strategic planning research team

How to improve strategic planning

In conference rooms everywhere, corporate planners are in the midst of the annual strategic-planning process. For the better part of a year, they collect financial and operational data, make forecasts, and prepare lengthy presentations with the CEO and other senior managers about the future direction of the business. But at the end of this expensive and time-consuming process, many participants say they are frustrated by its lack of impact on either their own actions or the strategic direction of the company.

This sense of disappointment was captured in a recent McKinsey Quarterly survey of nearly 800 executives: just 45 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with the strategic-planning process. 1 1. “ Improving strategic planning: A McKinsey Survey ,” The McKinsey Quarterly , Web exclusive, September 2006. The survey, conducted in late July and early August 2006, received 796 responses from a panel of executives from around the world. All panelists have mostly financial or strategic responsibilities and work in a wide range of industries for organizations with revenues of at least $500 million. Moreover, only 23 percent indicated that major strategic decisions were made within its confines. Given these results, managers might well be tempted to jettison the planning process altogether.

But for those working in the overwhelming majority of corporations, the annual planning process plays an essential role. In addition to formulating at least some elements of a company’s strategy, the process results in a budget, which establishes the resource allocation map for the coming 12 to 18 months; sets financial and operating targets, often used to determine compensation metrics and to provide guidance for financial markets; and aligns the management team on its strategic priorities. The operative question for chief executives is how to make the planning process more effective—not whether it is the sole mechanism used to design strategy. CEOs know that strategy is often formulated through ad hoc meetings or brand reviews, or as a result of decisions about mergers and acquisitions.

Our research shows that formal strategic-planning processes play an important role in improving overall satisfaction with strategy development. That role can be seen in the responses of the 79 percent of managers who claimed that the formal planning process played a significant role in developing strategies and were satisfied with the approach of their companies, compared with only 21 percent of the respondents who felt that the process did not play a significant role. Looked at another way, 51 percent of the respondents whose companies had no formal process were dissatisfied with their approach to the development of strategy, against only 20 percent of those at companies with a formal process.

So what can managers do to improve the process? There are many ways to conduct strategic planning, but determining the ideal method goes beyond the scope of this article. Instead we offer, from our research, five emergent ideas that executives can employ immediately to make existing processes run better. The changes we discuss here (such as a focus on important strategic issues or a connection to core-management processes) are the elements most linked with the satisfaction of employees and their perceptions of the significance of the process. These steps cannot guarantee that the right strategic decisions will be made or that strategy will be better executed, but by enhancing the planning process—and thus increasing satisfaction with the development of strategy—they will improve the odds for success.

Start with the issues

Ask CEOs what they think strategic planning should involve and they will talk about anticipating big challenges and spotting important trends. At many companies, however, this noble purpose has taken a backseat to rigid, data-driven processes dominated by the production of budgets and financial forecasts. If the calendar-based process is to play a more valuable role in a company’s overall strategy efforts, it must complement budgeting with a focus on strategic issues. In our experience, the first liberating change managers can make to improve the quality of the planning process is to begin it by deliberately and thoughtfully identifying and discussing the strategic issues that will have the greatest impact on future business performance.

Granted, an approach based on issues will not necessarily yield better strategic results. The music business, for instance, has discussed the threat posed by digital-file sharing for years without finding an effective way of dealing with the problem. But as a first step, identifying the key issues will ensure that management does not waste time and energy on less important topics.

We found a variety of practical ways in which companies can impose a fresh strategic perspective. For instance, the CEO of one large health care company asks the leaders of each business unit to imagine how a set of specific economic, social, and business trends will affect their businesses, as well as ways to capture the opportunities—or counter the threats—that these trends pose. Only after such an analysis and discussion do the leaders settle into the more typical planning exercises of financial forecasting and identifying strategic initiatives.

One consumer goods organization takes a more directed approach. The CEO, supported by the corporate-strategy function, compiles a list of three to six priorities for the coming year. Distributed to the managers responsible for functions, geographies, and brands, the list then becomes the basis for an offsite strategy-alignment meeting, where managers debate the implications of the priorities for their particular organizations. The corporate-strategy function summarizes the results, adds appropriate corporate targets, and shares them with the organization in the form of a strategy memo, which serves as the basis for more detailed strategic planning at the division and business-unit levels.

A packaged-goods company offers an even more tailored example. Every December the corporate senior-management team produces a list of ten strategic questions tailored to each of the three business units. The leaders of these businesses have six months to explore and debate the questions internally and to come up with answers. In June each unit convenes with the senior-management team in a one-day meeting to discuss proposed actions and reach decisions.

Some companies prefer to use a bottom-up rather than top-down process. We recently worked with a sales company to design a strategic-planning process that begins with in-depth interviews (involving all of the senior managers and selected corporate and business executives) to generate a list of the most important strategic issues facing the company. The senior-management team prioritizes the list and assigns managers to explore each issue and report back in four to six weeks. Such an approach can be especially valuable in companies where internal consensus building is an imperative.

Bring together the right people

An issues-based approach won’t do much good unless the most relevant people are involved in the debate. We found that survey respondents who were satisfied with the strategic-planning process rated it highly on dimensions such as including the most knowledgeable and influential participants, stimulating and challenging the participants’ thinking, and having honest, open discussions about difficult issues. In contrast, 27 percent of the dissatisfied respondents reported that their company’s strategic planning had not a single one of these virtues. Such results suggest that too many companies focus on the data-gathering and packaging elements of strategic planning and neglect the crucial interactive components.

Strategic conversations will have little impact if they involve only strategic planners from both the business unit and the corporate levels. One of our core beliefs is that those who carry out strategy should also develop it. The key strategy conversation should take place among corporate decision makers, business unit leaders, and people with expertise essential to the discussion. In addition to leading the corporate review, the CEO, aided by members of the executive team, should as a rule lead the strategy review for business units as well. The head of a business unit, supported by four to six people, should direct the discussion from its side of the table (see sidebar, "Things to ask in any business unit review").

Things to ask in any business unit review

Are major trends and changes in your business unit’s environment affecting your strategic plan? Specifically, what potential developments in customer demand, technology, or the regulatory environment could have enough impact on the industry to change the entire plan?

How and why is this plan different from last year’s?

What were your forecasts for market growth, sales, and profitability last year, two years ago, and three years ago? How right or wrong were they? What did the business unit learn from those experiences?

What would it take to double your business unit’s growth rate and profits? Where will growth come from: expansion or gains in market share?

If your business unit plans to take market share from competitors, how will it do so, and how will they respond? Are you counting on a strategic advantage or superior execution?

What are your business unit’s distinctive competitive strengths, and how does the plan build on them?

How different is the strategy from those of competitors, and why? Is that a good or a bad thing?

Beyond the immediate planning cycle, what are the key issues, risks, and opportunities that we should discuss today?

What would a private-equity owner do with this business?

How will the business unit monitor the execution of this strategy?

One pharmaceutical company invites business unit leaders to take part in the strategy reviews of their peers in other units. This approach can help build a better understanding of the entire company and, especially, of the issues that span business units. The risk is that such interactions might constrain the honesty and vigor of the dialogue and put executives at the focus of the discussion on the defensive.

Corporate senior-management teams can dedicate only a few hours or at most a few days to a business unit under review. So team members should spend this time in challenging yet collaborative discussions with business unit leaders rather than trying to absorb many facts during the review itself. To provide some context for the discussion, best-practice companies disseminate important operational and financial information to the corporate review team well in advance of such sessions. This reading material should also tee up the most important issues facing the business and outline the proposed strategy, ensuring that the review team is prepared with well-thought-out questions. In our experience, the right 10 pages provide ample fuel to fire a vigorous discussion, but more than 25 pages will likely douse the level of energy or engagement in the room.

Adapt planning cycles to the needs of each business

Managers are justifiably concerned about the resources and time required to implement an issues-based strategic-planning approach. One easy—yet rarely adopted—solution is to free business units from the need to conduct this rigorous process every single year. In all but the most volatile, high-velocity industries, it is hard to imagine that a major strategic redirection will be necessary every planning cycle. In fact, forcing businesses to undertake this exercise annually is distracting and may even be detrimental. Managers need to focus on executing the last plan’s major initiatives, many of which can take 18 to 36 months to implement fully.

Some companies alternate the business units that undergo the complete strategic-planning process (as opposed to abbreviated annual updates of the existing plan). One media company, for example, requires individual business units to undertake strategic planning only every two or three years. This cadence enables the corporate senior-management team and its strategy group to devote more energy to the business units that are “at bat.” More important, it frees the corporate-strategy group to work directly with the senior team on critical issues that affect the entire company—issues such as developing an integrated digitization strategy and addressing unforeseen changes in the fast-moving digital-media landscape.

Other companies use trigger mechanisms to decide which business units will undergo a full strategic-planning exercise in a given year. One industrial company assigns each business unit a color-coded grade—green, yellow, or red—based on the unit’s success in executing the existing strategic plan. “Code red,” for example, would slate a business unit for a strategy review. Although many of the metrics that determine the grade are financial, some may be operational to provide a more complete assessment of the unit’s performance.

Freeing business units from participating in the strategic-planning process every year raises a caveat, however. When important changes in the external environment occur, senior managers must be able to engage with business units that are not under review and make major strategic decisions on an ad hoc basis. For instance, a major merger in any industry would prompt competitors in it to revisit their strategies. Indeed, one advantage of a tailored planning cycle is that it builds slack into the strategic-review system, enabling management to address unforeseen but pressing strategic issues as they arise.

Implement a strategic-performance-management system

In the end, many companies fail to execute the chosen strategy. More than a quarter of our survey respondents said that their companies had plans but no execution path. Forty-five percent reported that planning processes failed to track the execution of strategic initiatives. All this suggests that putting in place a system to measure and monitor their progress can greatly enhance the impact of the planning process.

Most companies believe that their existing control systems and performance-management processes (including budgets and operating reviews) are the sole way to monitor progress on strategy. As a result, managers attempt to translate the decisions made during the planning process into budget targets or other financial goals. Although this practice is sensible and necessary, it is not enough. We estimate that a significant portion of the strategic decisions we recommend to companies can’t be tracked solely through financial targets. A company undertaking a major strategic initiative to enhance its innovation and product-development capabilities, for example, should measure a variety of input metrics, such as the quality of available talent and the number of ideas and projects at each stage in development, in addition to pure output metrics such as revenues from new-product sales. One information technology company, for instance, carefully tracks the number and skill levels of people posted to important strategic projects.

Strategic-performance-management systems, which should assign accountability for initiatives and make their progress more transparent, can take many forms. One industrial corporation tracks major strategic initiatives that will have the greatest impact, across a portfolio of a dozen businesses, on its financial and strategic goals. Transparency is achieved through regular reviews and the use of financial as well as nonfinancial metrics. The corporate-strategy team assumes responsibility for reviews (chaired by the CEO and involving the relevant business-unit leaders) that use an array of milestones and metrics to assess the top ten initiatives. One to expand operations in China and India, for example, would entail regular reviews of interim metrics such as the quality and number of local employees recruited and the pace at which alliances are formed with channel partners or suppliers. Each business unit, in turn, is accountable for adopting the same performance-management approach for its own, lower-tier top-ten list of initiatives.

When designed well, strategic-performance-management systems can give an early warning of problems with strategic initiatives, whereas financial targets alone at best provide lagging indicators. An effective system enables management to step in and correct, redirect, or even abandon an initiative that is failing to perform as expected. The strategy of a pharmaceutical company that embarked on a major expansion of its sales force to drive revenue growth, for example, presupposed that rapid growth in the number of sales representatives would lead to a corresponding increase in revenues. The company also recognized, however, that expansion was in turn contingent on several factors, including the ability to recruit and train the right people. It therefore put in place a regular review of the key strategic metrics against its actual performance to alert managers to any emerging problems.

Integrate human-resources systems into the strategic plan

Simply monitoring the execution of strategic initiatives is not sufficient: their successful implementation also depends on how managers are evaluated and compensated. Yet only 36 percent of the executives we surveyed said that their companies’ strategic-planning processes were integrated with HR processes. One way to create a more valuable strategic-planning process would be to tie the evaluation and compensation of managers to the progress of new initiatives.

Although the development of strategy is ostensibly a long-term endeavor, companies traditionally emphasize short-term, purely financial targets—such as annual revenue growth or improved margins—as the sole metrics to gauge the performance of managers and employees. This approach is gradually changing. Deferred-compensation models for boards, CEOs, and some senior managers are now widely used. What’s more, several companies have added longer-term performance targets to complement the short-term ones. A major pharmaceutical company, for example, recently revamped its managerial-compensation structure to include a basket of short-term financial and operating targets as well as longer-term, innovation-based growth targets.

Although these changes help persuade managers to adopt both short- and long-term approaches to the development of strategy, they don’t address the need to link evaluation and compensation to specific strategic initiatives. One way of doing so is to craft a mix of performance targets that more appropriately reflect a company’s strategy. For example, one North American services business that launched strategic initiatives to improve its customer retention and increase sales also adjusted the evaluation and compensation targets for its managers. Rather than measuring senior managers only by revenue and margin targets, as it had done before, it tied 20 percent of their compensation to achieving its retention and cross-selling goals. By introducing metrics for these specific initiatives and linking their success closely to bonus packages, the company motivated managers to make the strategy succeed.

An advantage of this approach is that it motivates managers to flag any problems early in the implementation of a strategic initiative (which determines the size of bonuses) so that the company can solve them. Otherwise, managers all too often sweep the debris of a failing strategy under the operating rug until the spring-cleaning ritual of next year’s annual planning process.

Some business leaders have found ways to give strategic planning a more valuable role in the formulation as well as the execution of strategy. Companies that emulate their methods might find satisfaction instead of frustration at the end of the annual process.

Renée Dye is a consultant in McKinsey’s Atlanta office, and Olivier Sibony is a director in the Paris office.

This article was first published in the Autumn 2007 issue of McKinsey on Finance . Visit McKinsey’s corporate finance site to view the full issue.

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Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

• 06 Oct 2020

Do you know what your organization’s strategy is? How much time do you dedicate to developing that strategy each month?

If your answers are on the low side, you’re not alone. According to research from Bridges Business Consultancy , 48 percent of leaders spend less than one day per month discussing strategy.

It’s no wonder, then, that 48 percent of all organizations fail to meet at least half of their strategic targets. Before an organization can reap the rewards of its business strategy, planning must take place to ensure its strategy remains agile and executable .

Here’s a look at what strategic planning is and how it can benefit your organization.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

It’s important to highlight that strategic planning is an ongoing process—not a one-time meeting. In the online course Disruptive Strategy , Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen notes that in a study of HBS graduates who started businesses, 93 percent of those with successful strategies evolved and pivoted away from their original strategic plans.

“Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works,” Christensen says. “When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that’s at work 24/7 in almost every industry.”

Strategic planning requires time, effort, and continual reassessment. Given the proper attention, it can set your business on the right track. Here are three benefits of strategic planning.

Related: 4 Ways to Develop Your Strategic Thinking Skills

Benefits of Strategic Planning

1. create one, forward-focused vision.

Strategy touches every employee and serves as an actionable way to reach your company’s goals.

One significant benefit of strategic planning is that it creates a single, forward-focused vision that can align your company and its shareholders. By making everyone aware of your company’s goals, how and why those goals were chosen, and what they can do to help reach them, you can create an increased sense of responsibility throughout your organization.

This can also have trickle-down effects. For instance, if a manager isn’t clear on your organization’s strategy or the reasoning used to craft it, they could make decisions on a team level that counteract its efforts. With one vision to unite around, everyone at your organization can act with a broader strategy in mind.

2. Draw Attention to Biases and Flaws in Reasoning

The decisions you make come with inherent bias. Taking part in the strategic planning process forces you to examine and explain why you’re making each decision and back it up with data, projections, or case studies, thus combatting your cognitive biases.

A few examples of cognitive biases are:

• The recency effect: The tendency to select the option presented most recently because it’s fresh in your mind
• Occam’s razor bias: The tendency to assume the most obvious decision to be the best decision
• Inertia bias: The tendency to select options that allow you to think, feel, and act in familiar ways

One cognitive bias that may be more difficult to catch in the act is confirmation bias . When seeking to validate a particular viewpoint, it's the tendency to only pay attention to information that supports that viewpoint.

If you’re crafting a strategic plan for your organization and know which strategy you prefer, enlist others with differing views and opinions to help look for information that either proves or disproves the idea.

Combating biases in strategic decision-making requires effort and dedication from your entire team, and it can make your organization’s strategy that much stronger.

Related: 3 Group Decision-Making Techniques for Success

3. Track Progress Based on Strategic Goals

Having a strategic plan in place can enable you to track progress toward goals. When each department and team understands your company’s larger strategy, their progress can directly impact its success, creating a top-down approach to tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) .

By planning your company’s strategy and defining its goals, KPIs can be determined at the organizational level. These goals can then be extended to business units, departments, teams, and individuals. This ensures that every level of your organization is aligned and can positively impact your business’s KPIs and performance.

It’s important to remember that even though your strategy might be far-reaching and structured, it must remain agile. As Christensen asserts in Disruptive Strategy , a business’s strategy needs to evolve with the challenges and opportunities it encounters. Be prepared to pivot your KPIs as goals shift and communicate the reasons for change to your organization.

Improve Your Strategic Planning Skills

Strategic planning can benefit your organization’s vision, execution, and progress toward goals. If strategic planning is a skill you’d like to improve, online courses can provide the knowledge and techniques needed to lead your team and organization.

Strategy courses can range from primers on key concepts (such as Economics for Managers ), to deep-dives on strategy frameworks (such as Disruptive Strategy ), to coursework designed to help you strategize for a specific organizational goal (such as Sustainable Business Strategy ).

Learning how to craft an effective, compelling strategic plan can enable you to not only invest in your career but provide lasting value to your organization.

Do you want to formulate winning strategies for your organization? Explore our portfolio of online strategy courses and download the free flowchart to determine which is the best fit for you and your goals.

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• Published: 03 December 2019

Co-designed strategic planning and agile project management in academia: case study of an action research group

• Enric Senabre Hidalgo 1 &
• Mayo Fuster Morell 2  

Palgrave Communications volume  5 , Article number:  151 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Strategic planning, a standard activity for project management in different areas and types of organisations, can contribute to improving the dynamics of collaboration in academia, and specifically in research processes. This paper joins the still scarce studies on strategic planning within research groups, contributing to the field of both team science and organisational management from a social sciences perspective and “strategy-as-practice” paradigm. Through the case study of an action research group, after the experimental co-creation of its long-term strategy involving different participatory design methodologies, we quantitatively analyze how this process influenced communication and group relations, both internally and in relation to its participation in the ecosystem with other stakeholders. Thus, as a result of a detailed content analysis in the different communication channels and tools of the group, we address its impact on the team’s agile project management (APM), adopted in a novel way by its members. Data compared between periods, once the strategic plan was co-created, suggest that this type of approach to co-created strategic thinking can improve coordination, cohesion and joint vision among participants. In agreement with emerging academic literature in this field, pertaining to the need to understand strategic planning as a process of socialization and dialogue, other relevant results of the study point to the particular suitability of this type of planning in research environments interested not only in its academic, but also social and ecosystemic impact. The results obtained and discussed also provide elements of assessment when considering the applicability of this type of strategic co-creation process in other areas of knowledge and disciplines.

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Introduction.

Despite the current competition among academic institutions for resources and prestige in the adoption of evaluation systems, ranking mechanisms and performance indicators (Ordorika and Lloyd, 2015 ), regarding current challenges in the organisational dynamics of academic systems there’s little evidence of successful strategies and practices for research project management (Derrick and Nickson, 2014 ). This is especially the case when it comes to the additional need to adapt the production of scientific knowledge to collaborative and interdisciplinary teamwork (Wuchty et al., 2007 ), connecting networked academic organisations and researchers (Wang and Hicks, 2015 ), in a new context that Jasanoff ( 2003 ) defined as the “participatory turn of science”. From the fields of social studies of science and science of team science, authors like Jeffrey ( 2003 ) or Bozeman and Boardman ( 2014 ), describe how collaboration across teams and disciplines also requires progressive adaptation of a shared language and different types of tools. For these reasons, strategic planning seems to be one of the elements that could possibly contribute to better management practices in academia (Wilbon, 2012 ), which is usually a complex and ever-changing process (Eccles et al., 2009 ). On the other hand, when considering alternative modes of knowledge production in academia, as well as the paradigmatic transition of universities in the global context (Santos, 2012 ), strategic thinking usually emerges in research groups oriented to achieve impact beyond the academic domain, like in the cases of action research (Fuster Morell, 2009 ) or mission-driven research (Holm et al., 2013 ). This article provides an analysis of how far co-creation could have a role in the application of strategic planning in academic contexts, in this case through an action research group, and its impact at the levels of management and interrelationships.

Strategic planning in the field of project management

With its foundations in the principles of action research and organisational development (Argyris and Schön, 1997 ), project management is generally considered as the practice of planning and executing the work of a team, based on specific control models and theories, to achieve specific goals and success criteria (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017 ). From a social science perspective, however, project management has also been studied and applied in understanding projects as social processes, focusing on human behavior and actions within groups and organisations (Blomquist et al., 2010 ). Strategic planning, on the other hand, as applied in project management, can be defined as “deliberative, disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organisation (or other entity) is, what it does, and why” (Bryson, 2011 , pp. 4–5). Strategic planning, in this sense, is one of the most widely used strategy tools in business, but is also used in public and non-profit organisations (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015 ).

Besides the fact that empirical evidence of a positive relationship between strategic planning and organisational performance remains inconclusive (Wolf and Floyd, 2017 ), after Mintzberg’s ( 1994 ) critique of the fallacies of rational and centralized strategic planning as a top-down process, from the field of organisational studies it has also been analysed as a key mechanism for team integration and coordination, and as a basis for both centralizing and decentralizing organisational decision making (Spee and Jarzabkowski, 2011 ). In this regard, influenced by the mentioned social science perspectives, in recent years there has been a shift in the field of project management research on strategic planning (Wolf and Floyd, 2017 ), pointing to its benefits from the perspective of participative and socialized process models (Andersen, 2004 ). From this second perspective, strategic planning can be studied more as a “process” than a “product”, and strategy development, therefore, as an evolutionary and integrative activity (Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009 ), within a strategy-as-practice paradigm (Whittington, 1996 ). However, even considering how strategic planning has evolved towards these more integrated and process-oriented approaches, there has been little focus in management literature on addressing to what extent and, specifically, how it could be co-created using participatory methodologies.

State of the art on strategic planning applied to research

Again, with regard to the current challenges of academic systems and research activity from an organisational perspective, although there is scarce academic literature about strategic planning for research organisations, studies in this area show how it has gained some popularity in the general operation of universities (Srinivasa et al., 2015 ; Dooris et al., 2004 ), and also with open and participative approaches (Amrollahi and Rowlands, 2017 ). More specific studies about the application of strategic thinking in research examine its implementation in R&D processes in firms (Bemelmans, 1979 ), in industry-academic collaboration (Burke et al., 1985 ), in research teams in the health sector (Leischow et al., 2008 ), in global initiatives of medical research (Berkley et al., 2010 ), in strategic collaboration within scientific centers (Boardman and Gray, 2010 ), or for the administrative management of research (Drummond, 2003 ).

In this respect, focusing on scholarly activity and academic organisations, relevant case studies on achieving collaborative and participative consensus for strategically planned research agendas address how to combine online tools and offline sessions during the process (Wilbon, 2012 ), or how to engage iteratively different academic communities of practice around research strategic planning (Best et al., 2015 ). Sá and Tamtik ( 2012 ), on the other hand, highlight the diversity of the approaches and perceptions of academics about the research mission, usually constrained by broader social and organisational structures of universities, and by the complex nature of the research enterprise itself. In all cases, however, there is still scarce literature on how to collaboratively develop strategic plans in academic research organisations, and its effect on group dynamics.

The co-creation approach: participatory design and agile project management

Co-creation (or co-production), which refers to processes of collective creativity, is a very broad term, with its applications ranging from the added value of customer participation in the definition of a product or service (Ranjan and Read, 2016 ), to public participation, collaborative governance or community involvement in civic-oriented projects (Voorberg et al., 2015 ). Within this broad concept, participatory design (or co-design) refers to a specific instance of co-creation that occurs when designers and people not trained in design work together in a design development process, with participants as “domain experts” of their own needs and experience (Visser et al., 2005 ). Some key principles of co-design, in this sense, connect with the perspective of iterative and participative strategic planning, as defined above, especially when it comes to the involvement of diverse stakeholders (Flood and Jackson, 1991 ). This points to the opportunity for adopting visualization techniques derived from co-design (Sanders and Stappers, 2008 ) in order to integrate different perspectives, mutual understanding, inspiration and engagement between participants in the research strategic thinking process (Eppler and Platts, 2009 ), thereby enhancing visual and textual representations of contexts and strategies (Giraudeau, 2008 ).

On the other hand, some approaches analyse strategic planning from the perspective of how it can be improved by adapting agile project management (APM) (Cervone, 2014 ; Rand and Eckfeldt, 2004 ). APM, which can also be considered as a co-creation practice (Spinuzzi, 2015 ), consists of a set of methods and principles originally conceived for flexible and participative software development, but currently adopted in many other different domains (Ciric et al., 2018 ). This wider adoption of APM is due to its attributes of adaptive teamwork, transparency, continuous improvement and small and frequent releases for early delivery (Cao et al., 2009 ). APM, more so than other project management frameworks, emphasizes teamwork by focusing on the social aspects of project development, channelling co-creation between participants in self-organized, cross-functional teams (Hoda et al., 2013 ), with collective ownership and collective responsibility as key attributes (Robinson and Sharp, 2003 ). Among the different practices within APM, some typical ones are the regularity of short feedback meetings (“standups”) and the use of kanban boards for visualizing the workflow and team tasks from conception to completion (Polk, 2011 ).

Research questions

The arguments exposed above justify the interest in an analysis connecting such diverse bodies of literature, in order to fill the gap and contribute to the questions about how strategic planning could be based on co-creation methodologies. And also, from a meta-research perspective (Ioannidis et al., 2015 ), how such an approach could be applied to research processes. More concretely, to what extent participatory design could be used for articulating the research planning phase, and afterwards integrated with the APM for the research development phase. This leads to the following two research questions, which form the basis of this study:

How can co-creation methods be used to lead the strategic planning process of a research group?

What would be the impact of co-created strategic planning on the agile project management of research?

Answering these two questions requires, in the first case, to describe in some detail how participatory design can be combined with strategic planning principles, explaining the integration of both approaches. In relation to the second question, a quantitative approach is needed considering the general lack of empirical evidence, especially in the fields of social studies of science and team science, on how strategic planning can impact research management. In this regard, our analysis of the co-creation approach to research strategic planning is applied to the participants, sequence and methods used in the entire process.

Methodology

In order to address the two research questions, a distinctive methodological design has been applied to each one of them. Articulated around a specific case study on the Dimmons research group, this methodological approach is twofold. The first part is based on participatory design, utilised to conceptualize and prototype the Dimmons strategic planning according to co-creation principles. The second part analyses the impact of co-created strategic planning on the group’s day-to-day APM, through content analysis of the online tools used for coordinating teamwork. On this basis, the results allow us to discuss which insights of the study could be generalized to current challenges in research project management.

Background of the Dimmons case study

Created in 2016, Dimmons ( http://dimmons.net/ ) is one of the eleven research groups of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), the research center of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) based in Barcelona. Following the development of strategic planning of the IN3 Footnote 1 , which took place after the main strategic planning exercise of the UOC Footnote 2 in 2016, the Dimmons group developed its own strategic planning with the aim of establishing its strategic objectives for the period 2018 to 2023. On the one hand, the selection of the Dimmons research group as a case study is due to how it is immersed in a strategic planning context that crosses several levels of the academic institution to which it belongs, reflecting an increasingly recurring but still little studied trend. On the other hand, Dimmons also represents a paradigmatic example due to its diversity, since it is composed of members with a consolidated scientific career, but also of PhD students, external collaborators and management-oriented profiles. Since the beginning of its activity, in that sense, Dimmons operates in a framework of competitive evolution between universities and research centers, and at the same time in new collaboration dynamics to achieve not only academic impact but also social impact, as we will see. In that sense, therefore, the case study reflects a way of addressing a series of current challenges and complexities that research groups experience between long-term strategic vision and day-to-day project management.

The Dimmons research group is focused on transdisciplinarity and action research for the study of socioeconomic innovation and the collaborative economy, from the perspectives of economic and public policy analysis. The group’s composition since its beginning has evolved into a networked structure (Spinuzzi, 2015 ) which consists of different “layers” of participation (all of them involved with its strategic planning, as we will see in the results section). The action-oriented character of the research group, and its specialization in collaboration dynamics, makes it a case study particularly adapted to develop a novel approach, concretely in terms of opening up its strategic planning process by applying co-creation methods. This was seen early on as an opportunity to engage with its core team members and network of close collaborators, as well as with other representative stakeholders from the Dimmons community and ecosystem. In sum, the coincidence that the research group had to develop its own strategic planning, has an experimental and action-oriented approach, which added to its expertise on collaborative dynamics, made the Dimmons group a good case for the study. Regarding the first research question on how co-creation methods could be adapted for strategic planning, Dimmons was a good choice due to the group’s regular adoption of participatory design techniques. On the other hand, Dimmons’ novel adoption of APM (Senabre Hidalgo, 2018a ) also favours addressing the second question, regarding the impact of the co-created strategic planning on the group’s day-to-day management.

As a general result of the co-creation of the strategic plan, in which more than 40 people participated, there were a total of 38 actions defined in accordance with 6 strategic goals for the period 2018–2023, each one with an average of three key performance indicators (KPI) associated (97 in total). Its final version was published online on the Dimmons research group webpage. Footnote 3 After one year of implementation, by the end of 2018, 24 of the 97 KPIs were accomplished satisfactorily. This result represents an accomplishment of 24%, and considering that a 5-year period is envisaged for full implementation of the plan, suggests satisfactory performance in terms of achieving the co-defined goals during the first year.

Participatory design for how to apply co-creation in strategic planning

Regarding the first research question (“How can co-creation methods to be used in leading strategic planning process of a research group?”) the methodological approach was qualitative, based on participatory design. Departing from the key consideration that participatory design is indeed a methodology of action research (Spinuzzi, 2005 ), and benefiting from co-creation derived from design thinking methodologies (Kimbell, 2012 ), which have proven to improve participant engagement in research (Senabre Hidalgo et al., 2018 ), we established different visual and discussion techniques at each stage of the process for the effective participation in a transdisciplinary context. The participatory design was developed and data collected from the fall of 2016 through 2018. The methodology applied is consistent with the participatory design notions of user-centered co-creation, in detailed stages and techniques such as those described by Naranjo-Bock (2012) for (1) self-reflection of research methods (focusing on research goals and questions, who the participants are and what tools they can use, the stage of the project, etc.); (2) running co-design activities onsite, with techniques and “placements” like context mapping, storyboards, inspiration cards, diagrams or paper prototyping; (3) pilot testing and results, where the data obtained is generally visual and tangible, accompanied by the important debrief of the results of each participatory design session or process.

Following that approach, and adopting the framework of Spinuzzi ( 2005 ), through different qualitative techniques the co-creation process was structured around the three key phases of: (1) Initial exploration of work, where participants meet each other and commonalities are identified, as well as for preliminary discussions; (2) Discovery processes, when design facilitators employ various techniques to understand and prioritize work organisation, clarifying the participant’s goals and values; and (3) Prototyping, a final stage for iteratively shaping outputs and assessing results. The data came from a range of sources, including offline co-creation sessions and team meetings, meetings and interviews with some researchers and collaborators, as well as documentation resulting from the different phases and sessions of the strategic planning. Outputs of each participatory design stage were recorded in detail as they took place, through documents shared online.

Content analysis for the impact of a co-created strategic planning on APM of research

Regarding the second question (“What would be the impact of co-created strategic planning on the agile project management of research?”), the approach was based on quantitative data collection and text analysis, in order to address how far the co-creation methodologies had an impact on the group’s project management, focusing on the researchers’ discussions and behavior through digital channels. The analysis was based on extensive content analysis of two of the main online coordination tools for the AMP of the group: a chat group for daily communication and an online kanban board platform for task management.

Telegram chat content analysis

The “Dimmons al dia” Telegram chat group was adopted from February 2016 until the end of 2018 as a first approach to daily standup meetings, inspired by the Scrum method derived from APM for software development (Cervone, 2011 ). Scrum, which is one of the most adopted agile frameworks for managing knowledge work, facilitates the coordinated activity of participants who break their work into small tasks that can be completed within fixed duration cycles or “sprints”, tracking progress and re-planning in regular meetings in order to develop projects incrementally (Senabre Hidalgo, 2019 ). Via Telegram, on a daily basis from Monday to Friday each Dimmons team member (a total of 15 users, through different periods over time), via a short message during the morning period, informed others about the planned tasks for the day (Fig. 1 ), among other coordination discussions that took place regularly on that chat tool between team members.

Screenshot of the Telegram chat group for daily updates about tasks.

A combination of computer-assisted massive text analysis and comparative visualizations Footnote 4 for these chat discussions on the Dimmons Telegram group was used, after dumping and extracting to plain text the full history of the “Dimmons al dia” chat group since its creation (a text corpus mainly in Catalan, which is the normal language of team members). The data gathered consisted of the complete history of messages from 2 September 2016 to 27 December 2018 (28 months of activity). This represented a corpus of 6520 messages, with a size of 794,464 characters in 6941 lines of text.

Afterwards, in order to compare the different flows of communication in relation to the co-designed strategic plan of the research group, it was decided that the date on which the first strategic planning team workshop took place (20 December 2017) would be used as the key date for dividing the chat history in two plain text documents: “Xat Telegram Dimmons al dia 2017” (pre-strategic plan period, until 20 December 2017, with 78,644 total words) and “Xat Telegram Dimmons al dia 2018” (post-strategic plan period, after 20 December 2017, with 83,200 total words).

As a first step in the analysis, prior to coding, the plain text obtained from each document was processed as a tabular view of terms frequently used in the entire corpus. That is, a list of the most used terms for the period 2017 and a list of the most used terms for the period 2018. This facilitated an initial overview of recurrent terms, which could then be filtered and coded, identifying multiple stop words to exclude (non-relevant meaning, numbers, ambiguous terms, etc.) and on the other hand selecting specific words related to categories to include in the analysis. The coding of data obtained in this way consisted of the clustering of words relevant to the following two categories:

Coordination-related terms : data about terms related to time periods or days (today, tomorrow, now, etc.), general work-related keywords (meeting, call, document, task, pending, etc.), as well as specific verbs (preparing, sending, finishing, etc.).

Strategy-related terms : data about terms related to the six main goals of the Dimmons strategic plan (as described in the results section), for (1) academic impact (paper, data, review, survey, specific projects, etc.); (2) open tools (platform or toolkit-related); (3) ecosystem (specific partners mentioned, dissemination or projects); (4) team care and empowerment (words related to good climate among members, greetings, gender topics, etc.); (5) sustainability (new proposals, specific projects for new funding); and (6) university shift (references to the university or research center).

Kanban board content analysis

In January 2017 (when the strategic planning was co-designed) the Dimmons team adopted an open source project management software ( https://kanboard.org/ ) for additional APM practice, such as the use of an online kanban board for visualizing the flow of tasks accomplished by core team members (Fig. 2 ).

Kanban board reflecting the workflow of tasks of team members, related to strategic goals and specific projects.

For this, in connection with the six strategic goals defined in the co-design phase, each planned task could be properly tagged (selecting “academic impact”, “open tools”, etc.) according to the researchers criteria. In addition, tasks could be classified by selecting from a dropdown menu the corresponding project or category (specific projects, management tasks, dissemination, publications, events or initiatives related to networking, etc.). An analysis of this workflow-related data on the Dimmons online kanban board during the mentioned period (with different levels of participation among the nine core team members, depending on their familiarity with digital tools and perception of utility) allows for an understanding of the evolution of planned and achieved tasks in relation to the Dimmons strategic plan, as well as among team members.

Data obtained from the Kanboard log comprised details about a total of 166 user-defined tasks, in relation to tags selected (for the six strategic goals), category of project selected (among the 11 existing projects and initiatives during 2018), user activity, level of accomplishment, due dates and task description, among others. In this case, the coding related to the strategic goals was self-generated by each user at the moment of naming and defining the task, by selecting the most appropriate tag in relation to the strategic goals.

This results section is divided into two parts, which address the research questions with the methodologies described above. First, we outline how the co-design process of the Dimmons research group planning unfolded, describing the methods used, as well as its internal and management implications, based on the participatory design process itself. Secondly, we summarise the main results of the impact of the process on the group’s project management and regular communication in relation to its experimental co-creation approach, derived from the content analysis of the main coordination channels used during the regular activity of Dimmons.

How can co-creation techniques and principles be used in leading the strategic planning process of a research group? Insights from the participatory design of the Dimmons strategic planning

In relation to the first research question, about how can the strategic planning process of a research group can adopt co-creation methods, the participatory design practices and principles adopted resulted in an iterative, dialogic and eminently visual approach to strategic planning. Questions related to participants (“who”), sequence (“when”) and methods (“how”) were of critical importance since the beginning of the process (Table 1 ).

“Who”: Participation as ecosystem

In contrast to the traditional strategic planning process, developed by the group’s core team only (i.e., those with strong ties to it), Dimmons adopted a broader perspective in which the basic principle for co-creation that emerged was the concept of “participation as ecosystem” (Fuster Morell, 2010a ). That is, the Dimmons research group could be considered a research ecosystem with diverse forms and degrees of involvement, following the structure of a “power law dynamic” (or “1/9/90”) in online collaborative production (Fuster Morell, 2010b ). This reflects the composition of the participation that took place when articulating the strategic planning process, according to the three layers of the Dimmons research ecosystem:

Core Team: Director, postdocs and PhDs with grants, and research assistants (9 people).

Dimmons “Community”: University professors, former visitors, external researchers, experts and practitioners on Dimmons areas (12 people).

Dimmons “Ecosystem”: Representatives of a network of institutions with further collaborative relations, target impact or audience (10 participants from a total of 32 private and public organisations).

In relation to this, a first observation regarding how to apply co-creation in strategic planning has to do with the suitability of adopting a broad, open and participative approach, as well as decentralised approaches for higher engagement and performance in dynamic environments (Andersen, 2004 ). For this reason, who to involve in the process became a critical aspect, considering that ecosystemic participation is also meant to engage the research group community and stakeholders in the process (not only highly involved team members). In this case, the open invitation to all members of each layer of the ecosystem, as defined above, resulted in the “power law” distribution, of which only a small representation were engaged in the process but with a high level of involvement through the different co-creation sessions. Defined as a modular sequence, with the possibility of joining the process at different times, also allowed for a wider participation than if following a rigid and traditional strategic planning approach.

“When”: Iterative sequences of convergence and divergence

The iterative unfolding of the co-creation process was another main characteristic. That is, rather than a predefined sequence of steps, the guiding principles were based on the participatory design notions of “convergence” and “divergence” (Sanders et al., 2010 ). This allowed for several divergence instances (during which a considerable number of possibilities regarding goals, ideas, SWOT factors Footnote 5 , etc. were generated by participants), followed by intense convergence stages of synthesis (where the main options were presented, discussed and finally selected via different mechanisms).

Departing from that key consideration in co-creation, and its adaptation of a sequence guided by participatory design methods (Spinuzzi, 2005 ; Sanders and Stappers, 2008 ), the overall approach of the participatory design integrated key notions in literature for effective strategic planning (Wilson, 1994 ). In this respect, the organic and iterative development of the process as a co-creation sequence was consistent with the four stages of a strategic plan, as defined by Eppler and Platts ( 2009 ): analysis, development, planning and implementation (Fig. 3 ).

Stages followed in the co-creation of the strategic plan of the research group, connecting co-creation approaches (Spinuzzi, 2005 ; Sanders et al., 2010 ; Spinuzzi, 2015 ) with visual strategic planning (Eppler et al., 2006 ; Eppler and Platts, 2009 ).

As reflected above, a key consideration derived from the case study in relation to its temporal sequence is that it was possible to establish a clear coherence between the literature of co-creation and participatory design (Spinuzzi, 2005 ; Sanders et al., 2010 ; Spinuzzi, 2015 ) and of visualization techniques for strategic planning (Eppler and Platts, 2009 ; Eppler et al., 2006 ).

“How”: Integrating°co-creation methods in strategic planning

The co-creation process unfolded by connecting the different participatory design stages to specific phases of strategic planning, via a combination of five sessions in total and the adoption of nine co-creation methods (in offline but also online formats), and with the regular participation of diverse participants from the Dimmons research ecosystem (Table 2 ).

In this way, the first co-creation workshop (Fig. 4 ) focused on mapping personal attitudes and strengths, experience in methods and research approaches, which contributed to visualizing methodological affinities within the group.

Different moments and materials used for the workshop sessions with the research team.

Following the mentioned co-creation principles of “convergence” and “divergence” (Sanders et al., 2010 ), the second co-creation workshop departed from the first survey results to engage in a broader discussion about the mission and guiding principles of the group, which were discussed and re-edited offline during the debate. That second session also adopted a card-sorting technique for clustering the survey results of the SWOT. During the second co-creation workshop, a first version of the map of the Dimmons ecosystem was also drafted and discussed. An important part of this participative analysis stage of the planning was the collective identification of the “ecosystem” or external environment in which the group operates. For this, a key activity was the collective mapping of the different institutions and agents with which Dimmons collaborates or has a relevant relationship, bringing the concept of ecosystemic research closer to the perspective of the Quadruple Helix for innovation systems (Carayannis and Campbell, 2012 ). In contributing to the generation of an internal environment of transparency and openness, it is important to consider that all the dynamics took place in a context of action research where the majority of participants were familiar beforehand with similar methodologies and processes to integrate diversity and explicit points of view. Also noteworthy is the general absence of conflict situations during the whole process, and that initial discussions about methodologies and specific theoretical perspectives were activated early on. This was probably due to the fact that it was based on a small core of participants who were already cohesive around the Dimmons team, joined by other actors with diverse theoretical backgrounds and experience, and for that reason each session was oriented towards the search for synergies and learnings, making explicit the knowledge, expectations and opinions of the majority of the group. However, it should also be pointed out that sometimes during the discussion, the opinion of those with a consolidated academic profile tended to weigh more and took more preeminence, in contrast to predoctoral researchers or participants with a profile not linked to academic research.

As another important element of the group’s strategic thinking in this case, the final stages of the process not only had as benchmark reference the IN3 research center’s strategic goals, but also the potential connection with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles. The SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations for addressing urgent issues like poverty, education, gender equality, energy, environment or social justice, among others (Griggs et al., 2013 ). RRI is a multidisciplinary approach promoting the involvement of stakeholders and civil society in scientific activities for developing more inclusive innovation processes (Owen et al., 2012 ). This element of strategic planning around external indicators represented for all participants a first approach to new principles and a series of values, leveraging perspectives and discussions around the key aspect of social impact of research beyond the academic context.

As a final result, among the different key elements that are usually integrated into a strategic plan (Eppler and Platts, 2009 ), the definition of six strategic goals were incorporated into the first draft of the document (considered as a “prototype”) of six strategic goals: (1) Academic impact (“generate a high-quality research corpus of theoretical framework on socio-economic innovation”); (2) Open tools (“contribute to processes in action for the resolution of social challenges by developing research-based resources”); (3) Ecosystem building (“consolidate a ‘glocal’ network of partner organisations for quadruple helix collaboration to favour social impact and resilience”); (4) Empowered team (“consolidate the team with complementary backgrounds, healthy environment and gender-balanced talent”); (5) Catalytic sustainability (“obtain funding for action research from competitive calls with high impact and visibility”); and (6) University shift (“engage with open access, “commonification” processes, transdisciplinarity, agile principles and other changing paradigms in the academic culture”).

What would be the influence of co-created strategic planning on the agile project management of research? Insights from the analysis of impact in Dimmons coordination

Once the strategic plan was finished and shared online as a definitive version, it was incorporated into the day-to-day activities of the research group, both explicitly (by incorporating the strategic goals as categories in the group’s agile kanban board for task management) and implicitly (by guiding topics of conversation, and being in the background when regularly communicating online and offline). In order to analyse it and answer the second research question of this study, on what would be the influence of a co-created strategic planning on the APM of research, a series of content analysis on the main coordination digital channels provides different elements for discussion, especially from an action research perspective.

Dimmons Telegram chat content analysis

The evolution of user’s daily participation on the Telegram chat during 2017 and 2018 suggests that once the strategic planning was co-designed and adopted (at the end of 2017), the communication dynamics evolved from being relatively asymmetric (with just a few very active users) to a much more balanced distribution where all members contributed, following the “standup” meetings and derived conversations (Fig. 5 ).

Evolution of user participation in “Dimmons al dia” Telegram group chat during 2017 and 2018.

More specifically, from a medium used by nine participants over a timeframe of approximately two years, the co-design and implementation of the Dimmons strategic plan between December 2017 and January 2018 seems to set a landmark between a relatively unequal distribution of messages among team members (where only a few of them contributed, at very different levels) to a regular pace and volume of interventions by the majority of participants. This probably derived from applying the strategic planning as a co-creation sequence, thereby as an integrative and socialization process. In this sense, it should be noted that among the observations about the daily communication of the group through the Telegram channel, most messages and discussions focused on the planning and execution of tasks, both academic (writing articles, organisation of workshops, data collection, etc.) as administrative (agenda management, budgeting, event logistics, etc.). In contrast, during the day-to-day of the group and outside of the co-creation process itself, theoretical or conceptual discussions normally took place in other spaces and moments, normally during the development of face-to-face meetings between two or more members of the group (before and after the strategic planning process).

On the other hand, if we look at data from the content analysis of the daily update “standup” messages in 2017 (again, prior to the strategic plan) compared to the corpus of terms used in 2018 (once the strategic planning was in place) patterns also demonstrate a coincidence with a significative increase of terms related to the different strategic goals, and therefore a probable influence of the strategic planning on the daily communication of the group (Fig. 6 ).

Comparison of mentions to Dimmons strategic plan related terms in Telegram between 2017–2018.

This reflects a relative imbalance in how the different goals were addressed during both periods. While, according to these results, the attention to the group’s ecosystem and to academic impact where at the center of activity, there was much less activity, in terms of percentage, related to others such as the generation of open tools or team care. This imbalance simply demonstrates that after year one, of the five goals covered by the strategic plan, the group gave priority to tasks and processes related to its ecosystem (specific partners, collaborators or events), as well as pertaining to academic impact (publications, data, surveys, specific projects under development). What seems significant from this data, apart from how it can serve as a parallel indicator to the group’s agreed KPIs, is the increment and diversity of terms related to the strategic plan in the regular conversations and update messages on the Telegram chat for the 2018 period (and to what extent they were more relevant than in the previous year, before the co-design of the strategic plan took place).

In relation to the adoption of APM methods (in this case, establishing additional regular weekly meetings and the use of a digital kanban board, beyond the daily updates via Telegram), the increment there between 2017 and 2018 in vocabulary related to coordination tasks, timing and other key terms is also significative. Specially the preeminence of messages containing words like “today”, “pending”, “version”, “tasks” or “meeting”, which doubled in general compared to 2017.

Again, patterns show a wider use of vocabulary in coordination-related communications, with reference to tasks informed on a daily basis, once the co-creation process around the strategic planning of the research group took place. This suggests not only that team communication incorporated more perspectives related to the Dimmons strategic goals, as observed above, but also more references to general coordination and therefore the operative awareness of the group.

Finally, if we focus on 2018 (the period of the co-designed strategic plan), another relevant analysis of the content data gathered via the daily updates and conversations on the Telegram group chat, is the extent to which it reflects a very similar proportion of conversations about specific areas of the strategic goals (Fig. 7 ) for the tasks defined on the kanban board. In both cases, the majority of references during 2018, coincidentally, focus on academic impact and ecosystem building, followed by a corpus of team-related and university shift terms.

Percentage of terms related to Dimmons strategic goals on Telegram chat during 2018.

Dimmons kanban board content analysis

“As mentioned above, the results of the tags used most on the kanban board related to the strategic goals, when informing the regular tasks of team members, point to a very similar distribution as in the previous analysis of the Dimmons main Telegram chat, where academic impact and ecosystem creation are the most selected ones, followed by a smaller proportion of the other four categories”.

This suggests that both patterns coincide as an indicator of the most influencing priorities for the team derived from the strategic plan, but more importantly points to a coherence on a shared vision as an action research group derived from the co-design process. Also, this result when comparing content on the coordination channels, suggests a consistent integration of the strategic goals with the APM methods, ensuring an interconnection between the strategic plan goals and the daily activities.

Another result from the task-related data gathered via the kanban board is to what extent there’s a good balance of members contributions to the projects and initiatives connected to the strategic goals. Instead of a specialization pattern or “monolithic” distribution of projects to researchers, despite the different levels of participation informing planned tasks between users, results show a relevant quality of teamwork in terms of shared projects and cross-functionality.

In addition, the extent to which specific projects not only comprehended tasks related to different researchers but also to the various strategic goals, suggests a coherent and transversal categorization when researchers classified their regular activity in relation to the strategic plan. Data obtained from activity on the kanban board, when compared with activity on the Telegram chat informing about planned tasks for each day, also shows a clear correlation between the content generated in both channels and terms related to the different strategic goals. As already indicated, however, not all the core team members used the kanban board with the same level of regularity (as opposed to the Telegram daily updates, where participation followed the same volume and pace for all team members), with the main reason probably related to the difference in the levels of familiarity with digital tools for management.

With this study a prototype and analysis of a co-creation methodology for the strategic planning process of an action research group was developed. Regarding participation, guided by a ‘strategy-as-practice’ approach in project management and the concept of ecosystemic research, the case study integrated the diversity of perspectives and voices of more than 20 participants in total. This way of proceeding generated a key mechanism for team integration and coordination within the group, and also with its external layers of collaborators and stakeholders, which were also represented through the process. As data indicate, this required a combined approach of co-creation methods and iterations, which followed principles of participatory design and online participation. As a consequence, besides a fully defined document for the strategic roadmap of the group activity, the different actions co-defined by the core team and its ecosystem of collaborators achieved a satisfactory level of accomplishment after the first year of implementation.

In relation to the first research question, on how co-creation methods can lead the strategic planning of a research group, our study points to the possibility of developing strategic planning processes with such methods. In this respect, our contribution reflects the key methodological aspect of integrating participatory design techniques for structuring the process. This aligns with theories connecting principles of action research in social sciences, and especially co-design in the context of organisational learning, in terms of tacit and explicit knowledge transfer processes, as well as constructivist approaches to addressing complexity and uncertainty in teamwork (Argyris and Schön, 1989 ). The analysed case study of Dimmons, in this sense, seems coherent with a wider consideration of design thinking as a practical approach for enabling transdisciplinary collaboration and as a process for “shaping processes” (Lindberg et al., 2010 ). In our opinion, as addressed in this case, this connects to the need to adapt strategic planning to co-creation practices as a decentralized, integrative and iterative dialogue (Wolf and Floyd, 2017 ). Our analysis also suggests the opportunity for the utilization of academic strategic planning as a means of integrating the values of the social impact of research, such as those derived ones from SGD and RRI, which can be adopted as a landmark when addressing academic and scientific activity from a collaborative and ecosystemic perspective. Observations and outputs from this process reflect that it allowed for deeper insight into discussions and comparisons about research methods, in many cases for the first time among team members. By “voting” for preferences and visualizing expertise in such explicit ways, and selecting a wide range of possible methods, the iteration and parallel discussion allowed for the identification (later on the strategic planning process) of several areas of improvement and implications for the group composition in the mid and long term. All the data generated and shared as open documentation during this first initial exploration stage of the strategic planning, concerning the group’s composition, allowed on the one hand, the identification and mapping of opinions, basic assumptions and implicit understandings around research that needed to be surfaced, and on the other one the initiation of the co-creation of the strategic planning with the needed openness and implication of all participants.

Regarding the applicability of the model to managing research projects in other scientific research contexts, the type of participatory co-design described and the degree of involvement of the different layers of stakeholders probably require departing from reduced, cohesive teams and familiarity with principles of action research or community-based research, frequent in the social sciences. In this sense, it is important to highlight that, as detailed in the first part of the study, the concept of impact of research was regularly taken into account beyond the academic context, as a requisite to integrating in the strategic planning other perspectives that do not come from the scholarly context. As another relevant element derived from the results of the study, when prototyping the co-design process in connection with previous research on visual strategic planning (Eppler et al., 2006 ; Eppler and Platts, 2009 ), it should be noted that the iterative sequences of convergence and divergence of each phase allowed the described levels of participation and integration of perspectives. Again, considering it a strategic thinking process that is likely to be generalizable in research contexts in which, beyond academic and administrative tasks, there are conditions for the consideration of different types of research impact for initiatives in the medium and long term.

Regarding the second research question, the results pertaining to the impact of the co-created strategic planning on the group’s APM coordination and communication routines (and specifically data about terms related to the strategic plan) suggest that it contributed significantly to a shared vision and helped to deal with the inherent complexity of research activity (Fuster Morell, 2012 ). In this sense, with respect to the positive influence of a co-created strategic planning on the APM of research, our method provided results complementing previous studies (Rand and Eckfeldt, 2004 ). Specifically, we described how the integration of strategic goals with the agile management of daily tasks can serve as a parallel indicator to KPI used in strategic planning, and how such integration can provide immediate user-generated information for assessing the implementation of the plan (as compared to the usual retrospective checking of KPI over longer periods of time). Taking into account the need to connect strategic plans with managerial practices during the implementation phase (Poister, 2010 ), this combination of co-design techniques and AMP practices for the strategic planning of the Dimmons research group reflected the importance of design features and social mechanisms for successful strategic planning (Barzelay and Jacobsen, 2009 ). The data compared between the period prior to the strategic plan and its co-creation process suggest, on the one hand, an increase in the group’s cohesion through its daily communication and coordination channels, and on the other, an alignment in terms of discourse and follow-up of the objectives set. Again, in relation to being able to extrapolate the results of this process to other contexts, it is probably key to start with some previous experience with basic principles and practices of project management, and especially those based on AMP. However, as we reflect in the first part of the study, on the state of the art in social studies of science and team science with respect to the management of research projects, as well as the progressive need for mechanisms of efficiency and collaboration in academia, it is likely that this type of approach could be useful and produce similar results in other types of scientific and research initiatives.

Despite the above, the results also show a relevant imbalance between the accomplishment of some of the strategic goals after the first year of implementation of the strategic planning, with a significant dedication of efforts to “ecosystemic activity”. This suggests that, from an action research perspective, after the participative design process there was a greater priority given to the perceived need for addressing tasks related to community events, meetings with stakeholders, institutional agreements or online dissemination. In contrast, according to the data derived from the combination of KPI compared with the volume of specific tasks defined in the APM coordination channels, critical aspects of research management related to team building or open tools did not receive as much attention and effort in comparison. In our view, besides the experimental character of the case study (and the novelty of its research group focus), this result also relates to the current context of pressure and complexity within “accelerated” academic organisations (Vostal, 2016 ), which represents a challenge in front of competition for excellence (Sørensen et al., 2016 ) and the “projectification” of university research (Fowler et al., 2015 ). In this sense, in relation to the day-to-day activity of the group connecting strategic planning with co-creation principles of APM in research, it was observed that the experience also increased the need for the project management role or main facilitator of the entire co-creation process. In this regard, it was usually complicated to separate that function, as the guide of the participatory design of the strategic plan, from the wider role of APM coordinator.

This study’s limitations and potential mainly have to do with two areas. On the one hand, the content analysis of the kanban board covered an early stage of its adoption, but in comparison to the Telegram chat activity not all participants used the system with the same level of intensity and engagement. As explained in the results section, however, the relative coincidence with percentages of strategic-related terms between both channels suggests it worked as a relevant source of data for assessing the implementation of the strategic plan. In relation to the co-creation process, this limitation (related to an unequal adoption of APM coordination by the majority of the group), represented a challenge for some participants, and probably affected its impact during the implementation stage of some of the strategic goals. As mentioned, the degree of familiarity with digital tools for project coordination, as well as with internal discussion processes and personal positioning in research projects, seems a key factor that also requires future analysis in other academic contexts, to determine to what extent similar processes of co-creation and strategic thinking can be applied in the field of social sciences and in other disciplines. On the other hand, following this type of exploratory analysis, the need to observe and compare data generated by other research groups that apply similar (or different) methods for project management and strategic planning creates in our opinion a potential for future research, and would allow for further understanding of such an important area of meta-research. In this line, another analysis based on the case study of the Dimmons research group for a different period in the near future, in order to compare the evolution of KPI in parallel to communication and coordination related to tasks until 2023, would be needed to confirm some of our initial results.

Through this study we have described how strategic planning could be applied to research in order to confront current challenges in academic collaboration, and how to do so through the opportunities offered by co-creation methodologies applied to project management. Our analysis has identified potential benefits and challenges in this respect, suggesting further development of this field in the social sciences and action research, and proposing it as a possible area of research and development in parallel to other documented and studied efforts to deal with innovative and agile management of scholarly work. Besides an analysis of its impact at the communication and relational levels, our study also offers a detailed description about how co-creation for strategic planning in research could be applied, which could be of practical interest for scientific institutions in relation to their project management practices.

Data availability

Due to privacy reasons, the datasets analysed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Senabre Hidalgo, E., Fuster Morell, M. Co-designed strategic planning and agile project management in academia: case study of an action research group. Palgrave Commun 5 , 151 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0364-0

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4-phase guide to the strategic planning process, the strategic planning process in 4 steps, to guide you through the strategic planning process, we created this 4 step process you can use with your team. we’ll cover the basic definition of strategic planning, what core elements you should include, and actionable steps to build your strategic plan..

Free Strategic Planning Guide

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic Planning is when a process where organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy development.

A strategic plan or a business strategic plan should include the following:

• Your organization’s vision organization’s vision of the future.
• A clearly Articulated mission and values statement.
• A current state assessment that evaluates your competitive environment, new opportunities, and new threats.
• What strategic challenges you face.
• A growth strategy and outlined market share.
• Long-term strategic goals.
• An annual plan with SMART goals or OKRs to support your strategic goals.
• Clear measures, key performance indicators, and data analytics to measure progress.
• A clear strategic planning cycle, including how you’ll review, refresh, and recast your plan every quarter.

Overview of the Strategic Planning Process:

The strategic management process involves taking your organization on a journey from point A (where you are today) to point B (your vision of the future).

Part of that journey is the strategy built during strategic planning, and part of it is execution during the strategic management process. A good strategic plan dictates “how” you travel the selected road.

Effective execution ensures you are reviewing, refreshing, and recalibrating your strategy to reach your destination. The planning process should take no longer than 90 days. But, move at a pace that works best for you and your team and leverage this as a resource.

To kick this process off, we recommend 1-2 weeks (1-hour meeting with the Owner/CEO, Strategy Director, and Facilitator (if necessary) to discuss the information collected and direction for continued planning.)

Questions to Ask:

• Who is on your Planning Team? What senior leadership members and key stakeholders are included? Checkout these links you need help finding a strategic planning consultant , someone to facilitate strategic planning , or expert AI strategy consulting .
• Who will be the business process owner (Strategy Director) of planning in your organization?
• Fast forward 12 months from now, what do you want to see differently in your organization as a result of your strategic plan and implementation?
• Planning team members are informed of their roles and responsibilities.
• A strategic planning schedule is established.
• Existing planning information and secondary data collected.

Action Grid:

Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness

Set up your plan for success – questions to ask:

• Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain pitfalls be avoided?
• Is this the appropriate time for your organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no, where do you go from here?

Step 2: Develop Your Team & Schedule

Who is going to be on your planning team? You need to choose someone to oversee the strategy implementation (Chief Strategy Officer or Strategy Director) and strategic management of your plan? You need some of the key individuals and decision makers for this team. It should be a small group of approximately 12-15 people.

OnStrategy is the leader in strategic planning and performance management. Our cloud-based software and hands-on services closes the gap between strategy and execution. Learn more about OnStrategy here .

Step 3: Collect Current Data

All strategic plans are developed using the following information:

• The last strategic plan, even if it is not current
• Mission statement, vision statement, values statement
• Past or current Business plan
• Financial records for the last few years
• Marketing plan
• Other information, such as last year’s SWOT, sales figures and projections

Step 4: Review Collected Data

Review the data collected in the last action with your strategy director and facilitator.

• What trends do you see?
• Are there areas of obvious weakness or strengths?
• Have you been following a plan or have you just been going along with the market?

Conclusion: A successful strategic plan must be adaptable to changing conditions. Organizations benefit from having a flexible plan that can evolve, as assumptions and goals may need adjustments. Preparing to adapt or restart the planning process is crucial, so we recommend updating actions quarterly and refreshing your plan annually.

Strategic Planning Phase 1: Determine Your Strategic Position

Want more? Dive into the “ Evaluate Your Strategic Position ” How-To Guide.

Action Grid

Step 1: Identify Strategic Issues

Strategic issues are critical unknowns driving you to embark on a robust strategic planning process. These issues can be problems, opportunities, market shifts, or anything else that keeps you awake at night and begging for a solution or decision. The best strategic plans address your strategic issues head-on.

• How will we grow, stabilize, or retrench in order to sustain our organization into the future?
• How will we diversify our revenue to reduce our dependence on a major customer?
• What must we do to improve our cost structure and stay competitive?
• How and where must we innovate our products and services?

Step 2: Conduct an Environmental Scan

Conducting an environmental scan will help you understand your operating environment. An environmental scan is called a PEST analysis, an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological trends. Sometimes, it is helpful to include Ecological and Legal trends as well. All of these trends play a part in determining the overall business environment.

Step 3: Conduct a Competitive Analysis

The reason to do a competitive analysis is to assess the opportunities and threats that may occur from those organizations competing for the same business you are. You need to understand what your competitors are or aren’t offering your potential customers. Here are a few other key ways a competitive analysis fits into strategic planning:

• To help you assess whether your competitive advantage is really an advantage.
• To understand what your competitors’ current and future strategies are so you can plan accordingly.
• To provide information that will help you evaluate your strategic decisions against what your competitors may or may not be doing.

Learn more on how to conduct a competitive analysis here .

Step 4: Identify Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities are situations that exist but must be acted on if the business is to benefit from them.

What do you want to capitalize on?

• What new needs of customers could you meet?
• What are the economic trends that benefit you?
• What are the emerging political and social opportunities?
• What niches have your competitors missed?

Threats refer to external conditions or barriers preventing a company from reaching its objectives.

What do you need to mitigate? What external driving force do you need to anticipate?

Questions to Answer:

• What are the negative economic trends?
• What are the negative political and social trends?
• Where are competitors about to bite you?
• Where are you vulnerable?

Step 5: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths refer to what your company does well.

What do you want to build on?

• What do you do well (in sales, marketing, operations, management)?
• What are your core competencies?
• What differentiates you from your competitors?
• Why do your customers buy from you?

Weaknesses refer to any limitations a company faces in developing or implementing a strategy.

What do you need to shore up?

• Where do you lack resources?
• What can you do better?
• Where are you losing money?
• In what areas do your competitors have an edge?

Step 6: Customer Segments

Customer segmentation defines the different groups of people or organizations a company aims to reach or serve.

• What needs or wants define your ideal customer?
• What characteristics describe your typical customer?
• Can you sort your customers into different profiles using their needs, wants and characteristics?
• Can you reach this segment through clear communication channels?

Step 7: Develop Your SWOT

A SWOT analysis is a quick way of examining your organization by looking at the internal strengths and weaknesses in relation to the external opportunities and threats. Creating a SWOT analysis lets you see all the important factors affecting your organization together in one place.

It’s easy to read, easy to communicate, and easy to create. Take the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats you developed earlier, review, prioritize, and combine like terms. The SWOT analysis helps you ask and answer the following questions: “How do you….”

• Build on your strengths
• Shore up your weaknesses
• Capitalize on your opportunities
• Manage your threats

Strategic Planning Process Phase 2: Developing Strategy

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Developing Your Strategy” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Develop Your Mission Statement

The mission statement describes an organization’s purpose or reason for existing.

What is our purpose? Why do we exist? What do we do?

• What are your organization’s goals? What does your organization intend to accomplish?
• Why do you work here? Why is it special to work here?
• What would happen if we were not here?

Outcome: A short, concise, concrete statement that clearly defines the scope of the organization.

Step 2: discover your values.

Your values statement clarifies what your organization stands for, believes in and the behaviors you expect to see as a result. Check our the post on great what are core values and examples of core values .

How will we behave?

• What are the key non-negotiables that are critical to the company’s success?
• What guiding principles are core to how we operate in this organization?
• What behaviors do you expect to see?
• If the circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value, would we still keep it?

Outcome: Short list of 5-7 core values.

Step 3: casting your vision statement.

A Vision Statement defines your desired future state and directs where we are going as an organization.

Where are we going?

• What will our organization look like 5–10 years from now?
• What does success look like?
• What are we aspiring to achieve?
• What mountain are you climbing and why?

Outcome: A picture of the future.

Step 4: identify your competitive advantages.

A competitive advantage is a characteristic of an organization that allows it to meet its customer’s need(s) better than its competition can. It’s important to consider your competitive advantages when creating your competitive strategy.

What are we best at?

• What are your unique strengths?
• What are you best at in your market?
• Do your customers still value what is being delivered? Ask them.
• How do your value propositions stack up in the marketplace?

Outcome: A list of 2 or 3 items that honestly express the organization’s foundation for winning.

Step 5: crafting your organization-wide strategies.

Your competitive strategy is the general methods you intend to use to reach your vision. Regardless of the level, a strategy answers the question “how.”

How will we succeed?

• Broad: market scope; a relatively wide market emphasis.
• Narrow: limited to only one or few segments in the market
• Does your competitive position focus on lowest total cost or product/service differentiation or both?

Outcome: Establish the general, umbrella methods you intend to use to reach your vision.

Phase 3: Strategic Plan Development

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Build Your Plan” How-To Guide.

Strategic Planning Process Step 1: Use Your SWOT to Set Priorities

If your team wants to take the next step in the SWOT analysis, apply the TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix to your strategy map to help you think about the options you could pursue. To do this, match external opportunities and threats with your internal strengths and weaknesses, as illustrated in the matrix below:

TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix

Evaluate the options you’ve generated, and identify the ones that give the greatest benefit, and that best achieve the mission and vision of your organization. Add these to the other strategic options that you’re considering.

Step 2: Define Long-Term Strategic Objectives

Long-Term Strategic Objectives are long-term, broad, continuous statements that holistically address all areas of your organization. What must we focus on to achieve our vision? Check out examples of strategic objectives here. What are the “big rocks”?

Questions to ask:

• What are our shareholders or stakeholders expectations for our financial performance or social outcomes?
• To reach our outcomes, what value must we provide to our customers? What is our value proposition?
• To provide value, what process must we excel at to deliver our products and services?
• To drive our processes, what skills, capabilities and organizational structure must we have?

Outcome: Framework for your plan – no more than 6. You can use the balanced scorecard framework, OKRs, or whatever methodology works best for you. Just don’t exceed 6 long-term objectives.

Step 3: Setting Organization-Wide Goals and Measures

Once you have formulated your strategic objectives, you should translate them into goals and measures that can be communicated to your strategic planning team (team of business leaders and/or team members).

You want to set goals that convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets. Effective strategic goals clearly state what, when, how, and who, and they are specifically measurable. They should address what you must do in the short term (think 1-3 years) to achieve your strategic objectives.

Organization-wide goals are annual statements that are SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, responsible, and time-bound. These are outcome statements expressing a result to achieve the desired outcomes expected in the organization.

What is most important right now to reach our long-term objectives?

Outcome: clear outcomes for the current year..

Step 4: Select KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the key measures that will have the most impact in moving your organization forward. We recommend you guide your organization with measures that matter. See examples of KPIs here.

How will we measure our success?

Outcome: 5-7 measures that help you keep the pulse on your performance. When selecting your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ask, “What are the key performance measures we need to track to monitor if we are achieving our goals?” These KPIs include the key goals you want to measure that will have the most impact on moving your organization forward.

Step 5: Cascade Your Strategies to Operations

To move from big ideas to action, creating action items and to-dos for short-term goals is crucial. This involves translating strategy from the organizational level to individuals. Functional area managers and contributors play a role in developing short-term goals to support the organization.

Before taking action, decide whether to create plans directly derived from the strategic plan or sync existing operational, business, or account plans with organizational goals. Avoid the pitfall of managing multiple sets of goals and actions, as this shifts from strategic planning to annual planning.

Questions to Ask

• How are we going to get there at a functional level?
• Who must do what by when to accomplish and drive the organizational goals?
• What strategic questions still remain and need to be solved?

Department/functional goals, actions, measures and targets for the next 12-24 months

Step 6: Cascading Goals to Departments and Team Members

Now in your Departments / Teams, you need to create goals to support the organization-wide goals. These goals should still be SMART and are generally (short-term) something to be done in the next 12-18 months. Finally, you should develop an action plan for each goal.

Keep the acronym SMART in mind again when setting action items, and make sure they include start and end dates and have someone assigned their responsibility. Since these action items support your previously established goals, it may be helpful to consider action items your immediate plans on the way to achieving your (short-term) goals. In other words, identify all the actions that need to occur in the next 90 days and continue this same process every 90 days until the goal is achieved.

Examples of Cascading Goals:

Phase 4: Executing Strategy and Managing Performance

Want more? Dive Into the “Managing Performance” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Strategic Plan Implementation Schedule

Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals.

How will we use the plan as a management tool?

• Communication Schedule: How and when will you roll-out your plan to your staff? How frequently will you send out updates?
• Process Leader: Who is your strategy director?
• Structure: What are the dates for your strategy reviews (we recommend at least quarterly)?
• System & Reports: What are you expecting each staff member to come prepared with to those strategy review sessions?

Outcome: Syncing your plan into the “rhythm of your business.”

Once your resources are in place, you can set your implementation schedule. Use the following steps as your base implementation plan:

• Establish your performance management and reward system.
• Set up monthly and quarterly strategy meetings with established reporting procedures.
• Set up annual strategic review dates including new assessments and a large group meeting for an annual plan review.

Now you’re ready to start plan roll-out. Below are sample implementation schedules, which double for a full strategic management process timeline.

Step 2: Tracking Goals & Actions

Monthly strategy meetings don’t need to take a lot of time – 30 to 60 minutes should suffice. But it is important that key team members report on their progress toward the goals they are responsible for – including reporting on metrics in the scorecard they have been assigned.

By using the measurements already established, it’s easy to make course corrections if necessary. You should also commit to reviewing your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) during these regular meetings. Need help comparing strategic planning software ? Check out our guide.

Effective Strategic Planning: Your Bi-Annual Checklist

Never lose sight of the fact that strategic plans are guidelines, not rules. Every six months or so, you should evaluate your strategy execution and strategic plan implementation by asking these key questions:

• Will your goals be achieved within the time frame of the plan? If not, why?
• Should the deadlines be modified? (Before you modify deadlines, figure out why you’re behind schedule.)
• Are your goals and action items still realistic?
• Should the organization’s focus be changed to put more emphasis on achieving your goals?
• Should your goals be changed? (Be careful about making these changes – know why efforts aren’t achieving the goals before changing the goals.)
• What can be gathered from an adaptation to improve future planning activities?

Why Track Your Goals?

• Ownership: Having a stake and responsibility in the plan makes you feel part of it and leads you to drive your goals forward.
• Culture: Successful plans tie tracking and updating goals into organizational culture.
• Implementation: If you don’t review and update your strategic goals, they are just good intentions
• Accountability: Accountability and high visibility help drive change. This means that each measure, objective, data source and initiative must have an owner.
• Empowerment: Changing goals from In Progress to Complete just feels good!

Step 3: Review & Adapt

Guidelines for your strategy review.

The most important part of this meeting is a 70/30 review. 30% is about reviewing performance, and 70% should be spent on making decisions to move the company’s strategy forward in the next quarter.

The best strategic planners spend about 60-90 minutes in the sessions. Holding meetings helps focus your goals on accomplishing top priorities and accelerating the organization’s growth. Although the meeting structure is relatively simple, it does require a high degree of discipline.

Strategy Review Session Questions:

Strategic planning frequently asked questions, read our frequently asked questions about strategic planning to learn how to build a great strategic plan..

Strategic planning is when organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy..

Your strategic plan needs to include an assessment of your current state, a SWOT analysis, mission, vision, values, competitive advantages, growth strategy, growth enablers, a 3-year roadmap, and annual plan with strategic goals, OKRs, and KPIs.

A strategic planning process should take no longer than 90 days to complete from start to finish! Any longer could fatigue your organization and team.

There are four overarching phases to the strategic planning process that include: determining position, developing your strategy, building your plan, and managing performance. Each phase plays a unique but distinctly crucial role in the strategic planning process.

Prior to starting your strategic plan, you must go through this pre-planning process to determine your organization’s readiness by following these steps:

Ask yourself these questions: Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place now? Can we foresee any pitfalls that we can avoid? Is there an appropriate time for our organization to initiate this process?

Develop your team and schedule. Who will oversee the implementation as Chief Strategy Officer or Director? Do we have at least 12-15 other key individuals on our team?

Research and Collect Current Data. Find the following resources that your organization may have used in the past to assist you with your new plan: last strategic plan, mission, vision, and values statement, business plan, financial records, marketing plan, SWOT, sales figures, or projections.

Finally, review the data with your strategy director and facilitator and ask these questions: What trends do we see? Any obvious strengths or weaknesses? Have we been following a plan or just going along with the market?

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• 7 strategic planning models, plus 8 fra ...

7 strategic planning models, plus 8 frameworks to help you get started

Strategic planning is vital in defining where your business is going in the next three to five years. With the right strategic planning models and frameworks, you can uncover opportunities, identify risks, and create a strategic plan to fuel your organization’s success. We list the most popular models and frameworks and explain how you can combine them to create a strategic plan that fits your business.

A strategic plan is a great tool to help you hit your business goals . But sometimes, this tool needs to be updated to reflect new business priorities or changing market conditions. If you decide to use a model that already exists, you can benefit from a roadmap that’s already created. The model you choose can improve your knowledge of what works best in your organization, uncover unknown strengths and weaknesses, or help you find out how you can outpace your competitors.

In this article, we cover the most common strategic planning models and frameworks and explain when to use which one. Plus, get tips on how to apply them and which models and frameworks work well together. 

Strategic planning models vs. frameworks

First off: This is not a one-or-nothing scenario. You can use as many or as few strategic planning models and frameworks as you like. 

When your organization undergoes a strategic planning phase, you should first pick a model or two that you want to apply. This will provide you with a basic outline of the steps to take during the strategic planning process.

During that process, think of strategic planning frameworks as the tools in your toolbox. Many models suggest starting with a SWOT analysis or defining your vision and mission statements first. Depending on your goals, though, you may want to apply several different frameworks throughout the strategic planning process.

For example, if you’re applying a scenario-based strategic plan, you could start with a SWOT and PEST(LE) analysis to get a better overview of your current standing. If one of the weaknesses you identify has to do with your manufacturing process, you could apply the theory of constraints to improve bottlenecks and mitigate risks. 

Now that you know the difference between the two, learn more about the seven strategic planning models, as well as the eight most commonly used frameworks that go along with them.

1. Basic model

The basic strategic planning model is ideal for establishing your company’s vision, mission, business objectives, and values. This model helps you outline the specific steps you need to take to reach your goals, monitor progress to keep everyone on target, and address issues as they arise.

If it’s your first strategic planning session, the basic model is the way to go. Later on, you can embellish it with other models to adjust or rewrite your business strategy as needed. Let’s take a look at what kinds of businesses can benefit from this strategic planning model and how to apply it.

Small businesses or organizations

Companies with little to no strategic planning experience

Organizations with few resources 

Write your mission statement. Gather your planning team and have a brainstorming session. The more ideas you can collect early in this step, the more fun and rewarding the analysis phase will feel.

Identify your organization’s goals . Setting clear business goals will increase your team’s performance and positively impact their motivation.

Outline strategies that will help you reach your goals. Ask yourself what steps you have to take in order to reach these goals and break them down into long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals .

Create action plans to implement each of the strategies above. Action plans will keep teams motivated and your organization on target.

Monitor and revise the plan as you go . As with any strategic plan, it’s important to closely monitor if your company is implementing it successfully and how you can adjust it for a better outcome.

2. Issue-based model

Also called goal-based planning model, this is essentially an extension of the basic strategic planning model. It’s a bit more dynamic and very popular for companies that want to create a more comprehensive plan.

Organizations with basic strategic planning experience

Businesses that are looking for a more comprehensive plan

Conduct a SWOT analysis . Assess your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT analysis to get a better overview of what your strategic plan should focus on. We’ll give into how to conduct a SWOT analysis when we get into the strategic planning frameworks below.

Identify and prioritize major issues and/or goals. Based on your SWOT analysis, identify and prioritize what your strategic plan should focus on this time around.

Develop your main strategies that address these issues and/or goals. Aim to develop one overarching strategy that addresses your highest-priority goal and/or issue to keep this process as simple as possible.

Update or create a mission and vision statement . Make sure that your business’s statements align with your new or updated strategy. If you haven’t already, this is also a chance for you to define your organization’s values.

Create action plans. These will help you address your organization’s goals, resource needs, roles, and responsibilities. 

Develop a yearly operational plan document. This model works best if your business repeats the strategic plan implementation process on an annual basis, so use a yearly operational plan to capture your goals, progress, and opportunities for next time.

Allocate resources for your year-one operational plan. Whether you need funding or dedicated team members to implement your first strategic plan, now is the time to allocate all the resources you’ll need.

Monitor and revise the strategic plan. Record your lessons learned in the operational plan so you can revisit and improve it for the next strategic planning phase.

The issue-based plan can repeat on an annual basis (or less often once you resolve the issues). It’s important to update the plan every time it’s in action to ensure it’s still doing the best it can for your organization.

You don’t have to repeat the full process every year—rather, focus on what’s a priority during this run.

3. Alignment model

This model is also called strategic alignment model (SAM) and is one of the most popular strategic planning models. It helps you align your business and IT strategies with your organization’s strategic goals. 

You’ll have to consider four equally important, yet different perspectives when applying the alignment strategic planning model:

Strategy execution: The business strategy driving the model

Technology potential: The IT strategy supporting the business strategy

Competitive potential: Emerging IT capabilities that can create new products and services

Service level: Team members dedicated to creating the best IT system in the organization

Ideally, your strategy will check off all the criteria above—however, it’s more likely you’ll have to find a compromise. 

Here’s how to create a strategic plan using the alignment model and what kinds of companies can benefit from it.

Organizations that need to fine-tune their strategies

Businesses that want to uncover issues that prevent them from aligning with their mission

Companies that want to reassess objectives or correct problem areas that prevent them from growing

Outline your organization’s mission, programs, resources, and where support is needed. Before you can improve your statements and approaches, you need to define what exactly they are.

Identify what internal processes are working and which ones aren’t. Pinpoint which processes are causing problems, creating bottlenecks , or could otherwise use improving. Then prioritize which internal processes will have the biggest positive impact on your business.

Identify solutions. Work with the respective teams when you’re creating a new strategy to benefit from their experience and perspective on the current situation.

Update your strategic plan with the solutions. Update your strategic plan and monitor if implementing it is setting your business up for improvement or growth. If not, you may have to return to the drawing board and update your strategic plan with new solutions.

4. Scenario model

The scenario model works great if you combine it with other models like the basic or issue-based model. This model is particularly helpful if you need to consider external factors as well. These can be government regulations, technical, or demographic changes that may impact your business.

Organizations trying to identify strategic issues and goals caused by external factors

Identify external factors that influence your organization. For example, you should consider demographic, regulation, or environmental factors.

Review the worst case scenario the above factors could have on your organization. If you know what the worst case scenario for your business looks like, it’ll be much easier to prepare for it. Besides, it’ll take some of the pressure and surprise out of the mix, should a scenario similar to the one you create actually occur.

Identify and discuss two additional hypothetical organizational scenarios. On top of your worst case scenario, you’ll also want to define the best case and average case scenarios. Keep in mind that the worst case scenario from the previous step can often provoke strong motivation to change your organization for the better. However, discussing the other two will allow you to focus on the positive—the opportunities your business may have ahead.

Identify and suggest potential strategies or solutions. Everyone on the team should now brainstorm different ways your business could potentially respond to each of the three scenarios. Discuss the proposed strategies as a team afterward.

Uncover common considerations or strategies for your organization. There’s a good chance that your teammates come up with similar solutions. Decide which ones you like best as a team or create a new one together.

Identify the most likely scenario and the most reasonable strategy. Finally, examine which of the three scenarios is most likely to occur in the next three to five years and how your business should respond to potential changes.

5. Self-organizing model

Also called the organic planning model, the self-organizing model is a bit different from the linear approaches of the other models. You’ll have to be very patient with this method. 

This strategic planning model is all about focusing on the learning and growing process rather than achieving a specific goal. Since the organic model concentrates on continuous improvement , the process is never really over.

Large organizations that can afford to take their time

Businesses that prefer a more naturalistic, organic planning approach that revolves around common values, communication, and shared reflection

Companies that have a clear understanding of their vision

Define and communicate your organization’s cultural values . Your team can only think clearly and with solutions in mind when they have a clear understanding of your organization's values.

Communicate the planning group’s vision for the organization. Define and communicate the vision with everyone involved in the strategic planning process. This will align everyone’s ideas with your company’s vision.

Discuss what processes will help realize the organization’s vision on a regular basis. Meet every quarter to discuss strategies or tactics that will move your organization closer to realizing your vision.

6. Real-time model

This fluid model can help organizations that deal with rapid changes to their work environment. There are three levels of success in the real-time model: 

Organizational: At the organizational level, you’re forming strategies in response to opportunities or trends.

Programmatic: At the programmatic level, you have to decide how to respond to specific outcomes or environmental changes.

Operational: On the operational level, you will study internal systems, policies, and people to develop a strategy for your company.

Figuring out your competitive advantage can be difficult, but this is absolutely crucial to ensure success. Whether it’s a unique asset or strength your organization has or an outstanding execution of services or programs—it’s important that you can set yourself apart from others in the industry to succeed.

Companies that need to react quickly to changing environments

Businesses that are seeking new tools to help them align with their organizational strategy

Define your mission and vision statement. If you ever feel stuck formulating your company’s mission or vision statement, take a look at those of others. Maybe Asana’s vision statement sparks some inspiration.

Research, understand, and learn from competitor strategy and market trends. Pick a handful of competitors in your industry and find out how they’ve created success for themselves. How did they handle setbacks or challenges? What kinds of challenges did they even encounter? Are these common scenarios in the market? Learn from your competitors by finding out as much as you can about them.

Study external environments. At this point, you can combine the real-time model with the scenario model to find solutions to threats and opportunities outside of your control.

Conduct a SWOT analysis of your internal processes, systems, and resources. Besides the external factors your team has to consider, it’s also important to look at your company’s internal environment and how well you’re prepared for different scenarios.

Develop a strategy. Discuss the results of your SWOT analysis to develop a business strategy that builds toward organizational, programmatic, and operational success.

Rinse and repeat. Monitor how well the new strategy is working for your organization and repeat the planning process as needed to ensure you’re on top or, perhaps, ahead of the game. 

7. Inspirational model

This last strategic planning model is perfect to inspire and energize your team as they work toward your organization’s goals. It’s also a great way to introduce or reconnect your employees to your business strategy after a merger or acquisition.

Businesses with a dynamic and inspired start-up culture

Organizations looking for inspiration to reinvigorate the creative process

Companies looking for quick solutions and strategy shifts

Gather your team to discuss an inspirational vision for your organization. The more people you can gather for this process, the more input you will receive.

Brainstorm big, hairy audacious goals and ideas. Encouraging your team not to hold back with ideas that may seem ridiculous will do two things: for one, it will mitigate the fear of contributing bad ideas. But more importantly, it may lead to a genius idea or suggestion that your team wouldn’t have thought of if they felt like they had to think inside of the box.

Assess your organization’s resources. Find out if your company has the resources to implement your new ideas. If they don’t, you’ll have to either adjust your strategy or allocate more resources.

Develop a strategy balancing your resources and brainstorming ideas. Far-fetched ideas can grow into amazing opportunities but they can also bear great risk. Make sure to balance ideas with your strategic direction. 

Now, let’s dive into the most commonly used strategic frameworks.

8. SWOT analysis framework

One of the most popular strategic planning frameworks is the SWOT analysis . A SWOT analysis is a great first step in identifying areas of opportunity and risk—which can help you create a strategic plan that accounts for growth and prepares for threats.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here’s an example:

9. OKRs framework

A big part of strategic planning is setting goals for your company. That’s where OKRs come into play. 

OKRs stand for objective and key results—this goal-setting framework helps your organization set and achieve goals. It provides a somewhat holistic approach that you can use to connect your team’s work to your organization’s big-picture goals.  When team members understand how their individual work contributes to the organization’s success, they tend to be more motivated and produce better results

10. Balanced scorecard (BSC) framework

The balanced scorecard is a popular strategic framework for businesses that want to take a more holistic approach rather than just focus on their financial performance. It was designed by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in the 1990s, it’s used by companies around the globe to: 

Communicate goals

Align their team’s daily work with their company’s strategy

Prioritize products, services, and projects

Monitor their progress toward their strategic goals

Your balanced scorecard will outline four main business perspectives:

Customers or clients , meaning their value, satisfaction, and/or retention

Financial , meaning your effectiveness in using resources and your financial performance

Internal process , meaning your business’s quality and efficiency

Organizational capacity , meaning your organizational culture, infrastructure and technology, and human resources

With the help of a strategy map, you can visualize and communicate how your company is creating value. A strategy map is a simple graphic that shows cause-and-effect connections between strategic objectives. 

The balanced scorecard framework is an amazing tool to use from outlining your mission, vision, and values all the way to implementing your strategic plan .

You can use an integration like Lucidchart to create strategy maps for your business in Asana.

11. Porter’s Five Forces framework

If you’re using the real-time strategic planning model, Porter’s Five Forces are a great framework to apply. You can use it to find out what your product’s or service’s competitive advantage is before entering the market.

Developed by Michael E. Porter , the framework outlines five forces you have to be aware of and monitor:

Threat of new industry entrants: Any new entry into the market results in increased pressure on prices and costs. 

Competition in the industry: The more competitors that exist, the more difficult it will be for you to create value in the market with your product or service.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers can wield more power if there are less alternatives for buyers or it’s expensive, time consuming, or difficult to switch to a different supplier.

Bargaining power of buyers: Buyers can wield more power if the same product or service is available elsewhere with little to no difference in quality.

Threat of substitutes: If another company already covers the market’s needs, you’ll have to create a better product or service or make it available for a lower price at the same quality in order to compete.

Remember, industry structures aren’t static. The more dynamic your strategic plan is, the better you’ll be able to compete in a market.

12. VRIO framework

The VRIO framework is another strategic planning tool designed to help you evaluate your competitive advantage. VRIO stands for value, rarity, imitability, and organization.

It’s a resource-based theory developed by Jay Barney. With this framework, you can study your firmed resources and find out whether or not your company can transform them into sustained competitive advantages. 

Firmed resources can be tangible (e.g., cash, tools, inventory, etc.) or intangible (e.g., copyrights, trademarks, organizational culture, etc.). Whether these resources will actually help your business once you enter the market depends on four qualities:

Valuable : Will this resource either increase your revenue or decrease your costs and thereby create value for your business?

Rare : Are the resources you’re using rare or can others use your resources as well and therefore easily provide the same product or service?

Inimitable : Are your resources either inimitable or non-substitutable? In other words, how unique and complex are your resources?

Organizational: Are you organized enough to use your resources in a way that captures their value, rarity, and inimitability?

It’s important that your resources check all the boxes above so you can ensure that you have sustained competitive advantage over others in the industry.

13. Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework

If the reason you’re currently in a strategic planning process is because you’re trying to mitigate risks or uncover issues that could hurt your business—this framework should be in your toolkit.

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a problem-solving framework that can help you identify limiting factors or bottlenecks preventing your organization from hitting OKRs or KPIs . 

Whether it’s a policy, market, or recourse constraint—you can apply the theory of constraints to solve potential problems, respond to issues, and empower your team to improve their work with the resources they have.

14. PEST/PESTLE analysis framework

The idea of the PEST analysis is similar to that of the SWOT analysis except that you’re focusing on external factors and solutions. It’s a great framework to combine with the scenario-based strategic planning model as it helps you define external factors connected to your business’s success.

PEST stands for political, economic, sociological, and technological factors. Depending on your business model, you may want to expand this framework to include legal and environmental factors as well (PESTLE). These are the most common factors you can include in a PESTLE analysis:

Political: Taxes, trade tariffs, conflicts

Economic: Interest and inflation rate, economic growth patterns, unemployment rate

Social: Demographics, education, media, health

Technological: Communication, information technology, research and development, patents

Legal: Regulatory bodies, environmental regulations, consumer protection

Environmental: Climate, geographical location, environmental offsets

15. Hoshin Kanri framework

Hoshin Kanri is a great tool to communicate and implement strategic goals. It’s a planning system that involves the entire organization in the strategic planning process. The term is Japanese and stands for “compass management” and is also known as policy management. 

This strategic planning framework is a top-down approach that starts with your leadership team defining long-term goals which are then aligned and communicated with every team member in the company. 

You should hold regular meetings to monitor progress and update the timeline to ensure that every teammate’s contributions are aligned with the overarching company goals.

Stick to your strategic goals

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a nonprofit organization with decades of experience, strategic planning is a crucial step in your journey to success. 

If you’re looking for a tool that can help you and your team define, organize, and implement your strategic goals, Asana is here to help. Our goal-setting software allows you to connect all of your team members in one place, visualize progress, and stay on target.

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The seven keys to successful strategic planning.

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Strategic planning is a critical business practice for positioning an organization for success, aligning leaders to a common plan, and guiding management decisions. Most companies conduct some form of strategic planning event before starting a new year. However, most strategic planning processes fail to deliver real value due to some common pitfalls.

All too often, leaders view strategic planning as an event, not an annual process. This results in strategic plans that are not fully implemented since, once they are done, they are seldom reviewed throughout the year. Managers who seemed to support the strategic plan may not be fully aligned to the organization’s goals and priorities, undermining execution. In addition, it is common that without a proper assessment of the industry and the organization’s capabilities, the plan lacks true strategic thinking, and becomes more of a projection of past performance into the next year.

To address these concerns, the following seven steps will guide the creation of a successful strategic planning process.

1. Assess your industry, competitors and market trends.

The initial step in creating an effective strategic plan is to assess the external forces shaping your industry, understanding the competitive and regulatory landscape and identifying market trends. If data is not already available, conduct an efficient external assessment before the strategic planning event to provide insights and valid data to inform decisions and test assumptions. This results in more strategic conversations during the event.

2. Identify opportunities and threats by conducting a SWOT analysis.

In conjunction with an external market assessment, an internal organizational review will ground the strategy and set a baseline for the organization’s culture and capabilities. A SWOT analysis will reveal the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. With this information, leaders will be able to draw a set of offensive and defensive strategies that capitalize on opportunities and offset the risks of potential threats.

3. Review your organization’s mission and vision.

One of the values of a successful strategic event is to inspire leaders to achieve meaningful goals. Reviewing the organization’s mission and vision is an important step at the start of the strategic planning event. An engaging envisioning session helps leaders collaborate in creating a shared story of success. This activity unites and inspires the leaders and ultimately everyone to embrace the organization’s greater purpose.

4. Set business goals and priorities.

Leveraging the external and internal assessments and guided by a compelling vision, it is important to focus on the specific goals and priorities to achieve that vision. This is a critical stage for decision making. It is where leaders engage in rich decision-making conversations that define the big plays that will move the organization forward towards its goals. Having an objective, skilled facilitator can be useful at this point to help bring up, clarify, test and harmonize leadership's views.

5. Define functional objectives and key initiatives.

With a clear set of business goals and priorities, the next step is to define the specific objectives and initiatives that activate the strategic plan. This is best done at the functional level to enable alignment and increase ownership. It is important to keep the number of initiatives per function to what can be realistically done in a year. It is also important that these initiatives truly align and help deliver on the business goals.

6. Determine staffing, budgets and financing needs.

The strategic plan is operationalized by assigning sponsors, champions and resources behind the plan. Senior leaders act as the sponsors of specific initiatives, managing their budgets and staff. At this point, it may be necessary to identify and deploy strategic activation teams representing the various functions charged to tackle cross-functional strategic initiatives.

7. Identify and track success measures monthly and quarterly.

Tracking progress on strategic goals and objectives on a regular basis is key to ensuring that the plan is being implemented and to making course corrections as needed. The discipline to make progress and report on success measures on a regular basis ensures accountability and follow-through. It may be helpful to assign a person responsible for collecting, tracking and reporting progress on the strategic plan using scorecards and dashboards. A quarterly business review includes a status report on strategy implementation through key performance indicators.

These seven steps will ensure that your strategic planning process is successful, and more importantly, that your organization is on the right track. Making the right strategic choices will accelerate your organization to the next level.

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How to Make Strategic Planning Work for Your Organization

Unotida Nyoni is Founder and CEO of  Grand Scale CFO . He helps leaders of development organizations scale their impact and improve their cash flow by providing coaching, training, and consulting in the areas of strategy, people, execution, and cash. 

Disclaimer: This article was submitted to WorkwithUSAID.gov as a guest blog post. The views expressed by WorkwithUSAID.gov guest blog contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United States Government.

As someone who works with organizations in the international development sector, I find that many struggle with designing effective and winning strategic plans. Often this plan is only known by the Executive Director and the board. They draft a document every five years and revisit it when they are in deep trouble and/or need new leadership. It is written in a complicated MBA language that is not easily understood by everyone. It is often a long document that no one takes time to read, except the consultants who are hired to write it to justify their high fees. Strategic planning is often considered to be a waste of time by many in the organization because it distracts them from getting “important work” done. There is frequently no direct relationship between daily operations and the strategic plan. 

If you can identify with the above-mentioned scenario, below are some important points that will help you make strategic planning work for your organization.

Understand the Essence of Strategic Planning

A strategic plan is more than just a document; it's a blueprint and a guide outlining an organization's purpose, values, goals, and the actionable steps needed to achieve these objectives. We can look at it as a compass guiding every decision and action that the organization takes. A strategic plan answers and outlines fundamental questions and objectives (i.e., why the organization exists, where it's headed, how it plans to get there, who's responsible, and when goals will be achieved). A strategic plan provides clarity, alignment, and a shared sense of direction.

Without ongoing commitment, consistent buy-in from your team, and adaptation of the plan and its goals, this great tool runs the risk of becoming pointless.

Inform the Team Why You Need a Strategic Plan

When everyone understands why they need a plan, they are more likely to buy into the process of strategic planning. So why should you have a strategic plan?

First, it creates cohesion between different teams and departments. Picture this: you’re on a boat with four of your team members all rowing, in your own way in opposite directions. A recipe for disaster and you’re definitely going nowhere slowly. When everyone understands the shared goals and their role in achieving them, collaboration flourishes. This mutual understanding of the goals and objectives reduces any confusion among employees; furthermore, it aids decision-making and ultimately enhances productivity.

Second, a strategic plan optimizes resource allocation, as everything is well outlined within the plan. In an organization, it is vital to identify priorities and allocate resources accordingly. This allows for the optimization of time, energy, and finances, resulting in maximum impact.

Last, a strategic plan serves as a roadmap for growth. It enables organizations to anticipate challenges, seize opportunities, and adapt to evolving market dynamics proactively.  

Use the One-Page Strategic Plan

When it comes to strategic planning, a One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) is a revolutionary tool pioneered by Verne Harnish, the author of the book  Scaling Up . Despite its simplicity, the OPSP encapsulates the essence of strategic planning, condensing it into a single-page document.

The beauty of the OPSP lies in its simplicity and comprehensiveness. By condensing and simplifying complex strategies into a concise plan, it fosters clarity and focus. Moreover, the limited space compels organizations to prioritize ruthlessly, ensuring that only the most critical objectives make the cut.

Make It a Collaborative Process

Creating an OPSP isn't only a task for the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Executive Director; it's a collaborative effort. Gathering the leadership team offsite for dedicated planning sessions fosters focus and creativity, away from the distractions of daily operations. Additionally, enlisting an external facilitator can provide invaluable insights and ensure that all voices are heard.

Share the Plan with All Team Members

While the designing of the plan can be done by the leadership team, the plan needs to be shared with every employee. The beauty of the OPSP is that one can easily share it in a few minutes. This can be during induction of new team members, in town hall meetings, or in the monthly, quarterly, and annual review meetings. It is the best snapshot of what the organization is about and what the current priorities are. 

Use the Plan to Review Progress and Inform Actions

The OPSP has a quarterly section that is reviewed at the end of every quarter. If the leadership team is in the habit of reviewing results and planning each quarter, and they use the strategic plan in doing so, the plan becomes a living, breathing document. It is used to decide priorities for the next quarter.  

In conclusion, a strategic plan isn't just a document; it's a mindset, a process, and a catalyst for organizational success and development. By embracing simplicity, collaboration, and adaptability, international development organizations can better navigate, plan, and achieve their objectives with confidence and clarity.

Use the  One-Page Strategic Plan found in the Scaling Up Growth Tools. 

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Applying the Strategic Planning Process to a Large Research Consortium: The Example of the National Cancer Institute Cohort Consortium

Chinonye e. harvey.

1 Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, NCI, Bethesda, Maryland.

Susan M. Gapstur

2 Consultant, Tiffin, Iowa.

Camille A. Pottinger

3 The Scientific Consulting Group, Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Joanne W. Elena

Kathy j. helzlsouer.

Strategic planning is conducted by many organizations to systematically evaluate and assess their current state, establish or update their mission and/or goals, and identify strategies and activities to achieve the goals. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cohort Consortium is a collaborative network of 62 prospective cohort studies and their affiliated investigators that focus on cancer etiology and outcome research. The organization's membership grew markedly from 10 cohort studies at its inception in 2001 to 59 cohort studies at the time of the launch of the Consortium's strategic planning in 2017. This paper describes the strategic planning process that was conducted to establish organizational goals and to develop strategies and activities consistent with the Consortium's mission. The process involved a 2-year iterative approach combining surveys and in-person meetings. The resulting goals focus on communication, career development, research facilitation, scientific gaps, and common scientific challenges. The NCI Cohort Consortium's strategic plan and evaluation of its progress will advance new initiatives in cancer etiology and survivorship research.

Introduction

Strategic planning is a forward-looking process to set priorities, focus resources on common goals, strengthen operations and maintain vitality of an organization; it is “a deliberative, disciplined approach to producing fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization or other entity is, what it does, and why” ( 1 ). Ideally, an organization integrates periodic evaluations and assessments of goals and activities that align with its vision and mission.

Strategic planning was conducted within the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cohort Consortium, an international, collaborative organization that has grown from 10 cohort studies in 2001 ( 2 ) to 62 cohorts in 2021 ( 3 ). The mission of the NCI Cohort Consortium is “to foster communication among investigators, promote collaborative research projects for topics not easily addressed in a single study, and identify and address common challenges in prospective observational research designs” ( 4 ). Participating cohorts have multiple affiliated researchers from fellows and early career investigators to senior level investigators. The Consortium holds an annual meeting attended by over 200 individuals, open to both Consortium members as well as others who are interested in collaborating and leveraging resources of the Consortium.

Over the course of the Consortium's existence, more than 50 scientific projects were initiated with varying progress and success. In recent years, there has been a notable slowing of project proposals. Information on ongoing and complete projects, and associated publications, can be accessed through the newly developed Project Hub ( 5 ). The Consortium's rapid growth posed some challenges regarding: the incorporation of new member cohorts into ongoing projects; opportunities for early stage investigators to participate; and the development and support of new projects. Thus, a formal strategic planning process was conducted to establish goals and strategies consistent with the NCI Cohort Consortium's mission. The process engaged investigators from all member cohorts and focused on ensuring inclusiveness. This commentary outlines the multistep approach used to conduct strategic planning in this large, diverse, scientific-focused collaborative organization, the results of the process, and completed and ongoing activities.

The strategic planning process and approach

The NCI Cohort Consortium is supported logistically and scientifically by NCI staff along with a steering committee composed of between 9 and 13 representatives of the Consortium membership ( 6 ); the strategic planning process was initiated with approval by the steering committee. A sub-committee composed of the Executive Director, the voting NCI staff member, and a cohort representative (C.E.H., K.J.H., S.M.G.), was formed to plan and lead the strategic planning. Figure 1 shows the timeline of the Consortium's strategic planning.

Timeline of the NCI Cohort Consortium's strategic planning between 2017 and 2019, with the process captured in four phases: idea generation, development of a draft strategic plan document, development of a final strategic plan, and the implementation of the final plan.

Online surveys

To identify primary themes for in-person discussion at the annual meetings, the strategic planning process included online surveys (Supplementary Materials and Methods) conducted 6 months prior to the 2017 and the 2018 annual Consortium meetings. The surveys included both closed and open-ended questions soliciting ideas for administrative organization and operations, communications, and scientific direction. The suggestions were collated and organized into themes to facilitate efficient in-person roundtable discussion at the subsequent annual meeting.

In-person discussions

The time allotted at the annual meetings for in-person discussion was limited to 3 hours given the tight annual meeting agenda that typically includes Consortium business, scientific project meetings, and presentations. Critical to the success of the strategic planning process was the facilitated interactive in-person brainstorming sessions, guided by an independent facilitator to provide unbiased oversight in the process and ensure all viewpoints raised were respected and recorded. The in-person sessions used the World Café method, a technique for structuring effective collective and collaborative dialogue for large groups ( 7, 8 ).

The World Café Method is based on seven design principles: set the context, create hospitable space, explore questions that matter, inclusive contribution, connect diverse perspectives, listen for patterns and insights, and share collective discoveries ( 9 ). Table hosts facilitate rounds of timed conversations among small groups, and scribes record the information and ideas discussed. After a specific amount of time, all except the table hosts and scribe move on to different tables with a different mix of individuals for new and/or deeper insights on specific items of interest. At the end of several rounds, a summary of the most common themes and ideas generated on each table topic is presented to the larger group and all ideas and questions are captured in a way that is visible for all to see. Indeed, through deliberate discussions, the members are able to shape, contribute to and address priorities based on their interest and expertise. For the Consortium's World Café, the approximately 200 meeting attendees were assigned to discussion tables in groups of 10 using systematic randomization to ensure representation in the groups by cohort, career stage, and expertise. There were three timed rounds at the first World Café and two rounds at the second World Café.

The in-person discussions generated a considerable amount of information with overlapping themes. The sub-committee reviewed, collated, and organized this information into individual thematic goals and strategies to achieve the goals. Ultimately, the draft strategic plan goals and strategies were then reviewed and edited by the Consortium's steering committee. In addition, the entire membership was given an opportunity to provide final feedback before approval by the steering committee in 2019.

The first survey was administered in 2017 to the 59 cohorts that were current Consortium members at the time of the survey. Responses were received from at least one individual from 44 of the 59 cohorts (74.6%) for the first survey. The second survey was administered in 2018 for input on prioritizing scientific goals and a response was received from 35 of the 59 cohorts (59.3%). The World Café sessions involved all annual meeting attendees (approximately 200 individuals at each meeting).

The World Café discussions addressed operational and scientific goals and strategies. Five scientific themes emerged: circulating biomarkers, data linkages, molecular patho-epidemiology, rare cancers, and survivorship research. The resulting strategic plan is summarized in Table 1 . The three operational goals centered on communication, career development and research facilitation. The two scientific goals focused on scientific gaps and common scientific challenges. Within each of the goals are specific strategies that were based on ideas generated during the planning process. The concise format of the document facilitates tracking of achievement of the goals.

NCI Cohort Consortium strategic initiatives (2018–2021).

a CEDCD: Cancer Epidemiology Descriptive Cohort Database.

b CMR: Cohort Metadata Repository.

c DTA: Data Transfer Agreement.

d DUA: Data Use Agreement.

e MTA: Material Transfer Agreement.

f Examples of Topic Areas of Interest

• Rare cancers, multiple primaries or cancers with changing incidence over time.
• Rare exposures or exposures that change over time.
• Health disparities.
• Molecular heterogeneity within cancer types and common molecular signatures across different types of cancer.
• Use of geospatial data in cohort study research.
• Gene–environment interactions, especially for rare cancers or cancer subtypes.
• Impact of co-morbidities (e.g., diabetes) and their treatment on cancer outcomes.
• Understanding the different dynamics of exposures - aging vs. change in exposure (e.g., early-age weight gain vs. older-age weight loss).
• Accelerated aging among cancer survivors and the long-term effects of treatment.
• Other “omic” exposures (e.g., metabolome, microbiome, epigenome).
• Potential use of cohorts for the study of early detection biomarkers.
• Long-term outcomes among cancer survivors.

Ultimately the success of the strategic planning process resides in the implementation of the strategies and fulfillment of the identified goals. To this end, the chair of the NCI Cohort Consortium steering committee, which rotates annually, adopts a specific goal and its strategies to implement during their leadership term. In the two years since finalizing the plan, some activities have been completed and others are ongoing (see Fig. 2 ) in multiple goal areas including communication, career development, research facilitation, identifying common methodologic challenges and leveraging cohorts to address scientific gaps.

Completed and ongoing activities that support the implementation of goals and strategies established in the NCI Cohort Consortium's final strategic plan, between 2017 and 2021.

The strategic planning process for the NCI Cohort Consortium was undertaken to develop goals and strategies consistent with the Consortium's mission. The process provided the opportunity to assess scientific priorities and inspire future projects, create a sustainable culture of evaluation and collaboration, enhance research operations, engage new investigators, leverage existing resources, and capitalize on cost-effective technologies. The accomplishments to-date noted in Fig. 2 , such as the formation of an “early investigator” associate member group to enlist the next generation of researchers, are important steps to revitalizing the Consortium's activities.

The process followed incorporated elements of both strategic “thinking”, the creative synthesis of ideas, and strategic “planning,” the programmatic, analytic aspects ( 10, 11 ). “Strategic thinking” was integrated with bidirectional engagement of members through surveys and the World Café to brainstorm ideas followed by systematic analysis of information synthesized into a final planning document outlining specific goals and strategies. The process was spread over two years, necessitated by the time constraints of the annual in-person meetings. The interspersed surveys allowed for ongoing engagement and input from membership. Key take-aways and lessons learned from the Consortium's strategic planning process include understanding the importance of (i) getting early buy-in from both the Consortium leadership and members, (ii) engaging the members early and throughout the process, (iii) ensuring transparency in how decisions are made, and (iv) leveraging the diverse perspectives of the group to inform the best approach and outcome.

The NCI Cohort Consortium is a model of team science to advance cancer epidemiologic research. With a strategic plan developed through a collaborative approach, combined with ongoing communication, evaluation, and implementation of the strategies, the organization has been revitalized with new goals and purpose.

Authors' Disclosures

No disclosures were reported.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Cancer Institute. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the great contribution of the Steering Committee and members of the Consortium who participated in the Consortium's strategic planning process from 2017 to 2019. They also thank program staff and research fellows at the NCI who served as table hosts and scribes during the in-person sessions, and Ms. Shannon Connolly of the NCI Office of Workforce Development and Planning, who served as the World Café strategist and facilitator. Finally, the authors would like to thank The Scientific Consulting Group, Inc. for the logistical support they provided for the annual meetings and in-person planning sessions.

Note: Supplementary data for this article are available at Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention Online (http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/).

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Strategic planning: Read this before it's that time again

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What is strategic planning?

What is strategic plan management?

Benefits of robust strategic planning and management

10 steps in the strategic planning process.

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s that time again. 

Every three to five years, most larger organizations periodically plan for the future. Many times strategic planning documents are shelved and forgotten until the next cycle begins. On the other hand, many smaller and newer organizations, propelled by urgency, may not devote the necessary time and energy to the strategic planning process. 

Only 63% of businesses plan more than a year out. They fail to see that — contrary to Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire cat — “any way” does not take you there. 

For all organizations, a more rigorous annual planning process is critical for driving future success, profitability, value, and impact.

John Kotter, a former professor at Harvard Business School and noted expert on innovation says, “ Strategy should be viewed as a dynamic force that constantly seeks opportunities, identifies initiatives that will capitalize on them, and completes those initiatives swiftly and efficiently.”

There’s hardly a better case that can be made for dynamic planning than in the tech industry, where mergers and acquisitions are accelerating exponentially. Companies need to be nimble enough to navigate rapid change . In this case, planning should occur quarterly.

Strategic planning is an ongoing process by which an organization sets its forward course by bringing all of its stakeholders together to examine current realities and define its vision for the future.

It examines its strengths and weaknesses, resources available, and opportunities. Strategic planning seeks to anticipate future industry trends .  During the process, the organization creates a vision, articulates its purpose, and sets strategic goals that are long-term and forward-focused. 

Those strategic goals inform operational goals and incremental milestones that need to be reached. The operational plan has clear objectives and supporting initiatives tied to metrics to which everyone is accountable . The plan should be agile enough to allow for recalibrating when necessary and redistributing resources based on internal and external forces.

The output of the planning process is a document that is shared across the enterprise. 

Strategic planning for individuals

Strategic planning isn’t just for companies. At BetterUp, strategic planning is one of the skills that we identify, track, and develop within the Whole Person Model . For individuals, strategic planning is the ability to think through ways to achieve desired outcomes. Just as strategic planning helps organizations realize their goals for the future, it helps individuals grow and achieve goals in a unified direction. 

Working backward from the desired outcome, effective strategic planning consists of coming up with the steps we need to take today in order to get where we want to be tomorrow. 

While no plan is infallible, people who develop this skill are good at checking to make sure that their actions are in alignment with the outcomes that they want to see in the future. Even when things don’t go according to plan, their long-term goals act as a “North star” to get them back on course. In addition, envisioning desired future states and figuring out how to turn them into reality enhances an individual’s sense of personal meaning and motivation. 

Whether we’re talking about strategic planning for the company or the individual, strategic plans can go awry in a variety of ways including: 

• Unrealistic goals and too many priorities
• Poor communication
• Using the wrong measures
• Lack of leadership

The extent to which that document is shelved until the next planning cycle or becomes a dynamic map of the future depends on the people responsible for overseeing the execution of the plan.

What is strategic plan management? 

"Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works," according to Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. "When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that works 24/7 in almost every industry."

Strategic business management is the ongoing process by which an organization creates and sustains a successful roadmap that moves the company in the direction it needs to move, year after year, for long-term success. It spans from research and formulation to execution, evaluation, and adjustment. Given the pace of change, strategic management is more relevant and important than ever for assigning measurable goals and action steps

Many organizations fail because they don’t have the strategic management team at the table right from the beginning of the planning process. A strategic plan is only as good as its ability to be executed and sustained. 

A strategic management initiative might be driven by an internal group — many companies have an internal strategy team — or an outside consulting firm. Ultimately company leaders need to own executing and sustaining the strategy. 

Strategic management teams

In this Harvard Business Review article, Ron Carucci from consulting firm Navalent reports that 61% of executives in a 10-year longitudinal study felt they were not prepared for the strategic challenges they faced upon being appointed to senior leadership roles. Lack of commitment to the plan is also a contributing factor. In addition, leaders attending to quarterly targets, crisis management , and reconciling budgets often consider the execution of a long-term strategy a low priority.

A dedicated strategic management team works with those senior leaders and managers throughout the organization to communicate, coordinate and evaluate progress against goals. They tie strategic objectives to day-to-day operational metrics throughout the enterprise. 

A good strategic management group can assist in creating a culture of empowerment and learning . It holds regular meetings with employees. It sets a clear agenda and expectations to make the strategic plan real and compelling to the organization through concrete objectives, results, and timelines. 

Strategy development is a lot of work, but the benefits are lasting. After all, as the saying goes, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Taking the time for review and planning activities has the following benefits:

• Organizations and people are set up to succeed
• Increased likelihood of staying on track
• Decreased likelihood of being distracted or derailed
• Progress through the plan is communicated throughout the organization
• Metrics facilitate course correction
• Budgets enterprise-wide are based on strategy
• Cross-organization alignment
• Robust employee performance and compensation plans
• Commitment to learning and training
• A robust strategic planning process gets everyone involved and invested in the organizations
• Employees inform management about what’s working or not working at the operational level
• Innovation is encouraged and rewarded
• Increased productivity

1. Define mission and vision  

Begin by articulating the organization's vision for the future. Ask, "What would success look like in five years?" Create a mission statement describing organizational values and how you intend to reach the vision. What values inform and determine mission, vision, and purpose?

Purpose-driven strategic goals articulate the “why” of what the corporation is doing. It connects the vision statement to specific objectives, drawing a line between the larger goals and the work that teams and individuals do.

2. Conduct a comprehensive assessment  

This stage includes identifying an organization’s strategic position.

Gathering data from internal and external environments and respective stakeholders takes place at this time. Involving employees and customers in the research.

The task is to gather market data through research. One of the most critical components of this stage is a comprehensive SWOT analysis that involves gathering people and bringing perspectives from all stakeholders to determine:

• W eaknesses
• O pportunities

Strengths and weaknesses  — In this stage, planners identify the company’s assets that contribute to its current competitive advantage and/or the likelihood of a significant increase in the organization’s market share in the future. It should be an objective assessment rather than an inflated perspective of its strengths. 

An accurate assessment of weaknesses requires looking outward at external forces that can reveal new opportunities as well as threats. Consider the massive shift in multiple industries whose strategy has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While it was disastrous to the airline and restaurant industries’ business models , tech companies were able to seize the opportunity and address the demands of remote work. 

Michael Porter’s book Competetive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors claims that there are five forces at work in an industry that influence that industry’s ability to develop a competitive strategy. Since the book was published in 1979, organizations have turned to Porter’s theory to create their strategic framework. 

Here are the 5 forces (and key questions) that determine the competitive strategy for most industries.

• Competitive rivalry : When considering the strengths of an organization’s competitors it’s important to ask: How do our products/services hold up to our competition? If the rivalry is intense, companies need to consider what capacity they have to gain leverage through price cuts or bold marketing strategies. If there is little competition, the organization has a substantial gain in the market.
• Supplier power: How might suppliers influence strategy? For example, what if suppliers raised their prices? To what extent would a company need a particular supplier for our product(s)? Is it possible to switch suppliers in a way that is more cost effective and efficient? The number of suppliers that exist will determine your ability to keep costs low.
• Buyer power: To what extent do buyers have the ability to shop around right into the hands of your competitors? How much power does your customer base have in determining price? A small number of well-informed buyers shifts the power in their direction while a large pool may give you the strategic advantage
• Threat of substitution:  What is the threat of a company’s buyer substituting your services/products from the competition? What if the buyer figures out another way to access the services/products that it offers?
• Threat of new entry:  How easy is it for newcomers to enter the organization’s market?

3. Forecast  

Considering the factors above, determine the company’s value through financial forecasting . While almost certainly to become a moving target influenced by the five forces, a forecast can assign initial anticipated measurable results expected in the plan or ROI: profits/cost of investment.

4. Set the organizational direction of the business

The above research and assessment will help an organization to set goals and priorities. Too often an organization’s strategic plan is too broad and over-ambitious. Planners need to ask, ”What kind of impact are we seeking to have, and in what time frame?” They need to drill down to objectives that will have the most impact. 

5. Create strategic objectives

This next phase of operational planning consists of creating strategic objectives and initiatives. Kaplan and Norton posit in their balanced scorecard methodology that there are four perspectives for consideration in identifying the conditions for success. They are interrelated and must be evaluated simultaneously.

• Financial : Such considerations as growing shareholder value, increasing revenue, managing cost, profitability, or financial stability inform strategic initiatives. 
• Customer-satisfaction:  Objectives can be determined by identifying targets related to one or some of the following: value for the cost, best service, increased market share, or providing customers with solutions.
• Internal processes such as operational processes and efficiencies, investment in innovation, investment in total quality and performance management , cost reduction, improvement of workplace safety, or streamlining processes.
• Learning and growth: Organizations must ask: Are initiatives in place in terms of human capital and learning and growth to sustain change? Objectives may include employee retention, productivity, building high-performing teams, or creating a pipeline for future leaders .

6. Align with key stakeholders

It’s a team effort. The success of the plan is in direct proportion to the organization’s commitment to inform and engage the entire workforce in strategy execution. People will only be committed to strategy implementation when they're connected to the organization's goals. With everyone pulling in the same direction, cross-functional decision-making becomes easier and more aligned.

7. Begin strategy mapping

A strategy map is a powerful tool for illustrating the cause-effect of those perspectives and connecting them to between 12 and 18 strategic objectives. Since most people are visual learners, the map provides an easy-to-understand diagram for everyone in the organization creating shared knowledge at all levels.

8. Determine strategic initiatives

Following the development of strategic objectives, strategic initiatives are determined. These are the actions the organization will take to reach those objectives. They may relate initiatives related to factors such as scope, budget, raising brand awareness, product development, and employee training.

9. Benchmark performance measures and analysis

Strategic initiatives inform SMART goals to which metrics are assigned to evaluate performance. These measures cascade from senior management to management to front-line workers. At this stage, the task is to create goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based informing the operational plan.

Benchmarks are established against so that performance can be measures, and a time frame is created. Key performance indicators (KPI’s) are assigned based on organizational goals. These indicators align workers’ performance and productivity with long-term strategic objectives. 

10. Performance evaluation

Assessment of whether the plan has been successful . It measures activities and progress toward objectives and allows for the creation of improved plans and objectives in order to improve overall performance . 

Think of strategic planning as a circular process beginning and ending with evaluation. Adjust a  plan as necessary. The pace at which review of the plan is necessary may be once a year for many organizations or quarterly for organizations in rapidly evolving industries. 

Prioritizing the strategic planning process

The strategic planning meeting may have a reputation for being just another to-do, but it might be time to take a second look. With the right action plan and a little strategic thinking, you can reinvigorate your business environment and start planning for success.

It's that time to get excited about the future again.

Understand Yourself Better:

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Meredith Betz, M.S.Ed, M.S.O.D.

Meredith Betz is a Betterup Fellow Coach. As an organizational consultant and Executive Coach, Meredith's work focuses on leaders, teams, and the dynamics in the systems in which they live and work. She helps people become more influential and exhibit executive presence. Meredith is a certified Conscious Business Coach who helps leaders to exercise empathy and lead in a way that is consistent with their values. She gives them the tools to communicate and negotiate effectively with their stakeholders. Meredith recently co-wrote a memoir with a 103-year-old Estonian man who lived through the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Estonia in the 1940s. It was a profound experience. A seminal book for her is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist.

The only guide you’ll ever need for career planning

4 reasons why you can't afford to skip out on succession planning, strategic plan vs. work plan: what's the difference, contingency planning: 4 steps to prepare for the unexpected, how to excel at life planning (a life planning template), what is strategic plan management and how does it benefit teams, strategy versus tactics: planning and executing on your goals, declining capabilities in productivity and wellness signal a need for worker support, what is an action plan how to become a real-life action hero, everything you need to know about strategic leadership, 6 tactics to unlock operational excellence and drive performance, when you need to set the direction, swot analysis is a classic tool, how organizational effectiveness enhances how you work and grow, strategy vs. tactics: the difference is execution, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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Drosdick Hall: Home of Villanova University's College of Engineering

Name: Drosdick Hall Location: Villanova University, main campus Expansion Size: 150,000-square-feet Building Size (total): 245,742-square-feet Expansion Cost: $125 million Building Exterior: Precast concrete Architects: Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP; BLTa–A Perkins Eastman Studio Construction Company: Wohlsen Construction Company Project Lead: Marilou Smith, Assistant Vice President for Engineering and Construction, Villanova University Construction Start Date: February 2022 Construction End Date: April 2024

Building Specifications

• More than 20 additional research laboratory spaces—a 63% increase in engineering lab space.
• The two-story Drosdick Innovation Lab, which includes laser and 3-D printers, workbenches and workspaces
• The Jones Family Student Learning Commons, a community space at the heart of the building for all Villanovans to gather, study and learn
• State-of-the-art instruction spaces that can adapt to small discussion and larger lecture formats
• Dedicated and centrally located spaces for the College of Engineering’s master’s and doctoral students
• Green roofs—instrumented with smart systems to collect and monitor climate and soil moisture data—which will serve as resources for cutting-edge teaching and research

Architectural Features

• Designed in a Collegiate Gothic Revival style inspired by noted Philadelphia architect Charles Klauder, who was active in the 1920s through 1940s

Construction Data

• 25,000 cubic yards of earth excavated
• 367 windows installed (104 in the existing building and 263 in the expansion)
• 971.2 tons of steel utilized
• 488 pieces of precast with stone veneer

Environmentally Friendly Design

• Designed for and seeking LEED Silver certification
• An enhanced HVAC system that allows for the carbon reduction equivalent of five acres of mixed hardwood forest saved yearly
• Low flow faucets and toilets—including a rainwater collection system—resulting in a 70% reduction of indoor water consumption for daily operations
• Native and adaptive plant species planted in exterior landscapes, requiring little to no watering
• Natural site hydrology processes for enhanced water conservation, including two rain gardens and a cistern
• Use of high-performance glazing to reduce the effect of outdoor conditions on the indoor environment
• Efficient LED lighting and advanced lighting controls such as daylighting and room occupancy sensors
• Exterior parking and charging spaces dedicated for electric vehicles

Design Team Profiles

Robert a.m. stern architects, llp.

Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, is a 200-person firm of architects, interior designers, and supporting staff. Over its fifty-year history, the firm has established an international reputation as a leading design firm with wide experience in residential, commercial, and institutional work. As the firm’s practice has diversified, its geographical scope has widened to include projects in Europe, Asia, South America, and throughout the United States. The firm maintains an attention to detail and commitment to design quality which has earned international recognition, numerous awards and citations for design excellence, including National Honor Awards of the American Institute of Architects.

BLTa–A Perkins Eastman Studio

Perkins Eastman is a global planning and design firm that has grown to include nearly 1,100 employees working out of a combined 24 interdisciplinary offices around the world. Our talented team of dreamers, thinkers, and doers promote a diverse design dialogue resulting in more thoughtful solutions to meet the challenges of today’s world.  As leaders in higher education, we have brought a deep understanding of how institutions are responding to advances in pedagogy, technology, behavioral science, and market forces to our projects with more than 200 colleges and universities around the globe. As a firm committed to the 2030 Challenge and the Paris Agreement through We Are Still In, we understand that we carry a tremendous responsibility in addressing climate change.

Wohlsen Construction Company

With over 130 years of building expertise, Wohlsen Construction Company is a trusted leader in construction management and general contracting in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Regions. We offer clients comprehensive preconstruction and construction services for projects in diverse markets such as education, senior living, healthcare, industrial/manufacturing, and community-focused. Our 300+ team members are industry experts who apply their knowledge and skills to every project, from initial planning to completion. As a fully 100% employee-owned company, our team members are invested in the success of every project.

How US military planning has shifted away from fighting terrorism to readying for tensions and conflict with China and Russia

Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Disclosure statement

Eric Rosenbach received funding from the United States government to develop executive education programs.

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President Joe Biden’s recent approval of a major shift in U.S. nuclear weapons strategy highlights the attention the country’s national security officials are paying to Chinese ambitions for influence in the world.

As changes emerge in the types of threats facing the U.S., the American military adjusts its strategic focus, budgets and planning. For instance, after 9/11, the U.S. military refocused away from its Cold War emphasis on preparing for combat against a powerful nation – the Soviet Union – and toward fighting small terrorist and insurgent groups instead.

Over the past decade, the Pentagon’s efforts have shifted back to preparing for what officials call “ great power competition ” among the U.S., Russia and China .

The most important strategic shift that’s evident in planning for great power competition is a focus on deterrence. In classic military strategy, deterrence focuses on making an adversary believe they can never achieve their goals by military force, because the response would be overwhelming and decisive. The National Defense Strategy released in October 2022 – the document that articulates the nation’s goals, objectives and resource allocation for the next two years – explicitly recognizes the potential risk of tensions and open conflict with Russia or China, and it calls for “integrated deterrence” to prevent it. That means combined efforts from the military, intelligence and diplomatic agencies across the U.S. government.

The National Military Strategy – the military’s section of the overarching National Defense Strategy – lays out how the U.S. armed forces will contribute to that effort. As a former assistant secretary of defense and Pentagon chief of staff , I see that the military is focusing on three main goals to achieve integrated deterrence and prevent a conflict with Russia or China.

New operational plans

For the military, integrated deterrence means the armed forces will depend both on where forces are located and what they can do once they’re in action to influence adversaries’ decisions about when, where, how – and whether – to use military force against the U.S. or its interests.

In the shift away from counterterrorism toward preparation for a great power conflict, the Defense Department has developed new ways to deal with the fact that Russia and China, unlike small terrorist groups, can fight in the air, on land and at sea anywhere around the world – and online and in space, too.

First among those methods is what the Pentagon calls “ dynamic force employment ,” in which U.S. military forces are deployed rapidly around the world, without predictable rotation schedules. This approach can reassure allies facing threats from Russia or China.

For example, the U.S. has, at times, deployed as many as 10,000 troops to Poland . The troops are not permanently stationed there, but a continuous presence of U.S. forces keeps Russia guessing about the size and capabilities of the force and demonstrates a commitment to support nervous NATO allies in Eastern Europe.

Second is a shift of personnel and capabilities to what is called “ multi-domain operations ,” in which units with different missions across air, land, sea, space and cyberspace plan and train together. That way, they can be prepared to work closely together in actual conflicts.

This level of collaboration allows the nation to respond to threats in a variety of ways. For instance, challenges to American naval power on the high seas do not have to be met directly with corresponding naval action, but instead could be answered with cyberattacks or from space.

This approach might make the Chinese People’s Liberation Army think twice about launching military operations against Taiwan. Not only would the Chinese potentially face a fierce direct conflict, but U.S. cyber and space operations could also disrupt or destroy Chinese military communications, hindering their attack.

Investments in modernization

Recent research has shown that China’s investments in its military personnel and capabilities – particularly in air, naval and nuclear forces – have grown exponentially over the past two decades, to a level estimated at near parity with the United States. This has prompted the U.S. to modernize its own military’s corresponding capabilities. For the 2024 budget, the Department of Defense allocated a whopping US$234.9 billion for programs to support integrated deterrence , which likely represents a 10% increase over previous spending plans.

Some of this money will go to developing and acquiring F-35 fighter jets and building Columbia-class, nuclear-powered submarines . When the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific region, such as Japan, South Korea and Australia , deploy these planes and submarines, they will remind potential adversaries of American military power – which is itself a deterrent against foreign aggression.

Over the past 10 years, China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear weapon supply has alarmed senior policymakers in the U.S. Although then-President Barack Obama pushed countries to envision a world free of nuclear weapons , he approved the most expensive and significant upgrade ever to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In 2022, the Biden administration renewed a financial commitment to “ field a modern, resilient nuclear triad ” consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and long-range nuclear bombers.

Advancing technology

In 2019, the Space Force was established as a separate branch of the armed forces and tasked with defending American space-based assets and upholding international law. Because of the importance of satellite communications to military operations and civilian life – including internet connectivity – the Space Force works closely with Cyber Command , the military organization charged with defending the nation against cyberattacks, to prevent malicious hackers from disrupting systems vital to the world, such as the Global Positioning System , widely known as GPS.

Recent intelligence indicates that China plans to conduct destructive cyberattacks against U.S. domestic critical infrastructure, including the electric grid, during any conflict. To counter those plans, Cyber Command continues to enhance its abilities to defend U.S. systems and companies against cyberattacks, as well as to conduct attacks against systems in other countries.

The Pentagon is also seeking to counterbalance China’s rapidly expanding military forces by using artificial intelligence software in a program called the Replicator Initiative . The effort seeks to build thousands of low-cost, AI-directed autonomous aircraft and boats that can be used in combat to “ counter the (Chinese military)’s mass with mass of our own ,” in the words of Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.

Integration with allies and partners

The U.S. military has also sought to strengthen alliances with other countries, especially over the past four years of the Biden administration.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine led NATO to expand its membership as well as the numbers and capabilities of troops available to the organization. The U.S. has reinforced its commitment to NATO, increasing troop deployments in Eastern Europe and support for European defense initiatives by committing nearly $3 billion in funding for additional fighter aircraft, air-defense batteries and munitions.

In Asia, around the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific Ocean, a vast region that the government often calls “ the Indo-Pacific ,” the U.S. has strengthened alliances with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines by conducting numerous military exercises and increasing military assistance. Efforts like the annual Marine Aviation Support exercise are aimed at countering Chinese military and political influence.

The U.S. has also sought to strengthen its alliances with the U.K. and Australia, with a commitment to sell up to five conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to the Australian navy by 2030.

Collectively, the U.S. has combined all of these efforts into a coordinated approach seeking to avoid open conflict with China and Russia. But the work is not yet done: The global political and military landscape is ever-changing, and new security challenges are always emerging.

Grace Jones , a master’s student in public policy and research assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, contributed research to this article.

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The Office of Strategy Management

• Robert S. Kaplan
• David P. Norton

Strategy at many companies is almost completely disconnected from execution. Establishing a dedicated unit to orchestrate both will help to bridge the divide.

The Idea in Brief

Most large organizations fail to achieve profitable growth—despite ambitious plans. Why the gap between intended and actual performance? There’s an alarming disconnect between the parts of the organization that formulate corporate strategy and the functions, processes, and people required to execute it.

67% of HR and IT departments’ strategies don’t reflect corporate strategy. 60% of organizations don’t link their financial budgets to strategic priorities. Compensation packages of 90% of frontline employees show no connection to the success or failure of strategy execution. 95% of the typical company’s workers are unaware of, or don’t understand, its strategy.

How to close the breach between strategy formulation and execution? Create an office of strategy management (OSM) . Your OSM couples the units responsible for strategic planning with those performing the activities required to implement strategy—such as establishing budgets, communicating strategy to the workforce, and designing compensation systems that reward strategic performance.

The payoff for designing an effective OSM? A corporate strategy that delivers on its promises. Thanks in part to its OSM, the Chrysler Group generated $1.2 billion in earnings and launched a series of exciting new cars in 2004—while the rest of the U.S. domestic auto market languished.

The Idea in Practice

Design your office of strategy management to perform these functions:

Create and oversee your strategy management system. Help the executive team select performance targets and identify required strategic initiatives. Initiate and administer your company’s strategic performance reporting system. To maintain integrity of performance data, create and enforce uniform organization-wide metrics.

Incorporate changes in corporate strategy into all documents and tools that the company uses to track strategic performance—such as strategy maps and the Balanced Scorecard.

Align the organization. Actively manage organizational alignment with corporate strategy. Institutionalize the use of a common strategic performance reporting system by all units. Ensure that business unit and support unit strategies are linked to one another and to the company’s strategy.

Communicate strategy. Through newsletters, CEO speeches, and other channels, communicate corporate strategy, targets, and initiatives to the workforce. Coordinate with HR to ensure that education about the strategy management process is included in training programs.

Review strategy. Organize and lead monthly strategy-review meetings, briefing the CEO about strategic concerns in advance. Document needed adjustments to strategy and execution identified during meetings and follow up to ensure that changes are implemented. Help the chief financial officer prepare strategy updates for board meetings.

Refine strategy. Evaluate new strategic ideas coming from within the organization and convey promising ones to senior management.

Manage strategic initiatives. Manage strategy-related initiatives that cross unit and functional lines, to ensure they receive sufficient resources and attention. Monitor progress of all strategic initiatives and report on them to top management.

Consult with key strategy support functions.

• Planning and budgeting. Work with the finance department to ensure that corporate and unit budgets reflect those established during the strategic planning process and that each unit’s budget includes resources needed for the unit’s contribution to cross-functional strategic initiatives.
• Human resource alignment. See that the HR function manages employee incentives, competency development programs, and annual performance reviews in a manner consistent with corporate and business unit strategic objectives.
• Knowledge management. Coordinate with the chief learning officer to ensure that the best practices and ideas most critical to the corporate strategy are shared throughout the organization.

Most companies have ambitious plans for growth. Few ever realize them. In their book Profit from the Core, Chris Zook and James Allen report that between 1988 and 1998, seven out of eight companies in a global sample of 1,854 large corporations failed to achieve profitable growth. That is, these companies were unable to deliver 5.5% annual real growth in revenues and earnings while earning their cost of capital (a rather modest hurdle). Yet 90% of the companies in the study had developed detailed strategic plans with much higher targets.

• Robert S. Kaplan is a senior fellow and the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development emeritus at Harvard Business School. He coauthored the McKinsey Award–winning HBR article “ Accounting for Climate Change ” (November–December 2021).
• DN David P. Norton is a founder and director of the Palladium Group and is the coauthor of The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action .

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