Developing your strategy
Developing strategy needn’t be a time consuming, paper process which takes you away from the day job.
Consider these top tips to ensure your strategic planning is focused, effective and fun!
- Play to your strengths
Start from what you know you are good at. Collect positive feedback and compliments you’ve received in recent years and use this as your starting point. Don’t neglect to recognise the value of some of the ‘tacit’ goodwill and motivation your organisation might have. You might not have great financial resources, but a fantastically committed and motivated volunteer team is hugely important. Make sure your strategy plays to these strengths. - Don’t write the strategy just to please the funders
Of course your funders are hugely important stakeholders, and you’ll want to consider their priorities when deciding on your strategic direction. But a strategy and objectives written solely for their benefit and with little regard for what you are good at and what other stakeholders need is a recipe for disaster! - Get out and about
Find out what’s going on in the world and make sure your strategy responds to likely trends. Consider not only how trends directly affect your organisation but also how they will impact on your stakeholders and indirectly affect you. Check out the National Support Service for Change/Third Sector Foresight website at www.3s4.org.uk for some great live debate and intelligence on what’s affecting the voluntary sector today. - Involve
Strategy development is not a solitary process. Involve a wide range of people in the thinking, the options and the considerations. Not only will this make it a more interesting process but if people have been involved and understand the thinking behind the strategy it will be much easier for them to implement. - Simplify, simplify…
Or don’t sweat the small stuff. Strategic planning can be fraught with competing interests. The strategy is not the place to include everything that everyone is doing just to make them feel valued. The strategy is to simplify, focus, harness organisational resource towards a combined goal and should only include those issues which will have a significant impact on the organisation. - Collect evidence of your discussions
Strategic planning will spark some great discussions and uncover some interesting facts about your organisation. Document and evidence this. Not only will this be useful later on as a reminder as to how your strategic thinking developed, you may well find such information useful for other purposes. - Don’t focus on the paper plan – develop strategic thinking
If you focus on just getting a paper document written then you may well run out of enthusiasm very quickly. Focus on generating creative strategic thinking, using pictures, quotes and music to inspire great ideas for your organisation’s future. If your strategy responds to a real need which nobody else is meeting and captures the imagination it is already weighted towards success!
Stella Smith, 2009
