The Strategic Annual Plan

What is the Strategic Annual Plan?

You can boil down your strategic annual planning process to four fundamental questions:

1. Where are you now?
2. Where are you going?
3. Where do you want to be? and
4. How are you going to get there?

Your strategic annual plan is a documented explanation of what your organization is, why it exists, where it is headed, and what you’re going to do to get there. As such, it is the single document that should be communicated and made available to all team members. It’s an ever-evolving “living” document, and it continually needs monitoring and refreshed annually. By using Six Disciplines, your strategic plan is always available, can be continually monitored and refreshed throughout the year.

BOTTOMLINE: An update to your organization’s strategic plan includes going through steps in Discipline VI – Step Back (Review Externals, Internals, Recap SWOT, Review Individuals) and Discipline I – Decide What’s Important (Renew Mission, Values, Strategic Position, Vision, VFOs and Stop List.) . These disciplines are described in the top-ranked performance improvement book Six Disciplines for Excellence.