Strategic Planning

What is strategy?

Strategy is a word without meaning in many contexts within our movement. The word is too often used as an tag-along word to describe the aspiration of doing the same work, only better.

The real concept of "strategy" is different from that in the near ubiquitous "strategic planning" programs where hours are spent circling the actual work that needs to be done at a distance of about 30,000ft.

For those who want to avoid the trap of endless discussions, "strategy" should be understood as simply a step in the process of building a program for action to reach a goal.

Being "strategic" should never be discussed as an end in and of itself.

Goals, analysis, strategy, tactics, & evaluation

Effective organizational planning is a hierarchical and an ordered process; one level cannot be done in isolation of another or in the wrong order. Each step of organizational planning have structures that must be built, maintained, and redeveloped on a continuous basis.

Goals

A goal is a single, aspiration -- or end point -- for the entire plan. The goal should also clearly state the reason that the plan is being developed.

It has the following characteristics:

It is real, not imaginary.
Attainable.
A defined and understood position in the future.
Can be explained in clear language by all those involved in the plan.
Not secret.

Analysis

While this step should be obvious, it is often overlooked. Real, unbiased information is needed for committees to make the correct decisions. However, along with facts, the committee should be presented with options that are consistent with the policies and broader goals of the organization.

The background information needed to make proper decisions is:

Built by experts.
Built on known, agreed-on facts.
Established in a history of the organization and reality.
Independent of committee\'s preconceived notions.
Presented to the planning committee so all can understand.
Presented as a brief presentation using graphical formats and/or point form where appropriate.
Not just conceptual, but with concrete options.
Outlines current tools, skill sets, people, resources, and time-frames.
Clearly states what has failed or succeeded previously and exactly how that relates or not to the current situation.

Strategy

The Strategy is conceptual program for achieving the goal given the analysis. Strategy is the actual process that will be taken to achieve the end result with the tools available.

Strategy is not:

A list of tactics.
A list of complaints.
A rehash of current tactics or strategy.
A review of organizational limitations.
A list of staff/member limitations.
A list of skills needed, but that are not currently available.
A program for thinking about what could be done. ("We should meet about" statements.)
A wish list of work for someone else. ("Someone should" statements.)
A list of aspirations. ("If we had this, then we could" statements.)

Some things to remember about deciding on strategy:

The list of strategic options should be an obvious result of the analysis.
The debate is over which strategy to employ given the facts and analysis.
Discussions of strategy should not take long.
Only one strategy per goal should be employed.
A strategy should only be changed if the analysis has changed or been updated or if a review of the strategy show that is not working.

Tactics

The methods (including tools) used to fulfill the strategy.

A discussion of tactics follows the discussion of strategy.
Lists of tactics are hierarchical, not flat lists.
Not all tactics available fit each and all strategies.
Are dependant on timing and will change as timelines change.
Should not be fetishized as they are context dependent.

Discussions of tactics must include:

A budget.
A list of tools to be used that are actually available.
A list of people with their current skills that contribute to the implementation of the tactic.
A timeline for implementation.

Evaluation

A review processes should outline when and how tactics will be measured.

Tactics are not evaluated on their effectiveness first, but instead on how/if they are correctly implemented.
Reviews of the effectiveness of strategy should occur only when it is agreed that the tactic is implemented correctly, but will without effect.

Evaluation is not something that comes out of a discussion of strategy, it must be planned itself. The evaluation comes out of a discussion of the effectiveness of tactics.

However, Measuring the effectiveness of a tactic will depend on the tactic chosen and tactics cannot be evaluated if work has not been done to implement them.

Systemic approaches to planning

Strategic planning should be less about making and discussing plans and more about building the structures for facilitating action.

The process of coordination

An individual is responsible for completing each part of the plan.

Some things to keep in mind:

The process of coordination is a structure, not an idea of a plan.
Tools should be used to facilitate, build and manage the coordination structures and they should be known to all of the coordination committee. A list of tools and who can use them should be readily available.
The tools used for coordination should be flexible enough that would allow distribution of task-level coordination (i.e., they should scale well).
The process of coordination cannot be secret. The evaluation process is built into the coordination process and everyone should have an understanding of evaluation.
Coordination is not micromanagement, it is facilitation.

The tools

Tools allow you to build products and they require skills to use.

What tools are available?
What needs to be purchased?
What needs to be built?
Who has the skills necessary for each part and who is responsible for managing the use of the tools and the collection of the products.

The products

The finished materials.

Who is going to use them?
When can they be made for?
How do they get to the people that need them?

The People

Skilled people are part of the structure of every program, so identifying the people and matching with the needed and necessary skills must be part of the planning process. Distribution of work, coordination, and assigning task-related resources should be the goal of any discussion involving skills assessment.

Remember, the purpose of the plan is to facilitate the work of people, not the other way around. People do not exist to facilitate the strategic planing process of an organization, the exist to implement it.

The work must be done by someone, so buy-in after the fact is less important than involvement of those who you need to do the work in the planning process.

Organizational planning

Organizational planning is different from strategic planning for a campaign.

An organizational plan is developed through a map of resources, skills, time, and available resources.

Contrary to the name, organizations do not do planning. People do. An organizational plan should focus primarily on the who and what resources are available and can be allocated to achieve any campaign goal. It is expressed as a statement of intention to apply specified resources

Organizational planning is necessary to understand the structural limitations that exist and whether they can be overcome, need to be reshaped, or are inherent within the structure of the organization.

For organizational planning, the following is important to remember:

Organizational plans are outlined within the analysis stage of the planning process.
The goals, direction and strategy are informed by organizational plans.
Organizational planning is not an answer to the question "What are our organizational goals, directions, and strategy?". Goals and strategy are at a higher level and therefore do not change often.

Tactical discussions as dead ends

Tactic fetishism plagues campaigning organizations. Tactic fetishism is most obvious in long discussions are had about tactics that have worked historically without any context or context that is all but invented.

While listing tactics is not an irrelevant exercise, it should not take long. Most campaigners, organizers, and politically active people know most of the tactics available. If a strategy has been established, then the tactics involved in achieving the goal should be obvious after a few minutes of brainstorming.

If a tactic to achieve the goal is not obvious or does not seem to fit, it is more likely that the strategy is incorrect than it is a lack of time spent discussing "innovative" tactics.

Organizations should never identify an "innovative" tactic and try to fit a campaign around that tactic. The following examples are indications that there has been a lack of thought put into planning, building and maintaining a campaign:

"We need an email/sms/some digital-tool campaign."
"Members spend a lot of time of Facebook, we should start a Facebook page."
"Nothing has ever worked as well as door-to-door campaigning."
"We do not know how to reach people, flyering the workplace should generate some leads."
"Lets do a poll and see how people feel about this issue first."

Putting the tactic first, discussing details of tactic implementation -- including narrative -- before going through the hard part of setting clear goals, developing and presenting analysis, and deciding on a strategy is a dead-end and usually a waste of time for all involved.

Doing the work

Planning should not get in the way of doing work.

Planning is not the primary purpose of campaigning organizations. The work of facilitating, supporting the actions to achieve the goals set by its members is. As such, planning should fit in discreet and scheduled times.

As such, attempting to be "strategic" should not get in the way of doing the regular work. Most of the daily work is in need of limited strategic or tactical discussion since most work of long-standing organizations has already been planned. When planning is needed, it should be clear to those keeping tabs when the tactics do not make sense anymore.

As a general rule, any time put into "Strategic Planning" is usually better spent put into evaluation of tactics, skills development, and identifying gaps in the plan that need developing.