Step 1. Decide on the best time to refresh your strategic plan.
It doesn’t matter whether your strategic plan is about to expire or has already expired – you will get huge benefits from checking in with your long-term vision and goals, to see if they’re still relevant and will help you get to where you want to go. In terms of timing for your strategic plan review, consider the following:
- Are there big changes coming up in your operating environment? e.g. new legislation, a possible change in government, new technology being introduced? If so, think about whether it would be better to postpone your strategic plan refresh until after the change, so you know what you’re dealing with, or whether you’d prefer to update your strategic plan now, so you’re ahead of the game.
- Has there been a major change in leadership in your organisation, or recent restructuring? Your new leadership may be happy to continue with the current strategic plan until its end. Or if you have several new members in the management team, or a new org structure, it might be a good idea to revisit the strategic plan now.
- Is there an extremely busy time of year, when the team is preoccupied with delivering work, or it’s hard to get all the relevant people together? If so, aim to do your strategic plan refresh at a different time, when everyone has a bit more headspace.
Step 2. Decide who’s going to be involved in reviewing your strategic plan.
Who you involve in a strategic plan review depends on how your organisation works. You might bring in:
- The Board/Management Committee and CEO.
- The Board, CEO and senior leadership team.
- People who aren’t in formal leadership roles but know the organisation inside out, e.g. long‑term staff, volunteers or trusted consultants.
- Your whole team, if you’re a small organisation.
There are some great advantages to involving a wide mix of people:
- A bigger pool of knowledge and experience to draw from.
- Stronger buy‑in from the people who’ll be delivering the plan.
- Diverse perspectives which often leads to more insights.
But there are also a few things to watch out for:
- A large group can be harder to manage without a facilitator.
- Not everyone will be equally interested or invested in the strategic plan.
- You may need more time, as a larger group naturally takes longer to reach agreement or make decisions.
If you’re worried about having too many people involved, you can send an email to staff, volunteers or others, inviting them to comment on the current plan if they want to. It keeps the process manageable while still giving people a chance to contribute. You’ll get the most helpful feedback if you ask them specific targeted questions, not simply ‘What do you think of our current strategic plan?’
Step 3. Reflect on your current or expiring strategic plan.
Take some time to consider the following questions, either individually or with the people who will be involved in the review:
- What do we like about the current strategic plan?
- Is there anything we want to change or improve for the next iteration of our strategic plan?
- What value has the current strategic plan added for our organisation? What do we want the new strategic plan to do for us?
- How has the organisation progressed against the goals in the current strategic plan?
- For those goals that were not achieved, do we want to carry them forward into the next iteration of the strategic plan?
- Do we have ideas for new goals or future directions that we’d like to discuss further?
- Who needs to be informed once we’ve updated our strategic plan? e.g. community members, funding bodies, other key stakeholders?
Step 4. Prepare for your strategic planning session.
Consider the following when organising your strategic planning session: Do you need an independent facilitator? Bringing in an external facilitator can make a big difference to how smoothly your strategic planning session goes. Someone who isn’t part of your everyday work can spot things your team may overlook, ask the right questions, and guide your group through a structured process that draws out the most valuable information for the strategic plan. A dedicated facilitator also means everyone in your organisation can take part fully, instead of someone trying to juggle contributing and facilitating at the same time. An independent facilitator will keep things moving, ensure all voices are heard, and keep the group focused so you finish the session with real progress rather than conversations that go round in circles. They can also collate any pre‑work before the session and write up the strategic plan for you afterwards, saving you time and making sure nothing valuable gets lost along the way. Have you allowed enough time for your strategic planning session? I recommend 6 – 7 hours for a strategic planning session. This will depend on the size of your group and whether you have other issues you’d like to discuss in addition to the strategic plan, e.g. organisational values. You will get the most out of the session if the discussions are efficient but not rushed, people have equal opportunity to participate, and there’s enough time for everyone to agree on the way forward, which is essential for making your strategic plan useful and not just a document that sits on a shelf. Many teams are pleasantly surprised at how much value is added when enough time and space for strategic thinking and discussion are allowed! Do you have a clear and focused agenda for your strategic planning session? A good strategic planning session will include the following agenda items:
- An overview from the Chair and/or CEO about the organisation’s performance against the previous strategic plan and their ideas for the future, to kickstart the conversation.
- Consideration of your vision, mission and the big picture issues that affect your organisation’s work. For example, what’s happening with the economy right now? Are there are broader social issues in the community affecting your work? Are there new opportunities coming up?
- What are the priority areas and goals you want to focus on in future?
Step 5. Check that you have a solid strategic plan going forward.
Once your strategic planning session is done, it’s time to write up and approve the new strategic plan. If your new strategic plan is going to serve you well, it should tick all of these boxes:
- It accurately reflects the discussions from your strategic planning session.
- It gives your CEO and leadership team clear guidance to work from, to progress the goals in the strategic plan.
- It has a clear start and end date, with a timeframe that makes sense to you, e.g. 3 or 5 years.
- It’s short, concise, and focused on the organisation’s vision, mission and how you’re going to get there. It doesn’t include details that don’t belong in a strategic plan, e.g. the organisation’s history, past achievements, profiles of Board members, etc.
- It’s stored in an accessible location where all staff can find it, so it can be referred to when developing new projects and ideas, to make sure these fit within the organisation’s agreed future direction.
Congratulations on your successful strategic planning refresh! Share your new plan freely with staff and stakeholders, confident in the knowledge that it’s up-to-date, relevant, and based on a structured, thoughtful process. Would you like a free one-page strategic planning guide to help you review your plan? Sign up to our email list to receive your guide and be notified about more articles like this one.
Ready for an efficient and achievable update of your strategic plan? Contact Renée.
Read more about Renée’s strategic planning experience and tips to run a strategic planning session that’s actually fun.
