Strategic planning is a powerful process
that bolsters collaboration and healthy responsiveness in an organization. When
engaging in strategic planning, an organization’s decisions makers mindful
identify potential internal and external threats, and highlight the
organizations internal strengths and external opportunities. It helps create
some consensus among stakeholders about the next steps the organizations should
take, increasing buy-in for the conclusions of the strategic plan. A successful
strategic plan incorporates the origin and that mission of the organization,
and identifies areas for investment and improvement; when done correctly, the
process produces a clear and communicable plan for the organization’s next
steps (Bryson, 247-248). The following is United Way of Dane County’s process
for strategic planning:
The first step of strategic planning is to
gather a group of volunteers or staff to participate; the group should be no
larger than eighteen participants to ensure that it is a workable size. This
group should include key decision makers for the organization (Bryson, 245).
Once the participants are gathered, their first task is to identify the mission
of the organization. Participants brainstorm keywords that could be included,
and then construct a statement from this list. The goals for the group is to
communicate “what do we do for our constituency” in seventeen words or fewer
(United Way, 1).
The next task for volunteers is to
identify the long range vision statement for the organization that gives a
sense of where the organization is going. This statement should covey that
ideal future of the organization, and it should provide some timeline for
action (United Way, 2). This mission and vision give the participants a sense
of what is, and what is coming, and they create a metric so that assessments of
the internal organization, external environment, and competition can be
conducted.
These assessments help identify the SWOTs:
the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the organization.
Strengths are the internal conditions that may facilitate, and weaknesses are
the internal conditions that may thwart the organization delivering upon its
mission and attaining its vision. Opportunities are external trends that may
facilitate the mission and vision, and threats are external trends that may
thwart the mission and vision of the organization (United Way, 3-4). Once the
SWOTs are defined, participants independently rank the probability that the
condition or trend will occur on a scale from zero (negligible) to ten (highly
probable). Participants also rank the magnitude of impact the condition or
trend would have on the organization. Next, these independent rankings for each
SWOT are averaged, and the SWOTs are highly ranked by the participants are
plotted on an impact probability chart (United Way, 4-6).
The top SWOTs are used to frame the
strategic issues of the organization, identifying the next steps for the
organization; the organization may highlight strengths that should receive
further investment, or focus on threats that must be addressed for the health
of the organization. Once strategies have been formulated, the team must
proceed to implementation through an action plan. These plans should detail:
the roles and responsibilities of task teams and oversight bodies, specific
action steps and details, a schedule, and accountability and midcourse
correction procedures (Bryson, 258-261). While strategic planning is presented
as a linear process, it is important to note that it is an iterative process,
and participants often rethink through the various steps while constructing the
plan. In the end, all of the steps of the process should always return to the mission
of the organization, helping decision makers to select next steps that will
help the mission and vision be realized.
Works Cited
Bryson, J. “Strategic Planning
and the Strategy Cycle.” The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and
management. John Wiley & Sons, 2016. Pg. 240-273.
United Way Dane Country
“Strategic Planning Process.” Provided by Leslie Ann Howard. Pg. 1-7.
