How to Build a Strategic Plan

You've got an organization doing important work. And you've got big ideas about what it could become. So you ask everyone where you should go next. You get a lot of different answers. Some people want to grow. Some want to do fewer things better. And some think you should keep doing exactly what you're doing. So you put all the ideas on a list. Congratulations. You have a list. But you still don't know what to do.

So you take a closer look at where you are. What's working? What's getting in the way? What do the people closest to the work know that everyone else might be missing? Now you have a clearer picture. But some of what you've learned challenges what you thought you knew. So you revisit your assumptions. And some of those ideas start looking a lot less promising. And new possibilities emerge.

Now you can start making choices. But everyone thinks their idea should come first. So you agree on what matters most and what you'll use to weigh the options. Now you can compare them. And you discover something uncomfortable. You can't do everything. So you decide what to prioritize. You decide what to change. And you decide what to stop doing. Now you have a direction.

But a direction isn't a plan. So you figure out what it would actually take to get there. You need the right people to do the work. You need money to pay for it. You need time to get it done. And you need people with the authority to make decisions. Turns out, you don't have everything you need to do everything you've planned. So you make some more choices. You adjust your priorities, shift resources, and figure out what can realistically happen first. Now you've got a plan people can act on. So you put it in a beautiful document. And everyone goes back to work.

Before long, the plan is sitting on a shelf. The organization is still making decisions the same way it always has. So you build the plan into how the organization works. You decide how priorities get set. You decide how resources get allocated. You decide how progress gets checked. And you decide how people respond when something changes. Something will change. And when it does, you don't have to start from scratch. You can look at what you've learned, revisit your choices, and adjust your approach.

Now you've got more than a document. You've got a shared direction, a set of choices, and a way to keep moving toward what matters. Congratulations. You've built a strategic plan. Your organization can follow it. And people can use it to make decisions.