The author Patrick Jinks in the article "Strategic Planning: A Seven-Step Process To Success"

shares 7 steps of successful strategic planning from his 30 plus years of experience of leading
strategic planning processes in service sector mainly for not-for-profit organizations. The author
states that many of his ideas can also be applied to other business types and models.
He claims that many strategic planning fails as it only stays at planning stage and does not get
executed as planned and merely becomes an archived document in a file cabinet. Unfortunately,
formulation is the end goal for more businesses and organizations and driving strategy requires
more than that. A summary of the seven steps are:
1. Set the strategic direction or trajectory: The board of directors should set strategic vision, a
real picture of a desired goals and objectives 3-5 years ahead. A solid strategic direction demands
agreement at the highest level on the 3-5 top imperatives for the organization and should come
from the board of directors, the CEO and other top level executives.
2. Create the strategic plan, and make sure its simple: Create a strategic plan that is not
overly complex and should articulate the goals and objectives, along with the 3-5 core strategies
needed to drive each imperative identified in the strategic direction-setting process. This still
requires engagement from the board but becomes more of a professional leadership role once
a clear direction has been set.
3. Finalize agreement between the board and professional staff on the plan: Make sure
everyone understands it, can consistently share it with the key stakeholders, and knows where
their individual and collective work fits in.
4. Create a Year 1 operational plan: This step is required for each year represented in the
strategic plan, but start with the first year. This step codifies the actions on the ground level that
will drive the strategies. It is where tactics are defined, and accountability is established.
5. Update the board on the operational plan. The CEO, executives and board of directors
should be on same page on agreement and disagreement on operational plans and need to keep
themselves updated with current company standings in the market; and if change be needed in
strategic plan then it should be taken accordingly.
6. Turn the operational plan into departmental and even individual work plans: Employees
at all levels of the organization should be able to clearly see their significance in the plan. Each
employee should be able to identify, for example, the five most important things they must
accomplish in the year in order for their part of the strategy to be successful.
7. Turn every board and staff meeting into strategy management sessions: The meeting
between company executives and staff should the one that add value to the organizations efforts
to drive strategy. Ensuring that your board meetings are strategic in nature will mitigate the risk
of budgets not aligning with strategy, and will keep the board informed and engaged where
needed. This process also increases continuity by ensuring the strategic plan transcends board
terms.