How Long Should It Take To Complete A Strategic Plan?

What gets included into the scope of strategic planning obviously will drive the time frame to develop the plan. Time invested in up-front planning saves far more time on the back-end when companies go to execute their strategy. Any shortcuts taken in strategic planning put the organization at risk of missing many critical points that proper planning should encompass. Strategy cannot simply be ordered-up like take-out Chinese food. It more closely resembles the ordering of a chocolate soufflé, requiring time and patience to get the end result.

This is because creating strategy requires intimate business knowledge, collected systematically through a process that pulls from all parts of the organization. The finished product of comprehensive strategic planning will address the organization's eco-system as a whole. It should be based on an understanding and accounting for the interdependency existing between the many initiatives in play comprising the operational (execution) plans supporting the enterprise strategic plan. Operational plans must convert the enterprise strategy into major program groupings that support execution of strategic goals. These programs must be further planned at the initiative level across the business, resulting in detailed execution road maps that are well-aligned with the corporate strategy (including the vision, mission and core values) so that they will produce the desired plan outcomes through engineered accountability, measurability and governance.

So back to the question, how long should it take? The answer to that question is elusive for a variety of reasons. Hating to sound too much like a consultant, it really depends on where you are starting from and how you want to define “done”. Let’s examine the following major components that the plan should address as a way to bring more clarity.

The Strategy is Accompanied By Operational / Tactical Plans

Defining enterprise strategy is not the same as creating an enterprise (e.g. corporate) strategic plan. We see see confusion here all of the time with clients, showing up as a blatant disconnect between the layers of strategy goals most organizations develop for themselves and the execution tactics across and down through the business that we normally cannot find in these same organizations. It is disconcerting. There is a massive difference between developing strategy and doing operational planning.

A strategy defines the direction, but a holistic plan defines goals (key outcomes) that support the strategy and must address the tactics of execution within operations that will accomplish the goals. Comprehensive strategic and operational plans that are capable of accomplishing the goals of the enterprise strategy take more time to create than weaker plans that go into the “magic binder”. Responsible strategic planning is dependent upon integrated initiative management that sorts out human capital needed, cost to implement, financial resources required, roles and timeframes to deliver (in other words, who will do what, when they will do it and how we will define “done” for the tasks). Accountability for plan execution must be engineered into the tactics so that performance can be measured and managed. You will know when you are finished with this lower-level of planning when you have answers to these questions relative to each plan goal.

Communication and Change Management Are Addressed

Communication and change management are examples of two areas where companies shave off time in the planning process to the detriment of the outcome. These essential components are too often overlooked, even though they are important factors in strategic planning and directly affect the successful results of execution. Let’s go back to the “magic binder” example for a minute. The strategy may be good and the cover on the binder could be awesome, but the contents will likely remain a mystery to most employees of the business. How in the world can the organizational ranks be expected to fall in line with a corporate strategy that they do not know about or understand? Is it fair to keep the strategy and operational plan under such tight wraps that the average lower-level manager has no idea how they affect the plan or how they will be affected by it? Unfortunately, this happens all the time in our businesses.



Why is this? We attribute it to the failure of the strategy formulators and planners to consider the organization’s culture and the hierarchical framework for organizing and managing work initiatives related to the strategic plan’s goals. Let’s face it; strategy goes hand-in-hand with business execution. Since one without the other spells trouble, why not consider the layers of the organization that actually will be doing this work? Employees are entitled to know the vision of their organization, and likewise, need to have an understanding of the strategy. Creating the understanding in and of itself requires effort, and of course...planning. This becomes even more crucial when they are directly impacted by the strategy, either through process changes or through integration with newly acquired units. In some cases, the strategy may not indicate changes to process and no integration (e.g. no acquisitions) may be required. Communication is still important in these situations to provide clarity and direction to the workers of the business that are to be measured on their performance - even if this is a restatement of the metrics used prior to this planning cycle.

Where change is required, each of the following must be explicitly defined and understand as part of the planning process: 


• What levels of the organization are directly impacted?
• What roles at those levels are directly affected?
• When and how must the employees who will be impacted by change be notified?
• What is the best way to make the information actionable to them?
• How will this information be received (will they be open to the message)?

We call this, “Change Marketing”. Change Marketing is where change management and good communication help alleviate the fear, uncertainty and doubt that develops in the minds of good and capable employees who are uninformed as to the strategy and operational tactics planned by the organization. Getting people on board with the program and educating them about how they will be asked to participate, assist and be held accountable to the strategy is vital and takes time to accomplish. Just for management to define how enterprise goal attainment will affect operations via tactical plan execution takes (repeat)...time. Each role is relative to the big picture. We must plan for and explain:

• Changes to primary job responsibilities
• Measurements of the plan
• Rewards / consequences as a result of execution

All must be considered. We are seeking to win the hearts and minds of our organization’s work force and gain their commitment. The culture or cultures of the organization will also drive the formula for the communication plan and the change management approach. For more on this, see the article, Align Culture and Communication for Better Strategic Planning Results.

The Strategy Is Aligned With the Culture and Organizational Core Values

Striking the right balance in the strategic mix of goals isn’t always as easy as it may sound. First, changes or “tweaks” to corporate strategy must be congruent with the organization’s culture and core values in order to be successfully accepted and enacted. That requires the organizations culture be understood well enough to leverage it and bolster it through actions that are consistent with the core values of management and employees.

The Strategy and Operational Plans Are Aligned To Organizational Core Competencies

Reviewing and understanding organizational core competencies is a major consideration related to strategy and the ultimate effectiveness of the strategic goals. Core competencies are the underpinnings of an organization’s skills and the cornerstone of successful strategic execution. The competencies represent the fundamental knowledge, abilities, and expertise of an organization. They are what make individuals and organizations distinctive. Furthermore, your ability to understand and measure organizational core competencies is a critical factor in reaching your desired goals.

This aspect of the planning process forces some difficult questions to be asked and answered. We are essentially developing a “soft” risk identification / mitigation plan. Here are some questions to help determine the necessary skills and attributes for leaders, managers, and staff:

• Does my organization possess the necessary competencies at each job level?
• If not, how far off are we from possessing the necessary competencies?
• When hiring new staff, how will we assure those individuals provide the necessary skills and attributes to fill gaps in our existing skill set?
• How do we know that we will be hiring long-term players versus skill sets that only improve our competence model in the short-term?
• When assessing the performance of current staff, how will we measure their capabilities against the required competencies?
• Can we train our people to obtain the necessary competencies? If not, then what?
• Overall, how will we go from where we are today to where we need to be in terms of core competencies?
• Do we need to adjust our strategic goals and / or vision to align with our existing competencies?

The answers to such questions may dictate the need for leadership development plans that position key managers to be successful and track developmentally to the long-term core competencies the organization requires of them. Just as the organization is constantly evolving, employees must be as well.

Ongoing Execution

Governance is a day-by-day activity that is arguably not part of the strategic planning process itself, but is the essential component of the very definition of being able to consider the job “done”. In our opinion, it should be considered part of the planning process, not only because governance is used to manage and track execution but also the success of strategy itself. For this article, we will skip over the topic (as much as it pains us to do so) and stay focused on the development of the strategic plan.

So How Long Should Strategic Planning Take?

As a leader in your organization, the answer is up to you. You can adjust the definitions to meet your expectations, requirements and desired key outcomes. Executives must define the vision so that the planning process can be executed to meet that definition of success. This is true of all aspects of execution planning as well. All roads lead back to the executive leadership’s ability to set up a planning approach that enables successful outcomes from the effort. Yes, the answer to how long it takes to complete strategic planning is dependent on the scope of the process, the expectations of the outcomes and the discipline leaders are willing to put into the approach. The good news is, at least you know ahead of time what to expect as well as what you can (and cannot) expect from the process, based upon your definition of success.



Like most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

Additional Recommended Reading:

• “Don’t We Have People For That?”: Operational Planning & Strategy Execution
• The Definition of Strategic Planning: A White Paper
• Mapping Out Strategic Execution: Part 2 of “Why We Fail at Strategic Implementation“
• The Golden Thread: Linking Strategy to Execution

For permission to reprint this article, contact Method Frameworks at articles@methodframeworks.com.

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Learn More Does this leave you curious about Method Frameworks and the effectiveness of your own planning process? Plan4^SM is our proprietary business planning process that involves an integrated set of actions designed to help companies gain sustainable advantage. Download our brochure to learn more about Method Frameworks and our services or download our Plan4 Planning Process Overview.

You can contact Method Frameworks at 877-317-5264 (877-31PLAN4) or follow this link to request a meeting with a planning consultant. Check our articles and blog often at www.methodframeworks.com to get many more planning tips and information about our Plan4 process.

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