A Process for Strategies in a Real-World Context

Measurement is essential to a successful strategic plan – one that goes beyond being an inspirational document to one that fundamentally aligns resources with priorities across the organization and inspires the workforce. A clear process to measure, where leaders can review progress and make decisions, is key. This also enables leaders to pivot on initiatives that may not be working or are powerfully achieving outcomes in the organization.

Leaders need to routinely report progress to stakeholders and be willing to listen to new and unexpected requirements.

Defining the purpose and value with measureable goals and objectives, transparently communicating these, and continuously planning in collaboration with stakeholders help create a successful repeatable process that organizations can implement annually.

A defined, collaborative, flexible, and stakeholder-driven strategy enables leaders to make decisions in highly visible, complex situations at the core of an agency’s mission. With our clients, we applied our experience co-creating strategies that work in real-world context.

Inside any organization, Government or business, you find successful agencies and companies moving forward on the strength of a strategic plan. Unfortunately, a one-stop planning session rarely produces a sufficient and lasting strategic plan.  A successful strategic plan requires a defined purpose, continuous focused assessments, and a plan to develop a repeatable process. The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, for example, aims to establish a process that drives strategic planning and allows the organization to achieve annual mission success.

With a well-defined purpose and process for creating or updating a strategic plan, an organization’s leadership evaluates its position within its respective area each year. A key part of the evaluation is the input and understanding of the stakeholder ecosystem – whether users, executives, or governance bodies – and the needs and influence of each. By using a careful process to create archetypes of each essential stakeholder group, an organization can empathize with each and create strategic objectives and goals, the identify how to measure these.