One of the biggest problems with strategic planning is figuring out how to prioritize all of the initiatives that the process produces. Every leader and every department thinks their initiatives are critical to the success of the organization, which raises a second major problem with strategic planning: deselecting initiatives to narrow the focus to the vital few. People may not agree on which initiatives are most important, but nobody wants to see their “baby” thrown out.

In “Prioritizing and Managing Improvement Initiatives: 4 Steps That Drive Results,” (The Glue, ActiveStrategy, March 17, 2010), Jack Steele suggests ranking initiatives by a common set of criteria to remove some of the emotion and politics from the equation. The criteria could include support for your mission and vision, alignment with critical success factors, potential impact on balanced scorecard or financial metrics, and potential impact on growth. Steele notes: “When ranking, you might want to boost the score of any initiatives that cut across the organization since they will likely have a greater overall impact.”

Once you have consensus on the rank of your strategic initiatives, you’re ready to move on to the first of Steele’s four steps: Prioritize by sequencing. Which initiatives do you work on first? This may also allow you to save a few initiatives that would otherwise be cut by delaying work on them until resources become available.

The next step is to create a charter. This is usually a one-page document that defines the scope, schedule, expectations, and restrictions. The charters I’ve seen have also included ownership—usually a senior leader—and performance measures.

The third step is to manage the initiatives effectively. Steele outlines a process for doing this that includes ensuring that projects stay within scope, milestones are identified and tracked to stay on schedule, budget is not exceeded, the methodology for process improvement is sound, project outcomes are achieved, and risks are identified and mitigated along the way.

The final step is to ensure accountability with ongoing reviews. Most organizations I’ve worked with do this at monthly senior leadership meetings, during which they discuss those initiatives that are behind schedule or running into other problems and figure out how to fix the problem. This may involve adding human or financial resources or changing course.

I would add a fifth step to the list: align action with the initiatives. Organizations that have integrated the Baldrige model have processes for deploying their strategic initiatives by cascading them to departments, functions, teams, and individuals so that everyone is working on what is most important to the organization. In the end, it’s not just the senior leader’s responsibility for acting on the initiative: It’s everybody’s job.

To read more about strategic planning, click on these articles:

• Find Your Blue Ocean
• Where to Play and How to Win
• How to Deploy Your Strategic Plan
• What Are Your Critical Success Factors?
• Alignment and Integration

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