24hrs spell casting, of which I accepted it. Shockingly! this month my wife called me back with lots of apologies after 48hrs which he assured me, and he did everything possible to withdraw the divorce papers which was previously ongoing with the power of this miracle working spell caster. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he restores womb, cure cancer, herpes simplex virus and other sickness, Thank you so so so much Lord for your powerful spells. expressions are not sufficient to say than you. Email [email protected]. You can also WhatsApp him on +2349161779461

Luna Luna Lucy

All these years have been a regrettable year for me because my husband left me for another woman after we have gotten married for 9 years he left me with my two children and I have been calling him begging him to come back to me he refused I have done all I can but nothing works out for me I was like killing myself to see if my man will come back and take care of his children’s and I also think about if I have done this to myself will my husband come back and take care of his children’s I was still praying to God should touch his heart so he can come back nothing work out at all. I then try to forgot about my husband but I still Can’t do that so I decided to look for a help on internet and I saw a comment about how a lady testified what Dr Ughulu did for her, on how he brought her husband back to her and, I was very interested in the comment and I send a message to Dr Ughulu to help me get my husband, and after I sent him a message in less than 3 minutes he replied you’re welcome my daughter. He asked me what brought me to the temple of solution. I really explained everything to him, and he said I shouldn’t worry that everything would be fine with me. I was very happy after he said that. So he did everything he could do and also told me what to do, I really did everything hopefully, It didn’t take 24 hours. My ex-husband sent me a message and started begging me for forgiveness and I really forgive my husband. Now he’s with me. We are living peacefully together. Thank you so much Dr Ughulu. I really appreciate all your efforts. Text:Call number: +1(252) 409-1841 or website: https://drughulupowerfulsp.wixsite.com/my-site-ughulu or his email. [email protected]

My husband filed for a divorce after 8 years of marriage it was difficult on me and the kids I did all I could to save my marriage and my family but all fail until a friend of mine told me about the wonderful work of Priest Ade I contacted him and he assured me 24hours all will be well the next day to my greatest surprise my husband came back home and he went on his knees and was crying begging me for forgiveness I’m so happy right now thank you so much Priest Ade, One message to him today can change your life too for the better.Email: [email protected] Read more on his website: ancientspellcast.wordpress.com WhatsApp  ‪+2349016487557 

nancy davies

I am Nancy from United States of America, i want to quickly post a comment on a love spell caster that just brought my Husband back home to me and my kids, My Husband left me and my kids for another Woman and He filled for a Divorce paper, I was not comfortable with this because i love him so much, so i contacted a spell caster called Dr Able, He was directed to me by a friend of mine, Dr Able helped me and my Husband began to show me love and Great Respect, He was faithful to me and now we are happy together and he promised never to leave me again. Dr Able is a Man full of Wonders, You can contact him through his Email: [email protected] or Whatsapp +2349056827567

Good work deserves good recommendation, I met a powerful spell caster whom is 100% real and powerful. I was heart broken when my wife left me and moved out of the house. I felt my life was over and my world was crumbling around me. I tried to be strong just for the kids but I could not control the pains that tormented my heart, my heart was filled with sorrow and pains because I was really in love with my wife. I have tried many options but she did not come back, until a friend directed me to Dr Kala a powerful spell caster and i explain my problem to him and he helped me to get my wife back within 24hrs. Me and my wife are living happily together again, This man is powerful and if you have any problem with your marriage and relationship? Just tell him your situation and he will help you. If you are in need of help to get your love back, you can contact Dr Kala on email: [email protected] or WhatsApp +2347051705853

emily keeton

I have been suffering from Herpes for the past 1 years and 8 months, and ever since then I have been taking series of treatment but there was no improvement until I came across testimonies of Dr. Silver on how he has been curing different people from different diseases all over the world, then I contacted him as well. After our conversation he sent me the medicine which I took according .to his instructions. When I was done taking the herbal medicine I went for a medical checkup and to my greatest surprise I was cured from Herpes. My heart is so filled with joy. If you are suffering from Herpes or any other disease you can contact Dr. Silver today on this Email address: [email protected] or Whatsapp +2348120513902

Hello, I want to testify to the general public how my relationship was restored back by the great powers of Dr. Able after three months of loneliness, my ex-lover called me after my contact with Dr Able that he wants us to come back and start a good home, now we are happily married. All thanks to Dr. Able for his wonderful spiritual help. You can contact him for any relationship challenges or any solution you may need, Good Luck. via: Email; [email protected] What'sApp +2349056827567

about 1 month

My husband filed for a divorce after 8 years of marriage it was difficult on me and the kids I did all I could to save my marriage and my family but all fail until a friend of mine told me about the wonderful work of Professor Isaac, I contacted him and he assured me 24hours all my problems will be solved and everything will get back to normal again the next day to my greatest surprise my husband came back home and he went on his knees and was crying begging me for forgiveness I’m so happy right now thank you so much Professor Isaac, One message to him today will change your life too for the better. Email: [email protected] Professor Isaac Facebook page link: https://www.facebook.com/RealWhiteMagicSpell

WOW...WOW...WOW. I'm very grateful to DR BALBOSA for bringing my husband who left me for another woman, that moment my husband Left me I thought I lost everything until a friend in my place of work recommended me to a great spell caster called DR.BALBOSA, I messaged him and told him the pain I was going through so he told me that everything was going to be fine, he prayed for me and also advice me to believe in myself and i was very optimistic for the best, he gave me some simple instructions to follow and i did all he said i should do. To my greatest surprise and within 24 hrs., my husband came back home begging for my forgiveness, i was so happy because i love my man so much, i promise to share this miraculous testimony of mine to the world...you can contact his contact below...i am so grateful and god will continue to bless you DR.BALBOSA... WEBSITE: https://balbosasolutionhome.com WHATSAPP/PHONE CALL: +1 (204) 650-0572 EMAIL: [email protected]

Diane jones

Indeed spells work. I wanna express myself on how this psychic priest Ray saved my marriage from divorce. Myself and my husband were having some misunderstanding and it was tearing our marriage apart to the extent my husband was seeking for a divorce and during that time he left home and I was really devastated I cried day and night I was searching about love quotes online I saw people talking about him and his great work whose case was similar to mine they left his contact info I contacted him told him about my problems he told me that my husband will return back to me within 24hrs i did everything he asked me to do the next day to my greatest surprise my husband came back home and was begging for me to forgive and accept him back he can also help you if you have same marriage issues contact [email protected] WhatsApp: +12133525735 Website: https://psychicspellshrine.wixsite.com/my-site

My husband filed for a divorce after 8 years of marriage it was difficult on me and the kids I did all I could to save my marriage and my family but all fail until a friend of mine told me about the wonderful work of Professor Isaac, I contacted him and he assured me 24hours all my problems will be solved and everything will get back to normal again the next day to my greatest surprise my husband came back home and he went on his knees and was crying begging me for forgiveness I’m so happy right now thank you so much Professor Isaac, One message to him today will change your life too for the better. Email: [email protected] WhatsApp ‪+27606307392

Am so grateful for all you have done for me Priest Ade i still can't believe my  husband has reconciled with me our kids are so happy thank you so much last month was hell for me when my husband left me for another lady you told me not to worry all will be alright now i finally have my family back together i will leave his contact details here for those having similar problems  email: [email protected]   WhatsApp: +2349016487557  Website: ancientspellcast.wordpress.com 

Valerie Lancaster

BEST URGENT EFFECTIVE LOVE SPELL TO GET YOUR EX/HUSBAND/WIFE BACK FAST AND TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE NOW CONTACT DR GREAT ON WHATSAPP DIRECTLY +2348118829899  Hi everyone I’m here to testify of a great and powerful spell caster called DR GREAT. I was so confused and devastated when my husband left our house and moved in with another woman, I needed him back desperately because I love him so much. I spoke to my closest friend about what happened and she advised we search for a spell caster online because she do believe in psychics and readings so we searched for spell casters and we saw a lot of different spell casters then we read  testimonies of how DR GREAT has helped a lot of people with similar issues as mine, so I contacted him on WhatsApp and I explained everything to him and he promised that in 48 hours he will come back to me. After I did all he asked, to my greatest surprise my husband who refused to speak with me came to my house and asked for forgiveness for all he  made me go through and now we are living happily together, if you have any relationship problem I will advise you contact him for your fast result. Below are his contact details.  Contact him on WhatsApp +2348118829899  Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

about 2 months

I would gladly tell you all that i was able to put an end to my divorce issue and restore my marriage again, because i never wanted it to happen. i don't know what came over my husband that he was filling for divorce, i tried to talk him out of it but he didn't listen to me, i had no other option than to seek for the help in any where I could think of and went to the length of contacting DR Mkuru and now am glad I did ask for help from him. He’s 100% assured and trusted 🙂. Contact him now via his whatsApp number +2349075998982. you can also visit his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Mkuru Email: [email protected] Visit his Blog; https://drmkuruonlinespellcaster.blogspot.com/ All the gratitude and appreciation.

My review on the powerful spell caster Priest Ade my husband filed for a divorce after 8 years of marriage it was difficult on me and the kids I did all I could to save my marriage and my family but all fail until a friend of mine told me about the wonderful work of Priest Ade I contacted him and he assured me 24hours all will be well the next day to my greatest surprise my husband came back home and he went on his knees and was crying begging me for forgiveness I’m so happy right now thank you so much Priest Ade, One message to him today can change your life too for the better. Email: [email protected] And you can also reach him on WhatsApp: ‪ ‪+2349016487557 Website: ancientspellcast.wordpress.com

Emilly Runda

I was searching for help online on how to get my ex back whom we got divorced 5 months ago and i came across so many testimonies online on how this wonderful man called Dr Kala help them to get back their loved ones and restore broken marriages and i quickly contact him on the email that was provided on the comment and explain my problem to him and he did a nice job by helping me to get my divorced husband back within 48hrs.. I never believe that such things like this can be possible but now i am a living testimony to it because Dr Kala actually brought my husband back to me, If you are having any relationship problem why not contact Dr Kala for help via email: [email protected] or WhatsApp him on +2347051705853. Then I promise you that after 48 hours you will have reasons to celebrate like me.

Breaking up or Divorce is not a solution here is one of the best Astrology and Psychic love spell caster in the universe who can help you to reunite with your man or woman i am a living testimony i was help by Dr Iyayi to help me bring back my lover within 24 hours contact him today and be the most happy person you have always be also click on his Facebook page at web.facebook.com/Driyayi48hourslovespell or WhatsApp +1 424 738 1393

This article was very helpful, I am going to use this information to help me create my goal plan, thank you!

hirebunch firebunch

Thank you for the information you provided. If someone needs more information related to this topic then they also can visit us on our YouTube channel https://youtu.be/uqqGKCUNx9s

about 1 year

Barnim Baronett

People want to know that they have achieved, or have the ability to achieve, something of value, meaning or importance. Visit:https://firebrandnotes.com/2020/09/04/a-statement-concerning-frontier-alliance-international-fai/

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Member Podcast

The 10-Step Guide for a Successful Strategy Presentation

Discover essential steps and best practices in 'How to Write a Strategy Presentation.' Elevate your approach and effectively communicate your strategic vision with our comprehensive guide.

StrategyPunk

Introduction

Have you ever been trapped in the quicksand of a never-ending strategy presentation?

We've all been there, nodding off while someone drones on.

Now, picture this: a room hanging onto your every word, eyes lit with interest.

Impossible?

Think again. Plunge into our fresh guide, and you'll transform from a presenter to a storyteller.

It’s time for your audience to listen and be utterly captivated.

How to Write a Strategy Presentation: 10 Steps

1. set the stage right.

You wouldn’t host a grand ball without knowing who’s attending, right?

In the same way, before you even think of diving into your content, please know your audience.

Are they tech wizards or old-school board members? Millennials or Baby Boomers?

Customize your talk to resonate with them. Understand their needs, their pain points, and their aspirations.

Connect on a personal level, and half your battle is already won. 🎯

2. Define Your Mission

Imagine embarking on a road trip without a map.

A strategy presentation without a clear mission is almost the same – directionless and meandering.

So, ask yourself: Why are you here? What's the core message?

Once you have that clarity, your path becomes straightforward. Trust me, your audience will thank you for it.

3. Craft an Unforgettable Opening

First impressions?

They’re everything. You have 60 seconds to grab your audience's attention, so make those seconds count.

A quirky quote, a compelling statistic, or even a personal anecdote – choose a relevant and riveting opener. It’s the appetizer to your main course.

Make sure it's tantalizing!

4. Break Down the Core

a. Highlight the Issue:

Every story needs a conflict.

In your strategy presentation, this is the issue or challenge at hand.

Paint a vivid picture. Make them see what’s going awry.

But remember, no doom and gloom—just honest, relatable content.

b. Showcase Your Solution:

Now, for the hero of our story – your solution. Get straight to the point.

How will your idea transform the current scenario?

Make your key the shining beacon. Sell not just the picture but the dream.

c. Unveil the Game Plan:

So, you’ve hooked them with the problem and dazzled them with your solution.

The roadmap: Walk them through the how. Detail the journey, step by step, action by action. Make it tangible. Make it achievable.

5. Elevate with Design

Yes, content is king. But design?

It’s the crown. Incorporate visuals that speak. Charts, infographics, images – let them do the heavy lifting. Remember, a picture's worth a thousand words, but a relevant picture?

That’s gold. And hey, always lean into simplicity. Less is more, especially on slides. 🖼️

6. Weave in Stories

Facts need to be remembered. Stories? They stick.

Weave in anecdotes that resonate. Personal tales, success stories, or even fictional scenarios – a narrative touch can bring your presentation alive. Make it relatable.

Could you make it memorable? After all, who doesn't love a good story?

7. Get Them Talking

No one enjoys a monologue. You can turn your presentation into a dialogue.

Ask questions. Seek opinions. Maybe even throw in a mini poll or quiz. Engage them.

The more involved they are, the more invested they become. It's the difference between passive listeners and active participants.

8. Wrap it Up with Pizzazz

You're nearing the end. This is where you cement all you've shared.

Highlight the key points and end with a zinger. It could be a call to action, a memorable quote, or a challenge.

Leave them thinking, reflecting, and wanting more.

9. Rehearse to Perfection

You've crafted this masterpiece. Now, could you give it the respect it deserves?

Know each slide, each transition, and each pause. Familiarize yourself with the flow. The more comfortable you are with the material, the more confidently you'll deliver.

And nothing, absolutely nothing, captivates an audience more than genuine confidence.

10. After the Applause: Your Next Moves

The applause fades—the room empties.

But your job? It still needs to be done. Show gratitude. A simple thank you can work wonders. Would you be willing to share your presentation or additional resources?

And always, always be open to feedback. It’s the breakfast of champions, after all.

Crafting a killer strategy presentation isn’t about big words or fancy jargon. It’s about connection, clarity, and confidence. You’ve got the palette, brush, and canvas.

Now, could you paint your masterpiece? 🎨

Remember, strategy presentations are not just about informing. It’s about transforming.

So, go ahead and inspire change—illuminate minds. And make a lasting impact.🚀

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Bonus: Your Strategy Presentation Success Checklist

Please ensure that your strategy presentation is top-notch with our concise Success Checklist.

This list will guide you through each crucial step for impactful delivery, from understanding your audience to gathering feedback post-presentation.

Your trusty companion for every presentation!

• Audience insights in place.
• Is the Mission crystal clear? ✔️
• Powerful start rehearsed.
• Core content organized.
• Engaging visuals ready.
• Personal story integrated.
• Interactive segment prepped.
• Strong conclusion framed.
• Feedback channels open.

Global Bites: PESTLE Insights into Nestlé (Free PPT)

Download our free PPT template for in-depth PESTLE insights into Nestlé's global strategy. Learn more today!

PESTLE Analysis: Decoding Reddit's Landscape (Free PPT)

Decode Reddit's global influence with our free PowerPoint PESTLE Analysis. Explore the hub of vibrant discussions and ideas.

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Explore Lululemon's business terrain with our free PESTLE analysis PowerPoint. Instant access!

The Art of Strategic Leadership: 5 Keys to Success by Willie Peterson

Explore Willie Peterson's 5 crucial strategies for strategic leadership. Master learning, customer focus, and effective storytelling.

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Blog Business How to Write a Business Plan Outline [Examples + Templates] 

How to Write a Business Plan Outline [Examples + Templates] 

Written by: Letícia Fonseca Aug 11, 2023

When venturing into crafting a business plan, the initial hurdle often lies in taking that first step.

So, how can you evade those prolonged hours of staring at a blank page? Initiate your journey with the aid of a business plan outline.

As with any endeavor, an outline serves as the beacon of clarity, illuminating the path to confront even the most formidable tasks. This holds particularly true when composing pivotal documents vital to your triumph, much like a business plan.

Nonetheless, I understand the enormity of a business plan’s scope, which might make the task of outlining it seem daunting. This is precisely why I’ve compiled all the requisite information to facilitate the creation of a business plan outline. No need to break a sweat!

And if you’re seeking further assistance, a business plan maker and readily available business plan templates can offer valuable support in shaping your comprehensive plan.

Read on for answers to all your business plan outline questions or jump ahead for some handy templates. 

Click to jump ahead:

What is a business plan outline (and why do you need one), what format should you choose for your business plan outline, what are the key components of a business plan outline.

• Business plan template examples
• Writing tips to ace your outline 

A business plan outline is the backbone of your business plan. It contains all the most important information you’ll want to expand on in your full-length plan. 

Think of it this way: your outline is a frame for your plan. It provides a high-level idea of what the final plan should look like, what it will include and how all the information will be organized. 

Why would you do this extra step? Beyond saving you from blank page syndrome, an outline ensures you don’t leave any essential information out of your plan — you can see all the most important points at a glance and quickly identify any content gaps. 

It also serves as a writing guide. Once you know all the sections you want in your plan, you just need to expand on them. Suddenly, you’re “filling in the blanks” as opposed to writing a plan from scratch!

Incidentally, using a business plan template like this one gives you a running head start, too: 

Perhaps most importantly, a business plan outline keeps you focused on the essential parts of your document. (Not to mention what matters most to stakeholders and investors.)  With an outline, you’ll spend less time worrying about structure or organization and more time perfecting the actual content of your document. 

If you’re looking for more general advice, you can read about  how to create a business plan here . But if you’re working on outlining your plan, stick with me.

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Most business plans fit into one of two formats. 

The format you choose largely depends on three factors: (1) the stage of your business, (2) if you’re presenting the plan to investors and (3) what you want to achieve with your business plan. 

Let’s have a closer look at these two formats and why you might choose one over the other.

Traditional format

Traditional business plans  are typically long, detailed documents. In many cases, they take up to 50-60 pages, but it’s not uncommon to see plans spanning 100+ pages. 

Traditional plans are long because they cover  every aspect  of your business. They leave nothing out. You’ll find a traditional business plan template with sections like executive summary, company description, target market, market analysis, marketing plan, financial plan, and more. Basically: the more information the merrier.

This business plan template isn’t of a traditional format, but you could expand it into one by duplicating pages:

Due to their high level of detail, traditional formats are the best way to sell your business. They show you’re reliable and have a clear vision for your business’s future. 

If you’re planning on presenting your plan to investors and stakeholders, you’ll want to go with a traditional plan format. The more information you include, the fewer doubts and questions you’ll get when you present your plan, so don’t hold back. 

Traditional business plans require more detailed outlines before drafting since there’s a lot of information to cover. You’ll want to list all the sections and include bullet points describing what each section should cover. 

It’s also a good idea to include all external resources and visuals in your outline, so you don’t have to gather them later. 

Lean format

Lean business plan formats are high level and quick to write. They’re often only one or two pages. Similar to a  business plan infographic , they’re scannable and quick to digest, like this template: 

This format is often referred to as a “startup” format due to (you guessed it!) many startups using it. 

Lean business plans require less detailed outlines. You can include high-level sections and a few lines in each section covering the basics. Since the final plan will only be a page or two, you don’t need to over prepare. Nor will you need a ton of external resources. 

Lean plans don’t answer all the questions investors and stakeholders may ask, so if you go this route, make sure it’s the right choice for your business . Companies not yet ready to present to investors will typically use a lean/startup business plan format to get their rough plan on paper and share it internally with their management team. 

Here’s another example of a lean business plan format in the form of a financial plan: 

Your business plan outline should include all the following sections. The level of detail you choose to go into will depend on your intentions for your plan (sharing with stakeholders vs. internal use), but you’ll want every section to be clear and to the point. 

1. Executive summary

The executive summary gives a high-level description of your company, product or service. This section should include a mission statement, your company description, your business’s primary goal, and the problem it aims to solve. You’ll want to state how your business can solve the problem and briefly explain what makes you stand out (your competitive advantage).

Having an executive summary is essential to selling your business to stakeholders , so it should be as clear and concise as possible. Summarize your business in a few sentences in a way that will hook the reader (or audience) and get them invested in what you have to say next. In other words, this is your elevator pitch.

2. Product and services description

This is where you should go into more detail about your product or service. Your product is the heart of your business, so it’s essential this section is easy to grasp. After all, if people don’t know what you’re selling, you’ll have a hard time keeping them engaged!

Expand on your description in the executive summary, going into detail about the problem your customers face and how your product/service will solve it. If you have various products or services, go through all of them in equal detail. 

3. Target market and/or Market analysis

A market analysis is crucial for placing your business in a larger context and showing investors you know your industry. This section should include market research on your prospective customer demographic including location, age range, goals and motivations. 

You can even  include detailed customer personas  as a visual aid — these are especially useful if you have several target demographics. You want to showcase your knowledge of your customer, who exactly you’re selling to and how you can fulfill their needs.

Be sure to include information on the overall target market for your product, including direct and indirect competitors and how your industry is performing. If your competitors have strengths you want to mimic or weaknesses you want to exploit, this is the place to record that information. 

4. Organization and management

You can think of this as a “meet the team” section — this is where you should go into depth on your business’s structure from management to legal and HR. If there are people bringing unique skills or experience to the table (I’m sure there are!), you should highlight them in this section. 

The goal here is to showcase why your team is the best to run your business. Investors want to know you’re unified, organized and reliable. This is also a potential opportunity to bring more humanity to your business plan and showcase the faces behind the ideas and product. 

5. Marketing and sales

Now that you’ve introduced your product and team, you need to explain how you’re going to sell it. Give a detailed explanation of your sales and marketing strategy, including pricing, timelines for launching your product and advertising.

This is a major section of your plan and can even live as a separate document for your marketing and sales teams. Here are some  marketing plan templates to help you get started .

Make sure you have research or analysis to back up your decisions — if you want to do paid ads on LinkedIn to advertise your product, include a brief explanation as to why that is the best channel for your business. 

6. Financial projections and funding request

The end of your plan is where you’ll look to the future and how you think your business will perform financially. Your financial plan should include results from your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow projections. 

State your funding requirements and what you need to realize the business. Be extremely clear about how you plan to use the funding and when you expect investors will see returns.

If you aren’t presenting to potential investors, you can skip this part, but it’s something to keep in mind should you seek funding in the future. Covering financial projections and the previous five components is essential at the stage of business formation to ensure everything goes smoothly moving forward.

7. Appendix

Any extra visual aids, receipts, paperwork or charts will live here. Anything that may be relevant to your plan should be included as reference e.g. your cash flow statement (or other financial statements). You can format your appendix in whatever way you think is best — as long as it’s easy for readers to find what they’re looking for, you’ve done your job!

Typically, the best way to start your outline is to list all these high-level sections. Then, you can add bullet points outlining what will go in each section and the resources you’ll need to write them. This should give you a solid starting point for your full-length plan.

Business plan outline templates

Looking for a shortcut? Our  business plan templates  are basically outlines in a box! 

While your outline likely won’t go into as much detail, these templates are great examples of how to organize your sections.

Traditional format templates

A strong template can turn your long, dense business plan into an engaging, easy-to-read document. There are lots to choose from, but here are just a few ideas to inspire you… 

You can duplicate pages and use these styles for a traditional outline, or start with a lean outline as you build your business plan out over time:

Lean format templates

For lean format outlines, a simpler ‘ mind map ’ style is a good bet. With this style, you can get ideas down fast and quickly turn them into one or two-page plans. Plus, because they’re shorter, they’re easy to share with your team.

Writing tips to ace your business plan outline

Business plans are complex documents, so if you’re still not sure how to write your outline, don’t worry! Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind when drafting your business plan outline:

• Ask yourself why you’re writing an outline. Having a clear goal for your outline can help keep you on track as you write. Everything you include in your plan should contribute to your goal. If it doesn’t, it probably doesn’t need to be in there.
• Keep it clear and concise. Whether you’re writing a traditional or lean format business plan, your outline should be easy to understand. Choose your words wisely and avoid unnecessary preambles or padding language. The faster you get to the point, the easier your plan will be to read.
• Add visual aids. No one likes reading huge walls of text! Make room in your outline for visuals, data and charts. This keeps your audience engaged and helps those who are more visual learners. Psst,  infographics  are great for this.
• Make it collaborative. Have someone (or several someones) look it over before finalizing your outline. If you have an established marketing / sales / finance team, have them look it over too. Getting feedback at the outline stage can help you avoid rewrites and wasted time down the line.

If this is your first time writing a business plan outline, don’t be too hard on yourself. You might not get it 100% right on the first try, but with these tips and the key components listed above, you’ll have a strong foundation. Remember, done is better than perfect. 

Create a winning business plan by starting with a detailed, actionable outline

The best way to learn is by doing. So go ahead, get started on your business plan outline. As you develop your plan, you’ll no doubt learn more about your business and what’s important for success along the way. 

A clean, compelling template is a great way to get a head start on your outline. After all, the sections are already separated and defined for you! 

Explore Venngage’s business plan templates  for one that suits your needs. Many are free to use and there are premium templates available for a small monthly fee. Happy outlining!

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2.3: Developing Organizational Objectives and Formulating Strategies

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Learning Objectives

• Explain how companies develop the objectives driving their strategies.
• Describe the different types of product strategies and market entry strategies that companies pursue.

Developing Objectives

Objectives are what organizations want to accomplish—the end results they want to achieve—in a given time frame. In addition to being accomplished within a certain time frame, objectives should be realistic (achievable) and be measurable, if possible. “To increase sales by 2 percent by the end of the year” is an example of an objective an organization might develop. You have probably set objectives for yourself that you want to achieve in a given time frame. For example, your objectives might be to maintain a certain grade point average and get work experience or an internship before you graduate.

Objectives help guide and motivate a company’s employees and give its managers reference points for evaluating the firm’s marketing actions. Although many organizations publish their mission statements, most for-profit companies do not publish their objectives. Accomplishments at each level of the organization have helped PepsiCo meet its corporate objectives over the course of the past few years. PepsiCo’s business units (divisions) have increased the number of their facilities to grow their brands and enter new markets. PepsiCo’s beverage and snack units have gained market share by developing healthier products and products that are more convenient to use.

A firm’s marketing objectives should be consistent with the company’s objectives at other levels, such as the corporate level and business level. An example of a marketing objective for PepsiCo might be “to increase by 4 percent the market share of Gatorade by the end of the year.” The way firms analyze their different divisions or businesses will be discussed later in the chapter.

Formulating Strategies

Strategies are the means to the ends, the game plan, or what a firm is going to do to achieve its objectives. Successful strategies help organizations establish and maintain a competitive advantage that competitors cannot imitate easily. Tactics include specific actions, such as coupons, television commercials, banner ads, and so on, taken to execute the strategy. PepsiCo attempts to sustain its competitive advantage by constantly developing new products and innovations, including “mega brands,” which include nineteen individual brands that generate over $1 billion in sales each. The tactics may consist of specific actions (commercials during the Super Bowl; coupons; buy one, get one free, etc.) to advertise each brand.

Firms often use multiple strategies to accomplish their objectives and capitalize on marketing opportunities. For example, in addition to pursuing a low cost strategy (selling products inexpensively), Walmart has simultaneously pursued a strategy of opening new stores rapidly around the world. Many companies develop marketing strategies as part of their general, overall business plans. Other companies prepare separate marketing plans. We’ll look at marketing plans here and discuss them more completely in Chapter 16.

A marketing plan is a strategic plan at the functional level that provides a firm’s marketing group with direction. It is a road map that improves the firm’s understanding of its competitive situation. The marketing plan also helps the firm allocate resources and divvy up the tasks that employees need to do for the company to meet its objectives. The different components of marketing plans will be discussed throughout the book and then discussed together at the end of the book. Next, let’s take a look at the different types of basic market strategies firms pursue before they develop their marketing plans.

The different types of product and market entry strategies a firm can pursue in order to meet their objectives.

Market penetration strategies focus on increasing a firm’s sales of its existing products to its existing customers. Companies often offer consumers special promotions or low prices to increase their usage and encourage them to buy products. When Frito-Lay distributes money-saving coupons to customers or offers them discounts to buy multiple packages of snacks, the company is utilizing a penetration strategy. The Campbell Soup Company gets consumers to buy more soup by providing easy recipes using their soup as an ingredient for cooking quick meals.

Product development strategies involve creating new products for existing customers. A new product can be a totally new innovation, an improved product, or a product with enhanced value, such as one with a new feature. Cell phones that allow consumers to charge purchases with the phone or take pictures are examples of a product with enhanced value. A new product can also be one that comes in different variations, such as new flavors, colors, and sizes. Mountain Dew Voltage, introduced by PepsiCo Americas Beverages in 2009, is an example. Keep in mind, however, that what works for one company might not work for another. For example, just after Starbucks announced it was cutting back on the number of its lunch offerings, Dunkin’ Donuts announced it was adding items to its lunch menu.

Market development strategies focus on entering new markets with existing products. For example, during the recent economic downturn, manufacturers of high-end coffee makers began targeting customers who go to coffee shops. The manufacturers are hoping to develop the market for their products by making sure consumers know they can brew a great cup of coffee at home for a fraction of what they spend at Starbucks.

New markets can include any new groups of customers such as different age groups, new geographic areas, or international markets. Many companies, including PepsiCo and Hyundai, have entered—and been successful in—rapidly emerging markets such as Russia, China, and India. Decisions to enter foreign markets are based on a company’s resources as well as the complexity of factors such as the political environmental, economic conditions, competition, customer knowledge, and probability of success in the desired market. As Figure 2.10 shows, there are different ways, or strategies, by which firms can enter international markets. The strategies vary in the amount of risk, control, and investment that firms face. Firms can simply export, or sell their products to buyers abroad, which is the least risky and least expensive method but also offers the least amount of control. Many small firms export their products to foreign markets.

Firms can also license, or sell the right to use some aspect of their production processes, trademarks, or patents to individuals or firms in foreign markets. Licensing is a popular strategy, but firms must figure out how to protect their interests if the licensee decides to open its own business and void the license agreement. The French luggage and handbag maker Louis Vuitton faced this problem when it entered China. Competitors started illegally putting the Louis Vuitton logo on different products, which cut into Louis Vuitton’s profits.

Franchising is a longer-term (and thus riskier) form of licensing that is extremely popular with service firms, such as restaurants like McDonald’s and Subway, hotels like Holiday Inn Express, and cleaning companies like Stanley Steamer. Franchisees pay a fee for the franchise and must adhere to certain standards; however, they benefit from the advertising and brand recognition the franchising company provides.

Contract manufacturing allows companies to hire manufacturers to produce their products in another country. The manufacturers are provided specifications for the products, which are then manufactured and sold on behalf of the company that contracted the manufacturing. Contract manufacturing may provide tax incentives and may be more profitable than manufacturing the products in the home country. Examples of products in which contract manufacturing is often used include cell phones, computers, and printers.

Joint ventures combine the expertise and investments of two companies and help companies enter foreign markets. The firms in each country share the risks as well as the investments. Some countries such as China often require companies to form a joint venture with a domestic firm in order to enter the market. After entering the market in a partnership with a domestic firm and becoming established in the market, some firms may decide to separate from their partner and become their own business. Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. is an example of a joint venture between the Japanese Fuji Photo Film Co. and the American document management company Xerox. Another example of a joint venture is Sony Ericsson. The venture combined the Japanese company Sony’s electronic expertise with the Swedish company Ericsson’s telecommunication expertise. With investment by both companies, joint ventures are riskier than exporting, licensing, franchising, and contract manufacturing but also provide more control to each partner.

Direct investment (owning a company or facility overseas) is another way to enter a foreign market, providing the most control but also having the most risk. For example, In Bev, the Dutch maker of Beck’s beer, was able to capture market share in the United States by purchasing St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch. A direct investment strategy involves the most risk and investment but offers the most control. Other companies such as advertising agencies may want to invest and develop their own businesses directly in international markets rather than trying to do so via other companies.

Diversification strategies involve entering new markets with new products or doing something outside a firm’s current businesses. Firms that have little experience with different markets or different products often diversify their product lines by acquiring other companies. Diversification can be profitable, but it can also be risky if a company does not have the expertise or resources it needs to successfully implement the strategy. Warner Music Group’s purchase of the concert promoter Bulldog Entertainment is an example of a diversification attempt that failed.

Key Takeaway

The strategic planning process includes a company’s mission (purpose), objectives (end results desired), and strategies (means). Sometimes the different SBUs of a firm have different mission statements. A firm’s objectives should be realistic (achievable) and measurable. The different product market strategies firms pursue include market penetration, product development, market development, and diversification.

Review Questions

• How do product development strategies differ from market development strategies?
• Explain why some strategies work for some companies but not others.
• What factors do firms entering foreign markets need to consider?
• How do franchising and licensing strategies differ?