Have you ever failed to follow through with a Strategic Plan?

Monitoring, the last step in this model, is the most important step.  It is how you can ensure follow through with the plan enabling you to actually achieve the Vision.  Strategic Planning should not be an annual event that often results in the documents ending up on a shelf and gathering dust until next year when it is dusted off and updated.  Strategic Planning should always be an ongoing process.

There are two aspects of this step in my process.  The first aspect is that it represents an ongoing meeting process for the leadership team and it is typically a monthly meeting.  During this meeting there is a sequence of events that take place starting with the Measurement step:

1.      Measurement: the Key Performance Indicator graphs are reviewed for progress against the goals.
2.      Initiatives: the group revisits the list of Initiatives to ensure that the three most important have been identified.
3.      Implementation: most of the time is spent reviewing and discussing progress with implementation of the Initiatives.  They review their updated plan and see if they are on track for accomplishing their objectives.  If not satisfied with progress then the leadership team is to take action to see that these implementation plans get back on track.

The second aspect of this step in the process is that the leadership team must function as a team. There are many things to do to ensure that this happens and a few examples could be as follows.  The team should develop and follow what I call Team Operating Procedures.  These are guidelines that the team agrees will ensure that they are working effectively to drive this process.  The best way to explain this is by showing an example of Team Operating Procedures.  This should be modified to fit the specific needs of each team and the team should reach a consensus on what they are. Another activity is that the team should participate in teamwork training.  Lastly, the team should use an experienced facilitator to see that they are continuously improving as a team.  Teamwork is very important for a highly effective organization and must start with the leadership team.  Hopefully the consultant being used for the change process can also ensure that the group functions as a team.  I will be talking more about teamwork in general in future Blog articles.

How well has your organization done with following through with Strategic Plans?  If you are not satisfied what are you going to do differently?