Following the strategy preparation phase in which you’ve established your red lines, reviewed your impact and your previous strategy, spoken to your key stakeholders and leadership team, outlined a timeline, and allocated resources to the process, it’s time to actually review or develop your strategy.
If you’ve got plans for a mission or vision tweak, don’t hold this back as a surprise and equally, if it’s not up for grabs, don’t consult on it or people will feel that the process is tokenistic.
Having established mission, vision, goals and values, many organisations run workshops to develop the details of priority objectives, how to achieve them, who needs to be involved and what new partnerships, enablers and income are required to achieve them.
A good strategy considers the impact that different partners and income streams have on the organisation and is honest that there will be an impact!
Often all this is expected to be achieved in just one or two workshops, but this is rarely achievable. In reality it needs to be an iterative process with time for ideas to shake down, be drafted, commented on and redrafted.
You’ll see in my very light-touch year 1 template plan above, I also include assumptions. Any organisations relies on assumptions that are often unsaid. Succession and future proofing makes this a useful exercise in spelling them out and the resource required in maintaining them.
Ideally, at the core of the process are equitable and inclusive conversations with beneficiaries and at the very least, a thorough exploration of the customer journey at the start in order to have them at the heart of the process.
Returning to impact throughout the process is a vital component. As is not starting with a blank sheet of paper. Most people struggle with this and the co-development of a robust Theory of Change near the start can be a valuable tool in keep everything that follows on mission.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a Theory of Change should feature at the core of a good strategy. If the logic of the strategy doesn’t stack up and achieve the desired impact and vision, it should be scrutinised and senior leaders should be asking why it made the cut and is in the strategy at all.