27 Sep Strategy Development: A Process to Promote Your Vision
Strategy development, or designing a plan of action or policy to achieve a major or overall aim, can sound daunting, reassuring, or inspiring. In fact, all three reactions are possible, over time especially. One challenge to making strategy development work is that you, other people, and the environment tend to be in motion. Within such dynamic situations, emotion and possibly creative disorder live side by side with rationality. Intellect resides with self-examination, insight with intuition.
So while setting priorities, creating procedures, and making measurable, realistic, attainable goals that are effective and worthwhile to you, they are not magical nor sufficient. Intrinsic to charting a longer-term course you confirm as wise and valuable is the continuing process of adjusting your actions and behaviors — aspects where you usually have the most choice. Base what you do and how you do it on your past and current experience, information you develop, and what you learn from others.
Here are matters to clarify and keep refining as you move forward. Make modifications and add your own ideas sensible for your situation and nature.
- What you specifically want to do:
- Why you want to do it:
- What your goal and main supporting priorities are:
After you clarify these three points in pithy summaries, save time by investigating and learning from what’s similar or been done before. Why reinvent the wheel, if aspects of other efforts are transferable or adaptable (with permission as appropriate)? Can you imagine related alternatives and variations that would be also satisfying?
Adjust choices, processes, and actions in relation to the following and your own ideas:
- skills, abilities, collaborative possibilities, attitudes and commitments of people involved, money, and needed time
- receptivity of your economic and political environment and people who will be affected or influenced by your plan and actions
- key issues and problems related to your plan and how you will address them
As you gain confidence in your process and vision, map out a time line for action and completion with your supporters and colleagues. Include benchmarks and deadlines that are viable. Decide how you would define success, failure, and acceptable outcomes. Throughout, flexibility, reality testing, and sense of humor are key to successful strategy development and implementation .
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