Thinking Ahead: Why Strategic Thinking & Planning Matter

I am a big fan of staff lead strategic plans.  I am sure that there are circumstances where planning should be a formal process that is lead by an outside firm.  However, please do not underestimate the process leading up to the strategic plan as an important employee engagement tool.

I like the following type of planning efforts:

• Scrappy

  • Old school facilitation - think SWOT analysis, huge post-it-notes on walls and lots of sharpies.

• Staff Lead

  • Notice I did not say Senior Staff lead.

  • I think that all levels of staff can lead small (~10 people) focus groups.

  • We recently held 14 simultaneous focus groups.  

    • They were lead by me, COS, a few Leaders, but most were staff participating in the current Leadership Academy class.  They were staff who wanted more leadership experience and doing some deep facilitation was a great learning tool for them.

  • We also used this time to review our values and how we wanted to be viewed by our business partners.

• Two-Year Plans

  • Since I work in a market driven field, anything longer than two years seems meaningless.

  • Transforming Technology is our #1 strategic planning goal.  We recognize it will take five years to complete the transformation.  It is listed in the current two-year plan and will be listed in the next plan as well.  We could not focus on production goals until the technology was ready to support the growth.

• Board Review #1 & Final Data Collection

  • Once the focus groups and SWOT data has been summarized, I share it with the Board.  

  • I want to get the Board’s reaction to the focus group feedback.

  • It is very likely that the Board will want some additional analysis or work completed to research some underlying points.

• After any additional work that needs to be completed, the actual planning and thinking begins.

  • My Chief of Staff and I met with each Department Director and talked about the feedback from the focus groups.

  • We summarized feedback from the Directors and created a draft Strategic Plan.

  • As you can imagine, there was good debate and differing ideas on what was most important to be included on the Plan.  We were prepared to explain why decisions were made and gave talking points to Directors on how to discuss with their staff.

• Board Review #2

  • The Board now reviews the draft plan and offers final suggestions.

• Board Approval of the Plan

  • The actual plan will be approved by the Board.

• Annual Goals

  • The planning effort leads to five annual goals.

  • More than five loses focus.

  • Every staff member is given a printed laminated copy of the Annual Goals for their cubicle/office/etc to keep the goals always in mind.

• Performance Goals for all employees

  • Individual goals must be tied to an Annual Goal.

  • This is done during the typical performance review process.

• Communicate like crazy

  • All staff have copies of the strategic plan, annual goals and should know how their work fits into the plans.

  • Over communicating the plan helps staff prioritize their work as it is either connected to an annual goal or not.  If it is connected, it gives staff permission to move forward through agency-awareness of what is or is not important.