Non-Profit Chas

Some good points from Entrepreneur.com on Why Strategy Fails:

As a thing, a vision, a direction, everyone in the company owns strategy. As an action, it requires specific people to carry it out within the organization. Lack of such involvement is one of the major predictors of strategy failure.

This is an incomplete idea—even the idea of “flawless execution” assumes there’s a target everyone is aiming toward. When is the last time you saw that level of alignment in any business, regardless of size?

Great decisions can be made by teams. But sometimes when decisions are made by teams without broader review, feedback is missed or fails to take into account cross-functional understanding. That person in sales may just hold the key as to how you can better engage the channel. Build in time for review, but make sure you’re looking for targeted input. This isn’t a consensus-building exercise.

So you understand the point of strategic planning. You’re gearing up to actually start. This post is all about pulling it off.

Our biggest obstacle at first was an undefined goal and process. The problem with doing this blind is that it’s too easy to get distracted, waste time, and become overwhelmed. As I wrote before, the payoff is in the journey. But imagine a two day trip that takes a 800-mile detour and lasts three weeks. Even though you might get there, you’ll probably be cranky and won’t enjoy the destination.

Starting with a process means you set a goal (the plan) and draw a line to get there. Here’s the process we started with, based on the suggestions of the SCORE consultants.

April

Establish the rules, process, terminology, schedule, and so on.

• Preliminary Ground Rules and Assumptions
• Preliminary Schedule (what you’re reading now)
• Preliminary Outline
• Glossary of Terms
• Mission (what your organization exists to accomplish)
• Vision (what you hope to do and become)
• SWOTs defined

May

Build support throughout the organization and community by giving everyone an opportunity to participate, as well as reducing the magnitude of the process through delegation. Identify the main strategic issues facing your organization and focus everyone on these.

• Individual Team Deliberations
• Strategic Issues defined
• Individual Team Assignments of Planning Process Areas

June

Begin discussing how you will address the strategic issues. The organization should be fired up by this point, asking difficult questions and straining minds to find effective strategies.

• Strategies Development
• Preliminary Goals Identified
• Ground Rules and Assumptions finalized
• Final Mission

July

Once strategies are developed, the plan begins to take shape. The organization begins to understand the financial needs and the future of the programs.

• Final Strategic Plan Outline
• Preliminary Financial Plan (5 yr)
• Preliminary Draft of Strategic Issues, Strategies and Goals, Preliminary Objectives and Programs Defined

August

The many components begin to come together.

• Revised Financial Plan (5 yr)
• Final Draft of Strategic Issues
• Strategies, Goals, Objectives and Programs
• Check for consistent vertical integration of all inputs to Strategic Plan

September

Down to business: wrapping up the financial plans, beginning to draft the strategic plan, and clearing up the rest of the discussions.

• Final Financial Plan (5 yr)
• Draft Strategic Plan
• Resolution of Outstanding Strategic Plan Issues

October

Everyone gets an opportunity to review and provide feedback on the newly drafted plan.

• Distribute Copies of Strategic Plan

November

The destination has been reached… now the work begins.

• Board Acceptance
• Implementation of Completed Strategic Plan

After the Planning

One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen about strategic plans is that they frequently collect dust on a shelf while the organization continues about its business as it always has. This suggests to me two things: first, the organization wasn’t really buying into the plan because it’s hard to ignore such investment if you agree with it; second, there is no champion of the plan to keep attention focused on it. An executive director, CEO, or President needs to force the organization back into the plan. Meetings, evaluations, proposals, etc. should be considered in the context of the strategic issues and strategies from the plan. All staff, board members, and major donors should be fully aware of the strategic issues and strategies of the organization. And once the plan is implemented, the organization must continue to evaluate and revise it—because you’ll be doing it all over again very soon.

I believe that strategic plans (like business plans, college educations, and road trips) have more value in the journey than in the destination. The end result of your strategic planning process might be two pages or 20 pages. It might be loaded with all kinds of optimistic goals and lofty ambitions. It may even help you win grants or land new donors.

But those three (or 20) pages represent more than the text on the paper. The plan represents your organization’s heart and soul. Built by of board members and staff, volunteers and donors, community members and experts, a strategic plan brings many perspectives together and puts them on the same team. Many people driving hard, optimistic, and committed to the future.

Hard questions and hard answers. New ideas and revelations. Many a-ha moments. And a lot of expectations.

This isn’t to say that the end result isn’t valuable; it’s just not the whole picture. You can’t ask one person (or five people) to simply sit down and create your strategic plan. Not if you want it to mean anything. Not if you want it to hold up.

Next post: planning your strategic planning.

We’re knee-deep in “strategic planning”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning right now. Like many organizations, Our “Camp Fire council”:http://campfireusarbc.org/ doesn’t have a strategic plan in place to work from. We haven’t done this process before, and weren’t sure how to go about it. We just figured we needed to do it.

I’d like to write about this process over the next few months as we build our strategic plan. But first I’ll make a recommendation:

h3. Get help.

We started the process by spinning our wheels, unsure of what a strategic plan should be. We didn’t know the format, how detailed we should get, or what kind of time period it should cover. Three years? Five? Ten? We got nowhere. We had no idea what we were doing.

Then we got some help. We turned to “SCORE”:http://score.org/, who graciously agreed to help facilitate the process. Our SCORE guys, Norm and Fred, have done this many times before and have done a great job of keeping us from veering right over the edge of the cliff again. They provided resources and a framework for the strategic plan. They’ve attended many of our meetings and have kept our expectations realistic.

For instance, we’re no longer trying to knock out a strategic plan in under a month. We’re also bringing many others into the process, rather than having four or five board members try to pen the entire thing.

And we’re building momentum. Always important.