A strategic plan on the shelf helps no one. If you want to truly improve your organization’s performance, a working strategic improvement plan supported by an sustainable implementation plan should be a paramount policy.
Gather your best thinkers. Our comprehensive strategic planning process engages all levels within the organization and when appropriate, the community and is a positive step toward setting and meeting goals. It’s transparent, inclusive and may be exactly what your organization needs to boost success and brand recognition.
Choose the full package or opt to use any of these helpful options:
- Optional Precursor Workshops to Strategic Planning
- Data First 2 hours
- Are You Looking at the Right Numbers? 2 hours
- Facilitated Goal Setting 2 hours
- Strategic Planning: Workshop Session 2 hours
- Strategic Planning: Service
Strategic Planning: Leadership Workshop
Why is strategic planning so crucial and what does the process involve? Effective leaders know the value of a strategic plan. The strategic planning process helps leaders gain community buy-in, improve performance and move toward organizational excellence. What are the dos and don’ts? Get practical advice and learn the mechanics of a quality strategic planning process. The Strategic Planning Workshop is included in the price of the Strategic Planning Service. However, anyone may request the training for a fee of $500.
Optional Precursors to Strategic Planning
Data First
Is your management team able to identify and understand the data that will be most helpful in informing decisions? This introductory data workshop teaches team members how to read various types of reports and to use cost-benefit analysis when looking at a program’s value. Teams also learn ways to help their communities get a clearer picture of performance. Follow this session with Looking at the Correct Numbers? for a deeper look at data.
Looking at the Correct Numbers?
This advanced level data workshop is dynamic and grounded in research. It gives you a detailed look at the data types available to managment and suggests questions you may ask to ensure your organization’s continuous improvement. It helps management and teams learn how to use data and questions to drive improvement and to effectively use data in decision making. It is a logical next step for those who have had Data First training. Customize it for a more hands-on, data specific experience.
Facilitated Goal Setting
Goals are crucial to the success of any organization. Strategic plans generally establish long-term goals, but what if management needs to plan for the short term? If your team is determining its annual goals, we can help you identify and analyze critical data and set goals for improvement. This workshop can stand alone, be used as a precursor to strategic planning or serve as a stopgap between strategic plans. A fee is charged as a stand-alone workshop or a stopgap between strategic plans and is inclusive when used as a precursor to strategic planning.
Strategic Planning Service
Eliminate confusion about what matters most. Lead necessary change with a strong strategic plan that guides your organization’s people and processes. Develop effective strategies for identifying and addressing your organization’s highest priorities with the Strategic Planning Service. This fee-based service can include a vision and mission checkup. This comprehensive service is:
- Driven by you – we consult and work as an extension of your team, but the process is entirely driven and owned by your organziation, management, and/or committees.
- Flexible – Choose to use any or all components of the service
- Customizable – No one-size-fits-all plans here. We’ll work with you to customize the service to fit your school system’s unique needs
Our multi-step service uses a strategic planning process designed specifically for your management team and organization.
- Training
Your team is in the driver’s seat of this process, but we want you to be aware of the basics, dos, don’ts, tips, best practices, and roles of the planning team and the action teams. Every organization should also know where it is, where it wants to go, how it plans to get there and how it will know when it has arrived. To cover these bases, we jumpstart our service with a Strategic Planning Workshop. Determine your system’s strengths and weaknesses and what threats and opportunities it faces through completion of a SWOT analysis. The team begins identifying goals that can be fleshed out in the strategic planning process and fulfilled through the action teams’ implementation plan.
- Facilitation
If your organization has no strategic plan, you may not know where to start or perhaps your organization recently completed its previous plan and has found it difficult to reset and take a fresh look at the issues. Our service eases you into the process. We provide a trained consultant/facilitator to serve as your guide through each step of the strategic planning process.
- Engagement Session
Highly effective organizations embrace community engagement. When appropriate, we involve your community in the strategic planning process by soliciting feedback on issues and gauging their expectations for the process. This helps benchmark expectations and brand awareness in your community as well as support for your organization. We will meet with community stakeholders for a focus group discussion and/or a communitywide meeting and will report our findings to the board/management/committee/department and, if requested, suggest how the planning team and action teams may use the information.
- Strategic Meetings
The service includes meetings with the planning and action teams. Throughout the process, your action team(s) will have access to the consultant to ask questions and seek direction.
- Review & Adoption
It is normal for a strategic plan to go through several revisions before it goes to the board for a vote. Strategic plan review and plan implementation review are included in our service. When you are ready to present your draft strategic plan, we can assist with the presentation. Some may choose to share the draft with other personnel or groups. Others may review the draft, work through any revisions and seek assistance with presenting the draft plan to their board for adoption.
- Presentation
A presentation reflects the hard work put into the planning process and it is vital to make the best possible impression. Compelling narrative and strong visuals are professionally composed, bound and provided to your organization. A condensed, cohesive PowerPoint presentation can also be provided and presented by our facilitator on your behalf.
- Follow-Up
When the strategic plan is approved and the dust settles, we are here for you. Have concerns about implementation or a plan component? Want to ask questions? We will facilitate and conduct one follow up meeting with the board and management six months after the plan is adopted.
- Action Plan
Once the plan is approved the next step is an Action Plan. An Action Plan is developed to ensure the strategic plan is implemented. It typically includes a list of tasks or actions necessary accomplish goals set within the strategic plan. As various action team members have questions we can be available to answer those questions.
- Implementation Plan
A holistic view of identifying required resources (both human and financial), developing assumptions, forecasting short and long-term outcomes, budgeting, allocating authority/responsibility and developing a schedule. More simplistically it is who is responsible for completing each task/action item, what it will cost or how it will be budgeted, the date it is to be completed, and often how each task/action item is tethered to the completion of other items.
Strategic Planning Service Levels
Basic – $5,000
- Includes Strategic Planning Training
- Workshop session
- Includes Experienced Facilitator
- Includes one Engagement session
- Focus group format only
- Includes half-day
- Planning team session and
- Action team meeting
- Includes review of plan for errors or inconsistencies
- Includes presentation of plan to leadership team for approval
- Facilitate one additional meeting with the leaders after plan is adopted
Premium – $6,500
- Includes Strategic Planning
- Workshop session
- Goal setting
- Includes Experienced Facilitator
- Includes one Engagement session
- Focus group or
- Community-wide meeting
- Includes full-day
- Planning team session and
- Action team meeting
- Includes review of plan for errors or inconsistencies
- Includes presentation of plan to leadership team for approval
- Facilitate one additional meeting with the leaders after plan is adopted
- Includes answers/direction via email or phone with action team members
Deluxe $7,500
- Includes Strategic Planning
- Workshop session
- Goal Setting
- Check-up or development of mission/vision
- Includes Experienced Facilitator
- Includes two Engagement sessions
- Focus group and/or
- Community-wide meetings
- Includes full-day
- Planning team session and
- Action team meeting
- Includes review of plan for errors or inconsistencies
- Includes presentation of plan to leadership team for approval
- Facilitate one additional meeting with the leaders after plan is adopted
- Includes answers/direction via email or phone with action team members and review of action plan
- Includes review of implementation plan
- Includes presentations for personnel or community group, if requested
- If applicable, includes review of Quality Improvement Plans (QIPs) to ensure alignment
Plan costs do not include implementation of plans.