Strategic planning – a fine balance of detail and flexibility

What I love about strategic planning projects is supporting organisations to step back and consider the big strategic questions – and at the moment that involves supporting a UK rights and policy charity to finalise their strategic plan ready for Board sign-off, deep in consultations (internally and externally) for a global NGO, whilst also kicking off a strategic planning process for a prestigious Royal medical college.

If you are thinking about reviewing your strategy going into the New Year, here are my tips for getting the approach right and the strategic outcome you need.

Plan your strategic planning
As the old adage goes, fail to plan… A key part of starting a project is mapping out the process and timeline – who is leading the process? (we usually recommend a steering group); who to involve internally and externally and how; what are the touchpoints for the senior management and Board throughout the process?; what is the desired strategic plan period? (3 or 5 years is common, although an INGO I worked with based in The Hague set a 7-year strategic plan); and when do you want to launch the new strategy and how?

Look into your crystal ball
Strategy is all about looking to the future. If you are setting your strategy for the next five years, what might your world look like over that period? Your strategy needs to be set in the context of that future world. Carry out some external environment mapping and analysis to give you a picture of what’s going to be changing in the next five years, and how those changes will impact your organisation.

Before navel gazing, it’s important to look at the world around you and work out your unique role as an organisation in that changing world. This will help you identify where you should focus your time and effort to have the best impact and deliver the most change.

So when I’m asked to work with organisations, I usually recommend starting the process with a ‘Discovery’ awayday or workshop(s), to think about the external world. Useful exercises include a PESTLE analysis, to look at the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors that impact your organisation, and a SWOT analysis, to identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This is where we ask the big questions and both work well in the workshop environment.

If it’s a discovery workshop, you need to come out knowing what are the big strategic questions and how you are going to answer them. Who do you need to consult? Who else do you need to involve? And how? What data do you need to look at?

Listen to a range of voices
Every strategy process should be inclusive and enable as many of your internal and external stakeholders to have their say and input. No strategy should be developed in isolation.

The only way to find out the views of your staff, Board, the donors and funders who support your organisation – and most importantly the people you support – is to ask them. There are so many ways to reach out and give people the chance to share their insights, whether that’s 1-2-1 in-depth interviews with your partners and key funders, donor surveys, beneficiary focus groups, online discussion forums… the list goes on.

To ensure the process is truly inclusive, really think about who to involve and how? I often use a range of methodologies with clients and adapt the questions and approach to the audience accordingly so we can reduce any barriers to involvement.

Analyse and co-design together
After reaching out to bring a range of voices into the process, I’ll usually facilitate a ‘Co-Design’ awayday or range of workshops to gather all the feedback from that research and those meetings and analyse it together. From here we can start to co-design the strategy.

Some awaydays work best with just the Board, some with just the senior leadership team, some with the whole organisation. One approach I find that works well is if you can bring together the Board and staff team (or a selection of) to co-design the strategy during an awayday or workshop. It’s a great opportunity to foster collaboration and understanding between the trustees (who are ultimately responsible for strategic direction of the organisation) and the staff team (who will have to deliver that strategy day in, day out).

Let the facilitator take the strain
It helps to have an experienced external facilitator, to help design and run any awaydays and workshops (either in-person or online), to make sure they are inclusive and everybody is encouraged to engage. And a benefit that is often overlooked: to allow everybody at the organisation to get involved – including you if you’re a CEO or Director responsible for strategy and are reading this. It’s best to leave the facilitation and smooth running of the sessions (and keeping an eye on the clock) to someone else so you can truly be present and contribute.

The ingredients of a successful awayday are (again) planning, planning and planning. The structure of the day, the topics you want to cover, the activities to get to those topics, the break-out groups… it’s essential to plan all of this in advance to make sure you keep the pace and energy in the (sometimes virtual) room. Really think about the key elements of the content and how you deliver it.

I always chunk it down into small bits of activity lasting 20 or 30 mins, so hopefully nothing drags. And have a really clear timeline of how the day’s going to work, when the breaks will be, who is in the breakout rooms etc. You’ll be amazed at the amount of detail you need to have planned.

The other essential ingredient is almost the polar opposite of that: the flexibility and agility to bend your approach where needed. When I plan an awayday I go in with a really clear and detailed idea of how every 10 minutes will be spent. Then during the day I have to really listen and gauge the vibe of the room, so I know when to open up discussions and give people a bit more time to chew over an important strategic question, and when to close things down and move on. This is a real skill which I’ve had to hone over many years.

Focus on change and impact
Whoever you involve, the mindset and thinking for strategy co-design should always be outcomes focused. Your new strategic plan needs to be centred in the external environment you are working in, give clarity on your role and purpose and be laser-focused on the change you want, and need to make happen. Your new strategy should be your North Star, guiding everyone in and outside your organisation to where you want to get to.

If it’s a strategy co-design awayday, you want to start to develop the outline of the new strategy giving you a draft that you can go away and develop. What are the key pillars? What are your mission, vision, values and strategic objectives?

Your new strategic plan will often involve several iterations, which can take anything from a month to four months, depending on the number of stakeholders involved. There may also be some big strategic questions and options which you will need to present to the Board with considered discussion and debate to help them decide on the way forward.

As the development of the final strategy proceeds, my involvement as a consultant usually diminishes. It’s your strategy and you and your teams need to own it. At this stage I often provide ‘light-touch’ support in the development and writing – sometimes just as a critical eye. By the time you come to present the final draft to the Board, you should be confident that it will be signed off enthusiastically, because you already have their buy-in and the process has been truly inclusive and engaging.

Now all you have to do is deliver it!

Action Planning has a number of experienced consultants who can help you with your strategy in much the same way that I have described. Get in touch for a free initial conversation and we will help you plan out the right approach for your organisation.