If you realize that your strategic plan is not quite right anymore, recognizing that you are in year two or three of plan implementation and yet unanticipated change has happened, it is wise to do a strategic plan refresh rather than plowing ahead with the existing plan for its five year duration. You need to look at the plan for current relevancy and usefulness. It is not time for a the development of a new strategic plan,that takes more resources than you can put into strategic planning right now. A strategic plan refresh takes less time, doesn’t exhaust the people, and gives you the information that is needed to make any adjustments that are necessary.
Working with us to do your strategic plan refresh also increases the capacity in your organization for working in today’s performance environment of constant change. We use a change framework rather than a project framework for the strategic plan refresh. We use a holistic approach that engages the people who are implementing the plan.
What’s Involved in a Strategic Plan Refresh?
When we do a strategic plan refresh for an organization or project of 100 people or less, the steps include:
- A meeting with the leadership team to go through a checklist of what they have in place to lead a strategy focused organization including the existing strategic plan (4 hours).
- If necessary, to undertake some strengthening of the leadership team (usual time frame 2 days).
- A Whole System meeting involving everyone that includes the opportunity to have conversations in relation to the existing strategic plan to identify what should be kept, increased, reduced, eliminated, and created (1 day, often divided as two ½ days).
- A Whole System meeting to identify themes, priorities, and refresh the strategies and sub-strategies (1 day).
When the organization is larger, everyone in the organization cannot attend the Whole System meetings. Instead, a representative mixture of the whole system participates. We often add a few steps, depending on the culture of the organization, and often having separate meetings with Human Resources and having an expanded leadership team meeting that includes division, department, and team leaders. Even with large organizations, the process can be accomplished within a month.
A strategic plan refresh is a cost effective, time effective and resource effective way to keep your organization on track in closing the gap between potential and results, re-inspiring people towards a common vision, and achieving its goals.
Getting Started
Contact Birgitt Williams, President of Dalar International Consultancy, Inc. to schedule a free one hour appointment to discuss your strategic plan refresh needs. During this call, Birgitt will go over what you have in place in relation to your current strategic plan; the purpose of doing a strategic plan refresh at this time; and the history of your organization in relation to strategic planning. Based on this information, she will outline for you her recommendations for your strategic plan refresh process.
Learning Opportunities
We offer learning modules that can be taken as part of engaging our services for strategic planning. Some of our clients choose to take these learning modules to increase the skills, knowledge and capacity within their organizations for strategic planning, strategic plan implementation, and the strategy focused organization. Each offers a valuable skill set for work with strategic planning or they can be taken together.
