Seven Signs a Strategic Plan Falls Short
It breaks our hearts when someone says they don’t see the value of strategic planning.
Yes, it takes time and money to make one, but we believe that strategic plans are critical for setting the direction of any organization’s work. Imagine a nonprofit was a plane, and the executive director was the pilot: would you ever take off without a flight plan — a destination point, a sense of how much fuel you’ll need to get there, and confidence that all the components are working well (including a door that doesn’t fly off mid-air)?
Our theory about why strategic planning is unpopular is that so many plans are crap. That they aren’t worth the time and money. Given that any strategic plan represents thousands of dollars invested and hundreds of hours devoted, it’s no wonder people are wary of them.
Having reviewed dozens of strategic plans, many of which ended up collecting dust on a shelf or forgotten in a desk drawer, we’ve identified seven common elements of a bad strategic plan:
Seven Signs a Strategic Plan Falls Short
1. It’s more than 25 pages long. We have read 80-page strategic plans. Of course they end up collecting dust — who has the time? There is no reason a plan shouldn’t be understandable after 30 minutes of review.
2. It’s indecipherable. You would think this would be self-evident, but we recently were hired to implement a plan that contained this phrase: “Outputs from the local subscope, including a vision and strategic framework, could develop new lines of work within existing programs that align with strategic priorities.” Another used the flowchart below to illustrate… we’re still not sure what. (These are real examples, and we have many more. Strategic plans should be accessible and easy to understand; you shouldn’t need an MBA to follow it.)
3. It doesn’t define success. We’ve been surprised to see multiple plans that dive in without any description of the where and why. They instead turn immediately to the what. Success is the destination point (or points) described in the flight plan analogy. A plan should unpack the components of success, how and why they are prioritized, and how success can be measured.
4. It confuses strategy and tactics. Tactics are not strategies — tactics implement strategies. How do we know they are distinct? We have seen tactical successes still result in strategic failure. (Often, strategic successes occur despite tactical failures.)
5. It’s not actionable. It’s amazing how many plans we’ve seen that describe the what without the how. Strategic plans need not be rife with tactics and subtactics and project plans — in fact, those are better saved for work plans. They should, however, identify the core tactics that, when implemented, will achieve success.
6. It doesn’t address existing challenges. A good plan will take into account an assessment of the existing health of the enterprise, including challenges, and use tactics and strategies to address what was found. If a flight plan has outdated navigation or not enough staff to manage the passengers, you should know that before the plane takes off.
7. It focuses on programs at the expense of infrastructure. Too many plans focus on strategies and tactics solely related to an organization’s core programs without looking at the fundraising, storytelling/communications, administration, and governance that undergird programs (and vice versa). Nonprofit organizations are complex organisms; a good plan takes a holistic view and ties all the pieces together.
If you’re embarking on strategic planning, I’d encourage you to avoid these pitfalls. When working with a consultant, ask for examples of their work to ensure it makes sense to you — and doesn’t make the mistakes above. And if your organization has a strategic plan that is collecting dust or suffers from any of these pitfalls, give us a buzz — that plan is still implementable with a bit of work!
Don’t let the door fly off the plane mid-flight. Say yes to good strategic planning.
