Finishing and Using a Strategic Plan | By Seth Bate

Plan of the Royal Hotel, Carlton 1916, Courtesy of State Records NSW

You had a great planning retreat! Most of the board members were there, staff were involved, everyone ate cookies and drank iced tea. A week later, all the notes are typed up into a document with a pretty cover that says “strategic plan.”

Now what?


In most cases, a planning retreat is done in a work session setting to create a draft document. To make it official, it is necessary to add a little detail and have the board of directors vote to accept it. These steps may be useful:

1. Review the draft plan and adjust language and dates to reflect any progress or decision made since the planning session.
2. Review all people assigned and target dates for projects to see if they are appropriate and realistic. In some cases, these are recommendations from an outside facilitator.  Adjust as necessary.
3. Present the adjusted plan to the board of directors for feedback. Using the board’s ideas, re-write and re-submit for approval. This process may take 2-3 meetings depending on the feedback received.

How the strategic plan is used might be even more important than what it says. Think about these suggestions:

• Use a portion of each meeting to update progress on the plan. Actually make the changes electronically on the document as you go, deleting items as they are accomplished and adding new objectives and associated actions as they are determined.
• Consider using progress on the strategic plan as one of the ways board and staff are evaluated.
• If your organization follows its strategic plan to the letter, there may be an absence of creativity and responsiveness.
• If the plan gets completely overhauled, you may be lacking focus and discipline.
• If the plan gets put away and never looked at, the planning process is a waste of resources and a disservice to the organization’s board and all the people who support it.

CCSR can help you create a strategic planning process that is right for your organization--and help you ensure it remains useful.