A strategic plan determines what you want to do, what resources you will bring to bear, how you will allocate them, and what success will look like.
In the 1990 movie “The Hunt For Red October,” there is a memorable scene where the hero, Jack Ryan, is trying to figure out how to help a Russian nuclear submarine captain who is trying to defect (with the submarine and his officers). Ryan wants to come up with a plan to help, but isn’t having much luck until he gets some sage words of advice that help him figure out what is going on: “The average Ruskie, son, don’t take a dump without a plan.” So Ryan realized HE didn’t have to come up with a plan of his own, he just had to figure out what the Russian captain’s plan was and help the captain be successful.
Either way, strategic planning was the key to success.
I chose this example because strategic planning has its roots in the military.
Any business should have a strategic plan with action items. And each project or “campaign” that is undertaken should have a written plan.
Outlining a Successful Plan
There’s an old saying that states: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else!
For years I have used a very easy outline to create a strategic plan. This will work for something as big as an annual plan, or something as simple as a one-off project.
Once you start using this type of outline, you realize you are simply breaking down all of the tasks involved in accomplishing the big goal into bite-sized pieces that don’t seem as hard to accomplish.
Remember, goals must be SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
One important key to successful planning is to write down who is responsible for making each part of it happen. You also need deadlines for each phase of the plan, and you should write down ahead of time what constitutes “success” for each item.
The strategy is the overall thought of what you want to accomplish. The SMART goal is the specifics of the strategy in one simple sentence (or two). Tactics are battle plans—action items are what you bring into play to make each battle plan successful.
Here’s an example: Susie owns a boarding stable with 25 boarders and teaches another 50 private students who either don’t own horses or don’t board at her farm. Let’s look at what Susie can do to create a strategic plan to help her student horse show get more entries next year.
Strategy: Get more entries for my June 27, 2020, student show.
Goal: Get at least 100 class entries by the end of May 2020.
Tactic #1 Create the strategic plan internally
Action #1 Write out the strategic plan
- Responsible party: Susie
- Deadline: Jan. 11, 2020
- Success measurement: Have completed strategic plan created.
Tactic #2: Survey students to see which classes they might enter.
Action #1: Create a show bill with potential classes for the survey
- Responsible party: Susie
- Deadline: Jan. 13, 2020
- Success measurement: Have show bill created
Action #2 Give survey to all students.
- Responsible party: Joe (Susie’s husband) and Susie
- Deadline: Jan. 18, 2020
- Success measurement: All students have been given survey
Action #3 Get survey results and finalize classes
- Responsible party: Joe and Susie
- Deadline: ongoing
- Success measurement: Final list of classes for the show is created and advertised.
Action #4 Continue updating entries for show
- Responsible party: Joe and Susie
- Deadline: ongoing
- Success measurement: 100 entries reached or exceeded
Tactic #3 Attend a live equine event each month to expand outreach and registrants for blog
Action #1 Create list of potential events
- Responsible party: Joe
- Deadline: Feb. 1, 2020
- Success measurement: Attend one or more live equine event each month and pass out show information
…and so on.
In this case, the survey will also serve as an early reminder that the student show is taking place and the classes that will be available.
Take-Home Message
As you probably realized, these are all things that Susie probably would do anyway in getting ready to have a student show, but putting the steps down with deadlines, responsible parties and success measurements will allow her to very methodically make sure she gets everything done and that nothing is forgotten because she got busy with something else.
If you do a good strategic plan, then you shouldn’t look back and say, “It would have been better if I had started planning earlier, done XYZ, or gotten this done.”
Any project will benefit from creating a strategic planning sheet. List your goals, tactics, actions needed, responsible parties, deadlines and success measurements. It’s that simple!
