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Strategic Planning Framework
The Strategic Planning framework provides a consistent and easy to follow template for the plan and planning process and helps to ensure that an organisation considers all the critical issues.
Most organisations – for profit or non-profit – want to develop a plan that outlines for stakeholders where the organisation is going in the next period (one year, three years or more).
It is not obligatory to have a plan: some organisations, particularly if they are very new or very opportunistic, may manage without a plan. It’s a bit like taking a drive without any clear destination: great things might happen, but there is no way of knowing what they might be.
If staff, board, funders, clients and lenders, need to feel confident that they are engaging with an organisation that knows where it is going and has a plan to get there (including a clear understanding of the resources that will be required) then a strategic plan becomes critical. Using the driving analogy: If you want to persuade others to come with you, or you need to know what to pack, then you will need to know where you are going.
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The strategic planning framework has six elements:
1. The purpose of the organisation (the mission)
2. An analysis of the context in which the organisation is operating
3. An analysis of the capabilities of the organisation to respond to that context
4. A set of goals for the next strategic period (the destination)
5. Details of the programs and activities to be undertaken in the next period to achieve the goals
6. The organisational infrastructure required to deliver the programs and activities to achieve the goals
These are captured in the SVA Strategic Planning triangle
The strategic framework also takes account of:
7. Progress towards goals will be measured
8. Risks will be managed
9. Development of the plan needs to be an iterative process
SVA Strategic Planning Triangle
1. The purpose of the organisation
Many different names are given to this element of the plan, including ‘dream’ and ‘mission’. It’s important that your purpose is: - Short and memorable
- A very long term aspiration. It’s OK that you may never actually achieve it
- Distinctive
- A description of what you want to achieve, not what you do
- Exciting and inspiring
Some organisations have a ‘dream’ (of a fairer Australia, or no poverty) and a more specific ‘mission’ that outlines what the organisation is specifically setting out to achieve (‘…every Australian immigrant from a war zone finds a way to support themselves’).
It is helpful to record such important considerations as your values and principles within this part of your plan.  Back to List
2. Contextual analysis
There are many tools and frameworks that can help in analysing the context. Probably the most well known is the SWOT framework. Here the external context is summarised under the headings of opportunities and threats.
The key questions are:
- Who else is working in your area and what are they doing?
- What is the appetite of funders, both government and private, for the work that you are doing?
- How are the specific communities within which you work responding to what you do?
- How are your clients’ needs changing?
- What is happening to the availability of human resources including staff, board members and possibly volunteers?
Back to List 3. Capability analysis
You also need to understand the capabilities of your organisation, in particular its strengths, so that you can build on them. If you are using the SWOT framework for doing this, it is useful to summarise your strengths and weaknesses alongside your opportunities and threats on a single page. Back to List
4. Setting goals
On the basis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis you need to set a clear destination for your organisation over the next three or five years. In other words, a limited number of goals. Goals are observable and concrete statements of what your organisation will achieve during the period of the plan. They are sometimes specified as SMART: Specific, Measurable (or observable), Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Back to List
5. Programs and activities
In general, the clearer you are about your goals the easier it will be to identify and describe your programs and activities. Remember that each goal will not necessarily have its own independent set of activities to deliver it. Most organisations do a range of projects and programs which between them and together deliver the entire set of goals. Back to List
6. Organisational infrastructure
If your organisation is made up of more than a single program, some thinking needs to go into the overarching organisational needs to deliver your goals including: - Staff and personnel systems
- Board roles and responsibilities
- Systems and processes (including IT)
- Fundraising and financial sustainability
- Networks and marketing
- Performance management
Back to List 7. Measurement of progress
At every level of the plan you need to measure progress and keep track of whether everything is going as planned.
The risk is that you try to track too many things (every manager will potentially have their own performance indicators).
We suggest concentrating on those indicators that demonstrate progress (or lack of progress) towards the goals. Put these performance indicators in your strategic plan, with clear targets for each period of the plan (typically, every year). If goals are SMART then the indicator will generally be easy to identify. Back to List
8. Risk management
The risk management section identifies the risks to the achievement of the plan, not the risks that the organisation faces in general. The risk management plan should cover the uncertainties in the plan and each risk should be assessed against two criteria. - The likelihood of the risk eventuating
- The size of the impact on the plan if the risk does eventuate
You will then need to create a brief plan outlining how you will address the significant risks if they happen. Back to List
9. Iteration
The strategic planning process should not be thought of as a linear process. Strategic planning is iterative. You describe your destination and the goals and then test these against the environment. Is what you have set out in your plan logical, realistic, consistent and achievable? Usually as you discuss and test your strategic plan within the organisation, and outside it, you find that changes need to be made.
If you see the process in this way, then you can structure it to allow for this process of review and reiteration. This is even more important if the context is rapidly changing or is uncertain. For this reason more than any other, a short plan is a good plan: the bigger the document the more likely it is that people will be scared to revisit it, and the more likely that it will become outpaced by change. Back to List
More Information For additional details on the Strategic Planning Framework, download and read this more comprehensive description.
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David Carter and Kerin Pollock, The Wayside Chapel
Taste Test
Since a tool is best understood when it is actively applied, we have included here an interactive version of two parts of the Strategic Planning Framework. The first relates to Step 4 in the Strategic Planning Framework, setting goals. The second helps you to look at your goals in relation to your programs and activities (Step 5).
To find out more about SVA Organisational Tools contact Lisa Hagan on (02) 8004 6722.
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