Strategic Planning

This week we focused on strategic planning that organzaitions should do. My colleague Lori brought up a good point about “when to do strategic planning” and the potential for missing and opportunity. 

Reading the chapter in our book, I was comforted in seeing how closely and rigidly my own organization performs and takes our strategic planning. I am not good at these sessions. I see them as “future casting” and think they don’t resonate with me because of their ambiguity. Perhaps I enjoy the more concrete side of our work. 

Regardless as a leader I am inserted into all of our strategic planning sessions and I will myself to get through them each fall. Yep, we have a two-day long retreat each fall that the entire leadership uses to get together and plan for the next year/years. Schmidt and Biniecki (2016) may have a loose standard for “when” to perform strategic planning sessions, but my organization does it each Sept/Oct so we can have a clear plan set out for the coming year and communicate that down to our management teams. 

So far, despite my not enjoying it as much as others, it has led to some wonderful changes and growth or the organization, and instead of feeling like we miss something, we are constantly re-assessing the environment and market. This is also done via weekly leadership meetings where we all give updates on the strategic initiatives we target in the Fall, and adjust as necessary to the coming year. In the end I agree with you, the one disadvantage is their lack of a more rigid time line for planning.  

References

Schmidt, S. W., & M. Yelich Biniecki S. (2016). Organization and administration of adult education programs: A guide for practitioners. IAP, Information Age Publishing, Inc.