Lessons Learned Steps to Developing a Strategic Plan

1. Strike a Strategic Planning Committee.  Review relevant documentation and conduct initial interviews with the E.D. and Board chair. Plan for strategic planning: who will be involved, who will actually be responsible for it, the time requirements, whether or not to hire a consultant.

2. Conduct interviews, focus groups and surveys with a broader base of stakeholders. Stakeholders may include Board members, managers and staff; representatives of funding agencies; representatives of umbrella groups, representatives of partner as well as competing agencies, and clients.  Interviews, focus groups and surveys can shed light on…

• Current and projected demand for service, gaps in services, future growth.
• Expected changes in government policy, information on competitors market share.
• Needs assessment of stakeholders to gauge public opinion and identify future needs.
• New or unusual sources of revenue or resources.

3. Critical to the strategic planning process is an organizational review: What are your agency’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).  SWOT analyses or some variation are important to get as much input as possible so that realistic and flexible plans can be formed both short and long term. 

4. Conduct one or more strategic planning sessions. Use the SWOT results as background information for the Strategic Planning Session(s) along with any other background material. Typically the session will be one to two days in duration (the timing of the session could be two consecutive days or spaced apart by a week or two) and is central to arriving at a vision that identifies priorities and strategies that confirm the agency’s mission and values, future direction, and builds revenues for sustainability.  Avoid having too many people in the session, though it should include agency Board members, the ED, senior managers, staff representatives, as well as (possibly) partners and other stakeholders. 

Among the questions to address are:

• What is our organization’s mission? 
• What are our key values?
• Who are our clients?  (Key question: what are the characteristics and needs profiles of the clients we serve?)
• Who else in our community might share our interest?
• How well are we meeting the needs of our clients? Where could we do better?
• Where are our growth areas?
• Who else in the community has the capacities we want to grow in our organization?
• From a marketing perspective, what are our unique strengths? 
• Is there a need or demand for these qualities?
• How can we develop these strengths – or other required strengths - further?
• How can we market them?
• Do we want to grow, or is our aim fostering sustainability and financial stability?
• If we want to grow, how and in what way should we grow?
• How and by when should we meet our growth targets? (Key question: how can we incorporate program evaluation/monitoring to help us grow and ensure we are meeting the needs of the clients we serve?)

5. Draft strategic plan. These sessions will result in a rough strategic plan including agreed upon vision, mission, and values of the organization, strategic directions and skeletal action plans associated with each strategic direction.

6. Develop a finalized strategic plan. The document should include a work plan with overall schedule, time lines for implementation, resources required, persons responsible, performance measures, and measurable objectives.  It should also include a business/resourcing plan to accompany each of the strategic directions identified in the strategic plan.