Throughout the years, I’ve observed many strategic plans being created. Some are effective, while others are not. One key point I’ve noticed is that they generally follow a basic format. The first thing to understand is that a strategic plan is not the same as a business plan. While a solid strategic plan should mention financial impact and provide a cost outline, these are often just estimates at the strategic level. In fact, any strategic plan should include the creation of a business plan for any major strategic initiatives or projects that come up.
I prefer the Balanced Scorecard method, so I’ve developed a Strategic Plan Template that uses this approach. I believe it offers a solid outline and enough detail to shift focus away from document layout and onto the content. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) method encourages the team to focus on business goals based on the company’s vision and mission and their related value.
Unlike other methodologies, BSC suggests it is at the business objective stage where measures and targets need to be identified. Only when the business objectives, measures and targets have been clearly stated should we even consider initiatives or projects. It is the success of the business objective that is the imperative.
The mistake that is often made in strategic planning is to jump straight to initiatives or projects without considering business impact carefully. The problem with this approach is that the measures tend to be based on whether or not a project has completed, this tells us nothing about business value.
The strategic plan template structure I use is as follows:
- Vision – States the company vision
- Mission – States the company mission
- Core Values – The foundation upon which the company is built
- Strategic Priorities – Built through an examination of company strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Combined with the output of a ‘strategy canvas’ three areas that have major significance are identified.
- Strategy Map – The visualisation and interlinking of the business objectives
- Business Objectives – The primary business objectives and most importantly what the intended results are. Together with measures and targets
- Strategic Initiatives – And finally, the strategic initiatives and/projects required to achieve the strategy
- Financial Summary – the outline costs and benefits of the strategic plan
For Business2Community readers, I have included an editable copy of the template, I hope you find it useful. The template also includes a set of sample data based on a typical medium to large size company. In the appendix is a sample Integrated Strategy Map, an enormously helpful internal communication tool.