B2C2 Expansion Toolkit

Module 1 - Part 3 - Strategic Planning

The Strategic Planning Process

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning:

assists in creating and aligning the future direction of an organization,
helps define the steps, set expectations, propel action, and provide focus on how to achieve goals,
is a collaborative process with all stakeholders to:

review current practices,
analyze the external landscape,
develop goals,
create work plans,
set timelines and,
implement dates to review progress.

Benefits of Strategic Plans

Strategic planning can provide immediate benefits including those listed below.

allows you to review practices and milestones achieved,
staff and team achievements are highlighted
helps to define a vision for the future
helps to predict and adapt to changes
pulls your team together and supports collaboration amongst team and stakeholders
instills a sense of shared responsibility
sets expectations of team, stakeholders and community

Organizing the Planning Process

Who to involve in the process?

Engage an impartial person to lead your strategic plan process. Gather information, thoughts, and opinions from stakeholders about your organization.

Internal stakeholders

Board of Directors
Leadership team
Staff
Families

External stakeholders

Community
SSM/Ministry/Municipality
Partners in the community

Gathering Opinions and Insights

Use your stakeholders to determine the general direction for your organization. Ensure that you understand and appreciate the differing perspectives of people in your organization. Ensure that your strategic plan reflects a consensus and diversity of opinion.

There are some ways to get input from different groups and you’ll have to decide the methods that work best for you.

Surveys
Visioning exercises
Smaller group workshops (see some workshop ideas here)
- SWOT analysis,
- visioning exercises,
- mind mapping and
- stakeholder mapping
Competitive analyses, market research
Your environmental scan
Gather any other relevant data or information important for your organization.

Intensive Process with Core Group

Next you need to actually write the strategic plan.

find a smaller group of 5-10 people to write a strategic plan
use a neutral person as a facilitator.
have a concentrated amount of time to debate and make final decisions.
this is a collaborative face-to-face process; don’t use one person to write it, or to edit it over email.

At the end of this process, you will have a strategic plan that can chart the direction of your organization over the next 5 years.