Managing the Strategic Planning Process

There are many considerations that go into the development of an effective strategic plan – which can make the process seem daunting at first. At EVALCORP, we've found that if you break up the overall project into smaller, more manageable components, the process can be quite enlightening and the final product will serve as a valuable guidepost you can refer to as you move your organization forward.

At the most fundamental level, strategic planning is assessing where your organization is now, where you want/need it to be, and what you need to do to get it there. Often times, starting with a high-level outline of what your strategic plan should be is probably the best first step you can take. This way you can gain a clearer sense of which components need to be included in your plan and can “grease the slide” as they say, in developing a well-written and useful strategic plan. 

We recently came across an interesting post on the American Evaluation Association’s AEA 365 blog, related to simplifying strategic planning, that breaks the process down into 3 steps:  (1) taking stock of the situation; (2) picking targets and setting objectives; and (3) formulating plans. The diagram pertaining to this post is provided below -- and to read more about this approach, please click on the following link:

http://aea365.org/blog/fred-nickols-on-simplified-strategic-planning/