A strategy plan is an important tool for staying on track to meet your business goals. Use this strategy execution guide to help you succeed.
Creating a Strategy Plan
Strategic planning is simply the process of formalizing your vision and creating a road map to help you meet your targets. This management approach breaks down your mission and vision into measurable steps. A good strategic plan helps everyone in your organization work toward a shared set of goals. There are three overarching steps in the strategy plan process:
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Formulation: Set your goals and outline the steps you need to take to get there. This planning phase helps you identify what you want to achieve, how you’ll communicate your plan, and how you’ll report on progress. During the formulation phase, you might choose a specific framework for your plan, such as the balanced scorecard.
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Execution: Implement your plan, allocating the resources you need and involving everyone on your team. Align your actions with your goals – you may need to shift your current projects or let go of initiatives that no longer serve your plan.
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Self-reflection: Examine the factors that affected your success or failure to help inform future efforts. What worked well and what didn’t? Use your reporting tools to help evaluate your progress and share your results with your stakeholders.
Evaluation and reporting are important because you don’t want your strategy plan to just be another box to check off. The best strategic plans are living documents that your company continually uses to guide its efforts.
How to Execute a Strategy Plan
Strategy planning isn’t a one-off project – it’s an iterative approach to how you run your organization. The execution phase of strategy planning is critical: while you may have a smaller group of stakeholders that create your strategic plan, you need everyone in your organization to help execute it. Good communication and implementation are critical to getting everyone on board.
Essential Steps to Successful Strategy Execution
Strategy planning is beneficial because it creates one central vision for everyone to work toward – and the execution process can help you identify areas for improvement. Here’s how to execute a strategy plan once you’ve drafted it:
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Get buy-in: Make sure your key decision-makers understand and support the strategic plan. They’ll be helping you communicate the value to everyone at the organization – so if they have doubts or questions, it’s important to get clarification upfront.
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Right person, right place: Each employee’s role needs to align with your strategy. That might mean adjusting job duties or changing how your teams are structured. Your people are your greatest asset, so make sure you have the right teams in place to support strategy execution.
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Communication is key: Without clear messaging about your strategy plan, employees might not see how their daily tasks are connected to an overarching goal. Make sure managers have effective communication strategies in place, and celebrate big and small milestones company-wide. And communication needs to be two-way: accept feedback on your strategy and be open to ideas from rank-and-file employees.
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Monitor progress: Strategy goals are always measurable. Have a system for tracking your progress on key performance indicators (KPIs) and share those achievements as quantitative and qualitative data.
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Commit to continuous improvement: A strategy plan isn’t static – your leadership team should strive to balance innovation and control. While some parts of your plan may be non-negotiable, others may need revision or modification as you go. In fact, Harvard Business School reports that over 90% of their graduates with successful strategies pivoted away from their original plans.
Execute the Strategic Plan with Spider Impact
Need expert support for strategy execution? Turn to Spider Strategies. Our Spider Impact platform is the go-to software for strategy execution, seamlessly integrating with any organization's performance management methodology. With Spider Impact, you can:
- Track performance across teams, departments, or even individual employees
- Monitor and report on KPIs
- Assign objectives to individuals or teams
- Create interactive presentations for briefings
See why companies across multiple industries, government agencies, and non-profits choose Spider Impact for strategic execution. For more information, schedule a free test or demo today.
