Strategy Development
At MAC, we think of strategy and planning as different but complementary activities. Our two-tiered strategy development approach helps organizations bring clarity to their organizational identity and strategic priorities in a Strategic Framework and then builds out how they will be actualized with an Implementation Plan. Both use the organization’s vision for impact as the north star.
Setting strategic priorities and putting together the nuts and bolts that set them into motion can be very different conversations, but too often they’re divorced from one another: all the effort goes into preparing a “strategic plan” without giving equal attention to how it will be operationalized. We find that creating dedicated space for both leads to better results.
Strategic Framework
A Strategic Framework articulates the fundamentals of the organization’s strategy without tying them to a specific time frame. One often overlooked—but crucial—component of developing a Strategic Framework is strategy testing. Before the strategic priorities are presented to the board, we conduct key stakeholder interviews (and sometimes additional research) to validate, flesh out, and refine them. In essentially “previewing” strategies with relevant partners, funders, and a broader group of staff and board members than who were on the actual Strategy Team, this testing phase:
Readies the Strategic Framework for board approval;
Surfaces important considerations for implementation planning; and
Begins to socialize any new strategies, aiding in change management.
Implementation Plan
While certain sets of the board and staff participate in developing the Strategic Framework, the Implementation Plan broadens engagement to include more of those who will ultimately have significant roles in doing the work. In doing so, lifting up the Implementation Plan as a companion piece to the Strategic Framework ensures that the organization’s strategic priorities have more than just good intentions to see them through to fruition.
An Implementation Plan performs more than one function:
It provides a grounded reality check on the organization’s operational capacity and resources for implementation;
It spells out the activities needed to advance each of the strategies, with goals, metrics, and lines of accountability to keep them on track;
It sets timelines and surfaces sequencing or interdependencies among the activities, allowing for better coordination of effort; and
It may identify the need for additional information or resources (e.g., models, market research, funding sources, partners) and lay out steps to meet those needs.
Together, the Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan are a real power duo that builds a bridge from where an organization is now to where it wants to go. The Strategic Framework connects long-term vision with medium-term strategies, and the Implementation Plan links medium-term strategies with short-term actions. Both provide the connective tissue to keep the organization moving forward and the level of detail it needs to communicate with key stakeholders to engage them in making its strategic vision a reality.
