I’m concerned that no one will read our strategic plan once it is written. Doesn’t that make it a waste of time?
Don’t make the mistake of simply handing out a written plan to your board and your staff, expecting people to read and learn from it. As you write the strategic plan, you need to have a parallel process in place to present your plan to your various audiences. The most effective presentations are rich with stories, images, and analogies. Take a look at “Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes” for ideas on how to present your materials.
The written plan is an opportunity for you and your staff to think through your organization’s future. The future you envision may or may not come true, but that’s not the goal of the effort. The goal of the effort is to hone your skills as an organization and to commit your assumptions and plans to paper so that key personnel know how to contribute to the setting of strategic direction. Think of strategic planning as exercising one of the organization’s muscles – it needs to be done periodically to maintain strength.
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