Strategic Planning 301 — Lessons Learned from the Experiences of Three Boards

Strategic planning should engage the organization and give shape to its current and future activities. Yet too often strategic planning is lengthy, laborious, expensive, lacks relevance, and not implementable, resulting in a document that is ignored until the next revisions. This session’s panelists represent three boards that used different processes to develop engaging and useful strategic plans. Each will describe the who, when, what, why, and how of their board’s approach to strategic planning. The three boards took varying approaches to questions such as: When was the strategic planning initiated, and why this timing? How much is the plan intended to be internally vs externally focused? Who at the organization ‘owns’ the strategic plan? Who makes the decisions about the plan? Who writes the plan? Should the board use external consultants, or facilitators, or bring other constituents or collaborators into the process? What was the structure of the process and over what time frame? How was the plan itself structured? How was the final plan implemented and communicated (and to whom)? How is progress being tracked? What would they do differently next time? These presentations will stimulate open discussion with the session participants. Sharing of such experiences and outcomes will highlight common ‘lessons learned’ as well as generate ideas and guidance for other organizations that are embarking on strategic planning.