Strategic Plan or Goals?
Strategic planning is difficult for most of us. We all know that things often don’t work out as planned, and it can be difficult to figure out why and what to do about it. That can lead to reluctance to even start developing a plan.
Once you start a plan, there can be uncertainty about how detailed it should be and how important it is to adhere to the plan.
One solution is to build adaptability into the process by identifying your ultimate objective, developing strategic goals that help you achieve that objective and are flexible, and adopting an action plan for advancing your goals.
Here are 10 tips that might help you develop and assess your strategic planning and adapt to inevitable plan changes:
1. Ask what and why. Determine with as much specificity as possible what you are trying to accomplish and why. You may not achieve your ultimate objective, but having a clear understanding of those two questions will keep you on track.
2. Focus on strategic goals. Identify the objectives that will help you get closer to that ultimate, overarching objective. Let’s call these “strategic goals.”
3. Develop an “action plan.” Align your activity and/or tactics to your strategic goals and measure their impact. Those activities are your action plan. That name difference – “action” rather than “strategic” – will likely make it less stressful to change the plan as needed. If any of your activities aren’t advancing your goals, you should be clear about why you are committing time and resources to them.
4. Solicit feedback. Ensure that you have open communication with the people that matter as you are implementing and assessing your goals so that you receive timely feedback about your work. If you don’t receive feedback, then ask for it.
5. Be responsive. Remember that having open communication is only useful if you act on the information you receive and report back on the steps you took. After some time, ask again for feedback. When you do that, you are in a transformative feedback loop, and that is a good thing.
6. Set achievable goals. Make sure your strategic goals are achievable by you and/or your team. Too often people interpret “strategic” as meaning “overly ambitious,” which can be a barrier to embracing strategic goals. Additionally, if you choose overly ambitious goals, you may set yourself up for failure.
7. Focus on the short-term. After you select goals, external factors are likely to quickly force you to tweak your plan and maybe even change your goals. So, consider one-year strategic goals. If you are working within a larger entity and/or addressing complex issues, two-to-three-year goals may make more sense.
8. Articulate your values. Ensure that you (or your team) articulate a clear set of values, especially in an advocacy context. Those values will help guide you through the moments when you need to consider whether to adjust or change either your strategic goals or your ultimate objective.
9. Assess the plan and goals regularly. Assess both your action plan and strategic goals at regular intervals that match your timeframe – every 3 months if the timeframe for achieving your goals is 1 year, less frequently if the timeframe is longer. You should also consider every year whether your ultimate goal is achievable or needs to be tweaked or changed.
10. Keep it simple. Keep the assessments simple. SWOT analysis, logic models, etc. can be useful. People can easily get bogged down, however, by processes that are too involved, which can be a deterrent to both planning and evaluation.
We like the Adaptive Model for its simplicity. It was developed by the Human System Dynamics Institute.
In that model, you ask three overriding questions – What, So What, and Now What. If you use this model, develop detailed questions within each category. Under “What,” those questions could be about what worked well and what didn’t, external and internal challenges you are having, etc. Use the “So What” assessment to figure out what the answers mean to you, why they are important, and how those answers influence what you do during the Now What phase. The answers to all those questions will then inform how you adjust your action plan.
Feel free to reach out to us at connecting@civicaconsultants.com if we can help you with your strategic planning, implementation, and/or assessment.