After much thought and effort, you’ve finished your new strategic plan, so you’re all set, right?
Wrong.
Too many times, organizations will dedicate a considerable amount of time and money to the creation of a strategic plan that ends up gathering dust on some shelf and has no real impact on their mission. Effective organizations, however, will devote as much care and attention to implementing the plan as they did to the planning process itself.
After all, planning is a means to an end: an action plan that engages stakeholders in the organization to carry out their hopes and dreams and live into their vision. In this month’s edition of our e-letter, Transforming Challenges, Senior Consultant John Reid outlines some of the most important steps to ensure successful implementation of the strategic plan:
- Identify the leaders who are responsible for seeing that implementation actions are accomplished, on time and within budget.
- Curb your impatience. It’s natural to want to “frontload” your implementation and put in place all your new ideas in the first six months, one year or two years. Don’t.
- Evaluation matters. Build in evaluation on a regular basis, every 6-12 months.
- Institute regular and meaningful communication.
- Celebrate your successes.
You can read John’s entire article here. And give us your feedback: What are some other implementation strategies you have found effective?
