What Are the Three Steps to Strategic Planning?
A strategic plan is essentially two items paired together, the overarching vision for your organization AND how to get there. If you imagine a car setting out on a road trip across the country, the strategy is the destination, and the plan is the locations/stops along the way that are required to get there. The strategy is aligned with your vision and where you and your community want to be. Both strategy and planning are useful pieces to understand, but to be successful with one component, you need the other. A great strategic plan perfectly aligns the two in order to direct an organization’s future. Strategic plans align the future of organizations for the next three to five (or more) years. This blog takes a look at the core steps that we follow to craft strategic plans for our clients. Let’s take a look.
1. Research
Every plan that NMBL produces, begins with thorough research. A proper strategic plan is tailored to fit an organization in every aspect. Tailoring a plan cannot be achieved without understanding it from top to bottom, internally and externally, and from every other possible perspective. That is why our research is always hands-on and focused on those who will know the most about the organization: the community. We utilize a thorough interview phase where we talk to all stakeholders in the organization, including employees, board members, external community members, community leaders, donors, members, and more as needed.
During this interview phase, we are working on connecting with the leadership, donors, contributors, and the community to hear everything about the organization. The objective of talking to as many stakeholders as possible is to hear what the community thinks of the organization. This allows us to gauge their strengths and the opportunities they could act upon. Our goal is to hear from as many people as possible in order to get a full picture of the organization and the educational role they hold. We often utilize an online survey to create a sort of digital town hall meeting where we can reach a broad audience and hear diverse perspectives. It allows us to gather as much information as possible from the community but in such a way that is convenient for the people taking this survey.
In addition to interviews, we always examine the technical aspects of an organization in order to compare the organization as it is in respect to the perspectives shared in interviews. This typically involves reviewing budgets, organization charts, applicable reports, industry data, and anything else organizations can share.
Once we have attained a significant amount of data and information, we undertake an analysis phase where we complete a PESTLE analysis. We utilize the PESTLE analysis to do a full review of the environment of our client’s industry, taking a look at the trends and common practices within the industry under each of the PESTLE categories (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental). Explaning this process thoroughly requires its own discussion and so we encourage you to check out our blog breaking down What is a PESTLE Analysis. If you know a little about strategic planning, you might be asking why we don’t use a SWOT analysis. We shy away from this style of analysis because it fails to give our clients a truly complete picture of their strategic position. You can learn more about the SWOT analysis and its alternatives in our blog on Four Alternatives to a SWOT Analysis.
Finally, we view all of this information through the lens of the organization’s vision. The vision is a sort of benchmark in the process as we focus our planning efforts on vision-based strategic planning in order to produce a more pragmatic and holistic plan.
2. Development
With the analysis stage complete (and it is a work-intensive process), we then move to the actual planning process as we begin to develop the plan for an organization. This is the stage where we take what we found in the research phase and establish the strategic position of the organization while keeping its vision in mind. We must take the diverse perspectives from interviews, the PESTLE analysis outcomes, and blend these with the vision of the organization to determine what concrete steps the organization can take in the next three to five years to move toward its vision. This may require some high-level adjustments to the mission statement or key stakeholder objectives. Additionally, this is where we consider the unique needs of every client in order to craft a plan that targets their community’s key needs.
For example, while developing a strategic plan for America’s Black Holocaust Museum NMBL had to build the unique needs of the organization into the plan. The museum had been closed for many years, but one expectation of the planning process was to reopen as soon as possible. Additionally, there was a strong feeling that the museum could become a centerpiece of the neighborhood. Not every organization presents the same unique needs, vision, or history and that is why NMBL ensures that every organization gets a unique development stage where we build a plan on the foundation laid by thorough research.
3. Final Plans
Once we reach the final plans stage of the strategic planning process, we have a document in hand that lays out the objectives, strategies, and needs of the organization. This is the stage where we continue to work with the organization to ensure that the plan in hand tackles the rights issues in the best way for that organization. Once a final evaluation is complete with the organization, we will finalize the plan, including suggestions or cementing finer details where needed, before crafting what is the final plan for the organization.
While we work to keep the planning process to an efficient but thorough three-step plan, we must note two follow-up steps. Although not part of the core planning process, operationalizing as well as tracking and adjustment are crucial actions for putting the final touches on an excellent plan. Below we take a look at what these steps involve.
Operationalizing
All too often, plans are made but then go on the shelf to collect dust. Not here. At NMBL, a core tenet of our planning process is to ensure functionality. We achieve that through building in operationalization into our work. This begins in the planning process by ensuring that the details of the plan are tailored to the client and based upon in-depth research and analysis. A massive challenge that faces many organizations is the fact that their plan is cookie cutter and not the right fit for them. With a quality plan in place, NMBL then resolves to help clients apply their plan through every level of their organization so that it can truly be a strategic guide to their activities. The operationalizing stage is where the action happens for the client. NMBL is often hands-on in this phase, bringing in our other services to help organizations through change management, fundraising, grand opening logistics, staffing, board education, interim executive work, and more. The key to a successful operationalization phase is knowing when to ask for help. By nailing the operationalization phase, your organization will reap the full benefits of the strategic plan for the long term, so it is not the time to shy away from the right help. Learn more about effective operationalizing in our blog on Operationalizing a Nonprofit Strategic Plan.
Tracking and Adjustments
A plan is an important first step, but an organization will not reach its full potential unless it has metrics with which to judge itself and remain on track. Performance measurements and consistent review of the applicability of strategies as well as new internal or external developments are critical to keeping a plan on track. Plans must have some flexibility because, as anyone who has lived through 2020-2021 can attest, even the best plan will still not expect everything (a pandemic for example). Therefore, it is crucial to set a plan for when to evaluate the utility of the strategic plan and where it needs to be adjusted to match the realities of the industry, community, or changes within the organization. Learn more about tracking in our blog on What is the Purpose of Performance Measures for a Strategic Plan?
There is always more to learn about in the strategic planning process so we encourage you to check out more features in our strategic planning series!
Now, more than ever, a proper strategic plan is incredibly important. The world has changed considerably in the last year and so did many organizations. Nobody was planning on a pandemic. Everyone was reacting, but with a strategic plan, your organization can enjoy the benefit of a proactive future. As the world is slowly coming out of the pandemic and looks toward a new normal, organizations feel like they are having somewhat of a new start. Many businesses shifted their products, services, and delivery of both. Nonprofits fundraised digitally and donors changed their behaviors. This new normal provides many organizations with the desire to reset their sense of direction. With the new landscape comes changes to previous strategic plans. Metrics of success, competition, consumers, staff, and societal shifts (economic/political/social) are just a few things that have changed. It is essential to get off the back foot and enjoy the strategic benefits of a planned future. A strategic plan provides that guidance and the insights needed to correct organizational deficiencies.
Interested in aligning your future? We want to help prepare your organization to meet its strategic goals. Download our free strategic plan prep kit here and click the button below to connect with us for a strategic plan consultation!
