3 Keys to Successfully Implementing a Strategic Plan
Strategic planning can be magical. We spend months dreaming and reimagining with clients and their stakeholders to create a big, hairy, and audacious plan that everyone is excited about. It's not uncommon for anxiety and concern to creep in as staff begin to see and understand the work that is required to achieve the big audacious goals of the plan. Some organizations have a historical problem of creating plans and then leaving them on the shelf, never being reviewed again. In our strategic planning process, we allot time for implementation planning which is thinking about how to implement the plan. We consider the organization’s culture and begin planning the tactical strategies that will facilitate the goals of the plan. Here are a few aspects of implementation planning that I think are essential to success.
Role Clarity
A significant key to success is establishing who will be responsible for ensuring the work gets done. We like to use the term champion – the champion is not necessarily responsible for doing all of the work of the goal or strategy but they make sure work is getting done and challenges/barriers are being addressed and removed. When there are many moving parts to getting the work done, the M.O.C.H.A. model, from The Management Center, is a great way to establish role clarity.
2. Timelines
Depending on your organization's culture and desired impact, there are two different ways you might create a timeline.
I think more often than not we think about time as in month, year, quarter, fiscal calendars, etc. Supposing you think or want to use time in this way, be sure to lift up any annual events that might distract you or take your energy away from implementing your plan; this might be grant cycle reporting, big organization events, or low-productivity seasons (i.e. summer or winter breaks). Often, teams will pile all of the work within the first year and a half despite having built a plan for three years - and if you can truly achieve your plan in a year, then it wasn’t big enough! Timelines can be a way of managing your workload – be kind to yourself and your staff.
The other consideration for timelines is by milestone; instead of using a calendar, use task completion. I have been facilitating a group that initially wanted to do a launch event in January. As January crept closer, they realized they could not meet their launch event date. They removed the January timeframe and instead focused on the task of hiring a coordinator as a milestone – this coordinator would then be responsible for coordinating the launch event. I think milestone timelines are a great way to manage the work if your capacity is limited.
3. Measure of Success
How will you know you’re done? How will you know you’re doing what you said you would do? How will you know when to celebrate?! While there are many different ways to measure success, I typically see two types of success measures in strategic planning – process and outcome.
Process measures are ideal for any activity that will be ongoing. If you want to get into the practice of evaluating your programs then you need to establish a process for evaluation (how often, what tool for evaluation, etc.).
Outcome measures are the change in behavior because of the work you do – the impact of a strategy or goal. The change can be in access, awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills, or behavior. Here are some non-specific examples.
Access - shorter wait for services
Awareness - clients can list 2-3 activities that support a healthy lifestyle
Knowledge - increased understanding of drug policy
Attitude - community members are advocating for affordable housing efforts
Skill - participants can create and maintain a budget
Behavior - increased participation in programs