Critical to the success of any strategic plan is the process used for monitoring and updating the plan. At Leadership Strategies, we believe a strategic plan should be formally reviewed at least quarterly and updated annually. What does the annual strategy update process look like? What are the key questions to ask?

Preparing for the Update

To prepare for the annual update, you will want to have members of the team update performance on each objective and strategy for each goal area. The information provided for objectives and strategies is slightly different as shown in the sample below.

Goal: A. Customer Service
3-Year Objectives Year 1 Who Results Grade
1.Achieve 95% of clients surveyed report satisfaction or high satisfaction with our services. 85% Fisher Mean of 87% from 4 questions
2.Have 60% of prior year customers do business with us in the current year. 45% Jones 39% of customers
Strategies Who Results %
A1. Train staff in methods for establishing and managing client expectations. Collins Training implemented in first quarter; 90% of staff trained. Make up classes will be held for others. 90%
A2. Implement internal awards program for annual client retention. Jones Implemented in last quarter of year. No awards won. 100%
A3. Implement customer loyalty program Jones Not implemented. 0%

As you can see, objectives will have annual milestones, strategies do not. During the preparation phase, the objectives grade should be left blank. The grades are provided during the update meeting by the entire team.

The Strategy Update Meeting

What happens during the update meeting? Since the goal of the update meeting is to review progress and make adjustments, it is important to review each of the following:

  • Progress in the objectives and strategies;
  • Causes of successes and barriers that have hindered progress;
  • Changes in the environment; and
  • Potential revisions to objectives and strategies.

The goal of the grading process is to provide an unbiased assessment of how well each objective was accomplished. The grading is often a sobering process as teams become aware of how, in some cases, they were overly optimistic in their targets, while in other cases they missed targets due to lack of focus or inattention.

We recommend the following agenda for the strategy update process:

Strategy Update Meeting Session Objective

  • Review the overall strategy and progress toward its achievement
  • Reassess objectives, strategies and priorities

Agenda

A.    Getting Started

1.     Welcome and Opening Remarks

2.     Session Objective, Deliverables, Key Issues

3.     Reminder of the Strategic Framework

4.     Agenda, Ground Rules

B.    Review of Past Accomplishments

1.     Grading our performance

  • Review of each objective and progress to date
  • Percent complete on strategies

2.     What have been our key successes?

3.     What have been our significant issues and barriers?

4.     What new trends have emerged?

C.   Setting the Future Direction

1.     Validate the mission and goals

  • Are the mission and goals still relevant in light of the review of past accomplishments?

2.     Revise the objectives as needed

  • Are the current objectives still valid?
  • What new objectives are needed?

3.     Review strategies

  • Will these strategies lead to achieving the objectives?
  • Are there strategies that are no longer relevant?
  • Are there new strategies that should be added?

4.     Select strategies for specific priority

D.   Next Steps

1.     Short-term Action Plan

2.     Communications Plan

3.     Monitoring Plan