The strategic plan provides the framework for fundamental decisions and actions that shape what an organization is, what it does, and why.

The strategic planning process facilitates communication and provides a forum to accommodate divergent interests and values. It promotes proactive thought and action. A good strategic plan, tailored to the needs of an organization, improves organizational responsiveness and decision making by providing clarity for the organization’s decision-makers.

Business planning requires:

• Identifying the issues and roadblocks preventing the organization from improving performance;

• Developing a long-term and short-term plan for the organization; and,

• Managing the plan to make sure that the plan is followed and modified as necessary.

Internal and External Assessment, including determining the needs of key stakeholders and identifying key issues. Key issues include function-specific issues such as operations and finance, and organization-wide issues such as communications, culture, systems and processes, and resources.

The first step to developing the plan is to define a vision for the organization. Then, we help clients walk through and respond to key questions that clearly define the organization’s mission. An outgrowth of this process is establishing multi-year goals, which establishes the organization’s direction.

We help our clients set annual objectives to attain their multi-year goals. These objectives result in a detailed action plan and an issue resolution process.

To be effective, the strategic plan must be acted upon and managed continually. To increase the chance of successful plan implementation, we identify and share with our clients critical success factors and barriers to success. We want to ensure that when our work is complete, there is support for the plan and it is managed effectively.  A strategic plan is a living document that may need to be revised on occasion.  When clients feel ownership of the plan, they are better able to manage it.