Simplify your Strategic Planning Process by Establishing Buckets (focus areas) when setting your objectives.

Strategic Priorities, or objectives are critical in helping your organization prioritize and guide your work through the coming years. They are the nuts and bolts of a strategic plan because they are the critical goals that your team will need to work towards realizing your vision. Strategic Plans are like putting a difficult puzzle together and often the process can come off the rails if your team is not organized.

So, what’s the secret to keeping your team organized? Believe it or not, it’s quite simple. After you have completed the external and internal scanning of your business, start looking outside the box and carve out some strategic priorities that can be used as building blocks for setting your objectives. Some of these focus areas are sometimes referred to as strategic buckets and may include such areas as Finance, Staff & Board, Partnerships, Operations, Programs, Research & Development, Marketing & Communications, Expense Control and Sales. The possibilities are unlimited and will be very unique to your specific business. Try not to have too many buckets – in my experience 5-7 is the norm and keeps the process simplified.

Once you have your buckets (focus areas) set your team will want to start organizing the data you collected about your business and start carving out your objectives. Each bucket may have 5-7 specific objectives under each focus area. During the objective process make sure your team follows the SMART acronym by making each objective very specific, measurable, attainable, relevant with a timeline. Nothing more demotivating than setting goals that are unrealistic and have no chance of being realized. I have written a blog on my website www.hokuconsulting.com that specifically gets into using SMART goals that you may find helpful.

These buckets will be the focus areas of your strategic plan and will be used as a guiding reference document for accomplishing your objectives during the implementation phase setting your business up for success. By establishing buckets in your plan, you will simplify the process, keep your team extremely organized and have a big picture document that can be shared with your team to make sure everyone is aligned and moving towards accomplishing your specific goals and realizing your vision.