FastTrack™ Strategic Planning System
Build your strategic plan step by step. FastTrack™ uses best practices to guide you in plan preparation, creation, and execution. Take every step or pick your path: the key is to find your vision, chart your course, and make ongoing progress.
To lead your organization to a better future, you need more than goals—you need a compelling vision of great success and powerful strategies to make it real.
But vision and strategy aren’t enough on their own. The real challenge is follow-through.
That’s where the FastTrack™ Strategic Planning System comes in. It recognizes that planning is not an event—it’s an ongoing process. An agile planning system developed based on 35+ years of real-world experience working with organizations to create and implement strategy, FastTrack™ gives you the structure, tools, and rhythm to bridge the gap between strategy and execution—so you can stay focused, aligned, and consistently make progress.
From Vision to Reality—One Step at a Time
If you work through all the steps in the FastTrack™ Strategic Planning System, you will:
- Set the time span and strategy areas that your plan will address
- Conduct a business assessment and gain strategic foresight through an environmental scan and more
- Consider your business model and the basis on which you will compete
- Learn from stakeholders and assess the competition
- Put it all together in a comprehensive SWOT analysis
- Use your SWOT to develop an inspiring vision of great future success
- Identify the gaps between today and your vision
- Develop strategic goals and strategies to close the gaps
- Establish your objectives and Key Performance Indicators
- Develop 12-month action steps to assure that you get down the road
- Create your program to drive implementation and measure your progress
Tools That Keep You Moving Forward
FastTrack™ is more than a planning model—it’s a discipline for driving results. It equips you with:
- Practical tools like KPIs, a dashboard, and monthly, quarterly, and annual processes for assessment, adjustment, and re-planning
- Built-in accountability to help you and your team stay engaged, on track, and aligned
- A step-by-step system that simplifies the complex and makes strategy part of your everyday leadership
For Leaders and Teams Who Want to Leverage Strategy for Great Success
Whether you're a business, nonprofit, association, or government entity, FastTrack™ helps you set a great vision, execute consistently, and achieve what matters most for great success.
How it works.
- Use the three buttons above—Prepare to Plan, Create Your Plan, and Implement Your Plan—to explore the FastTrack™ system step by step, or jump into the sections in whatever order makes sense.
- As you and your associates progress through the planning steps, use the View Your Plan dropdown at the top of the sidebar on the right to see how your plan is taking shape.
- Be sure you use the Save Plan and other buttons above to save, export, and print your plan and generate implementation reports. You can also reload a plan you have saved and restart the process.
- For knowledge, ideas, editing help, examples, options, best practices, and more, click the floating button on the lower right to get help from Kai, our AI planning assistant.
Pick your path.
- If speed and simplicity are of the essence, consider brainstorming to create your SWOT Analysis, creating your Vision of great success, setting Strategic Goals and Strategies to reach your goals, and then developing 12-Month Action Steps that you can begin to implement ASAP.
- For the best plan, consider working with your team through all the Prepare to Plan and Create Your Plan sections offered below. The pre-planning work will populate your SWOT and then you can augment that with brainstorming to assure it is complete. Tackling all of the Create Your Plan sections will assure that your plan is built using best practices and is actionable.
- To assure effective, ongoing plan implementation for great results, use all the tools in the Implement Your Plan section: Create your Implementation Plan, set up and regularly update your Implementation Dashboard, conduct your Monthly Check-ins and Quarterly Progress assessments, and then assess your results and set new action steps in your Annual Assessment and Replanning process.
Let’s begin.
Back to Top ↑Prepare to Plan
Initial Information
Are you ready to plan? Find out here.
Planning Readiness Check
When you are ready to plan, start by entering information about your organization and the plan you are creating.
The planning period is the time span which your plan will address. It's generally better for your plan to cover four or five years or even longer to encourage development of strategies that will drive big change rather than incremental improvement.
Adjust the Plan Implementation Start and End Dates as needed.
Note: If you change these dates for an established plan, please save and reload the plan. Then review the dates you have previously set for KPIs, 12-Month Action Steps, the Implementation Plan, and the Implementation Dashboard: They may need to be reset.
Strategy Areas Selection
Strategy Areas: A Framework for Comprehensive Planning
Your strategies for attaining your Vision should address the four Balanced Scorecard perspectives, sometimes named Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, and People/Organizational Capacity. These perspectives are often called Strategy Areas, Pillars, or Lenses.
Why a balanced approach matters: The Balanced Scorecard framework ensures you don’t over-focus on one dimension at the expense of others. Financial results depend on satisfied customers, which require effective internal processes, which in turn need capable people and a strong organization. By addressing all four perspectives, you create coherent strategies where each area reinforces the others.
Each template below adapts the Balanced Scorecard perspectives to different organization types. Choose the template that best fits your organization type. Then you can customize the Strategy Area names to match your organization’s specific needs.
Business Template
Strategy Areas:- Financial
- Organizational/People
- Customers/Marketing
- Operations, Processes, and Procedures
Non-Profit Template
Strategy Areas:- Stakeholder Value & Impact
- Programs, Services & Operations
- People, Leadership & Governance
- Financial Health & Sustainability
Association Template
Strategy Areas:- Member Value & Growth
- Programs, Services & Operations
- Staff, Volunteers & Governance
- Financial Health
Government Template
Strategy Areas:- Constituent/Social Outcomes
- Operational Efficiency & Service Delivery
- Staff, Volunteers & Governance
- Fiscal Stewardship and Resource Optimization
Business Assessment
How To Assess The Health of Your Organization
An honest look at your organization today is the foundation for building a better future. This assessment helps you create a clear, objective snapshot of your current business landscape. By rating these key areas, you'll uncover the foundational strengths you can build on and the critical weaknesses you need to address.
How to Complete Your Assessment
- Review Each Item: Consider each aspect of your organization listed below.
- Get More Detail: If you're unsure what an item means, click the info icon ⓘ next to it for a detailed explanation.
- Choose a Rating: Don't overthink it, you and the team likely have a good sense of where your organization is on each dimension. Select the rating that best reflects your current reality:
- Good: This is a clear strength for your organization.
- So-So: There's room for improvement here.
- Not Good: This is a weakness that needs strategic attention.
What Happens Next
This isn't just a checklist—it's the first step in building your strategy. The results from this assessment will directly feed into your SWOT Analysis. Optional deep-dive assessments below can also feed your SWOT (only the strongest signals are imported):
- Items you rate as Good will be available to import as Strengths.
- Items rated So-So and Not Good will be available to import as Weaknesses.
Your honest evaluation here will ensure your final strategic plan is grounded in reality and focused on what truly matters.
Optional deep dives: If you want to go deeper, use the optional assessments below:
- Leadership and workforce
- Systems and technology
- Customer/supporter/member/constituent acquisition/service (based on your organization type)
Your ratings in these optional assessments will be used later in the SWOT.
Recommended: Organizational health assessment
Complete the assessment below. Your ratings will be used later in the SWOT.
Assessment Summary
Good
So-So
Not Good
Optional: Leadership and workforce assessment
Rate each statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Your ratings will be used later in the SWOT.
Optional: Systems and technology assessment
Rate each statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Your ratings will be used later in the SWOT.
Optional: Customer acquisition assessment
Rate each statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Your ratings will be used later in the SWOT.
Financial Analysis
Business Model + Basis for Competition
Your Business Model & Basis for Competition: Why they matter and what they describe
Why this matters before you plan
A strategic plan only works if it matches how you intend to win and how you will fund and deliver that win.
In this section you’ll make two quick selections:
- Your basis for competition — the primary way you will win in your market (lowest cost, best product/service, or best customer experience).
- Your business model(s) — the way your organization creates value, delivers value, and captures value (revenue/funding + cost structure).
These choices matter because they shape the rest of your plan:
- What goals make sense (and which don’t)
- What strategies are realistic (and which are wishful)
- What must be true operationally (capabilities, processes, pricing/funding, customer/beneficiary experience)
When your basis for competition and business model reinforce each other, your plan becomes coherent and executable. When they conflict, you waste effort, confuse your market, and struggle to produce results.
Keep it simple: choose your best-fit options for how you compete and how you work. You can refine later, but planning without this clarity is one of the fastest ways to build a plan that looks good on paper and fails in execution.
What a Business Model Describes
A business model explains four things:
- What product or service you sell
- How you market and deliver it
- What expenses you face
- How you earn a profit
- What programs or services you provide
- How you reach and serve beneficiaries
- What expenses you face
- How you fund operations (donations, grants, earned revenue)
At the center of every business model is value:
- Value Creation — making the offering real
- Value Delivery — reaching, enrolling/selling, fulfilling, supporting
- Value Capture — earning enough to sustain and grow (margin, surplus, funding)
Important: Your basis for competition should drive your business model design—from pricing and operations to customer relationships. Trying to excel at all three competitive bases usually creates confusion and weak results. Choose one primary focus, then make sure your model supports it.
Where you’ll see this used next:
- Vision draft options: each draft shows a quick “Fit check” against your selected basis + business model(s).
- Implementation Plan: the Plan Completeness & Alignment Check uses these selections as part of overall plan quality feedback.
Step 1: Identify Your Basis for Competition
Step 1: Identify Your Basis for Competition
Step 2: Business Model(s)
Step 2: Business Model(s)
Check the model—or combination of models—that describes how your organization works today, or, if you want to change your business model(s), how you want it to work in the future. (Hint: If you want more information on a business model option, ask Kai.) The checked items below each model option indicate the Bases for Competion for which each model is most appropriate. Many organizations blend models (e.g., Amazon uses Marketplace + Subscription + Advertising + Low Touch; Spotify and LinkedIn use Freemium + Subscription; many SaaS companies use Subscription + Service Levels).
Step 3: Reality Check
Step 3: Reality Check
Does your current business model(s) or the business model(s) you want to adopt support your chosen basis for competition? Your basis for competition should drive your business model design. You should seek to have the elements of your business model - from cost structure to key activities to revenue streams - reinforce and enable your chosen competitive strategy. Misalignment between these two leads to confused market positioning and poor performance.
Before proceeding, ask yourself:
-
Does your business model support your competitive strategy?
-
Cost Leadership → Best-fit business models often include:
- Low Touch / Self-Service (automation and minimal labor cost)
- Standardization (repeatable, efficient processes)
- Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) (remove intermediaries and retain margin)
- Wholesale / Distribution (scale and purchasing power)
- Bundling (higher perceived value with lower unit costs)
-
Product Excellence → Best-fit business models often include:
- Manufacturer / Product Sales (premium products and differentiation)
- Subscription (recurring revenue to fund innovation)
- Tiered Pricing / Service Levels (capture willingness to pay)
- Licensing (IP/Technology) (monetize innovation beyond direct sales)
- Razor-and-Blade (ecosystem lock-in and recurring purchases)
-
Customer Intimacy → Best-fit business models often include:
- Professional Services (Fee-for-Service / Retainer) (deep advisory relationships)
- Outsourcing / Managed Services (ongoing partnership and support)
- Subscription (membership-style repeat value)
- Tiered Pricing / Service Levels (white-glove experience at higher tiers)
- Affinity Club / Community (belonging, loyalty, and repeat engagement)
-
Cost Leadership → Best-fit business models often include:
-
Is your business model sustainable?
- Can you acquire customers for less than they'll pay you over time?
- Will your margins improve (not shrink) as you grow?
- Is it hard for competitors to copy or for customers to leave?
- Do you get paid before (not after) your major costs?
Important: A business model is rarely “right” or “wrong” for a basis for competition. Many models work for multiple strategies—what matters is how you execute pricing, operations, innovation, and the customer experience.
Use the crosswalk below to see common alignments (✓). Treat it as guidance—not a rulebook.
| Business Model | Cost Leadership |
Product Excellence |
Customer Intimacy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low Touch / Self-Service | ✓ | ||
| Standardization | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Wholesale / Distribution | ✓ | ||
| Bundling | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Manufacturer / Product Sales | ✓ | ||
| Subscription | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tiered Pricing / Service Levels | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Licensing (IP/Technology) | ✓ | ||
| Razor-and-Blade | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Professional Services (Fee-for-Service / Retainer) | ✓ | ||
| Outsourcing / Managed Services | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Affinity Club / Community | ✓ | ✓ |
Based on your assessment, do you want to plan for the future using the basis for competition and business model(s) you have selected above? If you decide to change your basis for competition and/or your business model(s), make new selections above. Consider: Which model(s) would better support your chosen basis for competition? Can you combine models to reinforce your competitive advantage? What operational changes would the new model require?
Step 4: Integration into Your Strategic Plan
Step 4: Integration into Your Strategic Plan
- Vision: "Become the lowest-cost provider through direct-to-consumer sales"
- Strategic goals: "Eliminate 50% of intermediary costs by Year 2"
- Strategies: "Implement automated ordering system" / "Standardize product line"
- Vision: "Lead the industry in innovative subscription-based solutions"
- Strategic goals: "Launch platform enabling third-party innovations"
- Strategies: "Create developer ecosystem" / "Establish innovation labs"
- Vision: "Build the most trusted advisor relationships in our industry"
- Strategic goals: "Achieve 95% customer retention through service excellence"
- Strategies: "Implement customer success program" / "Create community platform"
Strategic Foresight
Strategic Foresight Is Essential For Creating Great Strategy
What it is: Strategic foresight is a disciplined way of anticipating change. It helps you notice emerging signals, trends, and uncertainties—and then consider multiple plausible futures so your strategy stays strong even when the world shifts. At its core, strategic foresight involves scanning for emerging trends, weak signals, and uncertainties that could reshape your environment.
Strategic Foresight helps you look beyond today and prepare for different ways the future might unfold. The key insight is that the future isn't predetermined—it's shaped by choices made in the present. In this section you will:
- Essential: Scan the environment to capture key external forces and trends and tag them for use in your SWOT Analysis.
- Optional: Prioritize what matters most using an Importance × Predictability grid.
- Optional: Explore possible futures by turning key uncertainties into four “what if” scenarios.
Start by identifying key trends. Then consider using Parts 2 and 3 to help you think ahead about how these trends could play out and what that might mean for your strategy.
Part 1: Identify & Tag Your Trends
In Part 1 you’ll work through the six categories below. For each category, consider the prompts and examples and list the most significant factors for your organization. You can identify trends by assessing what you see unfolding, asking Kai, doing internet searching, consulting with industry experts, and/or asking employees and vendors what they are seeing play out. Then, just for the trends that you believe are important for strategy, use the SWOT tag dropdown next to each item to classify it as an Opportunity or a Threat. If time is tight, this capture‑and‑tag step is the essential work; Parts 2 and 3 simply help you go deeper.
We have provided specific Kai Prompts in each trend category below to help you uncover blind spots.
Important: Educate Kai first.
Before using the prompts shown below, let Kai know who you are. Start your chat by telling Kai about your organization, something like:
"We are a [Organization Type] in the [Industry] located in [Location]. We provide [Products/Services] to [Target Audience]."
Economic Factors
What economic forces are shifting or may shift the landscape?
Examples include: Changes in purchasing power, capital availability, cost structures, or global economic connectivity.
Identify current trends. You can ask Kai: "What economic trends are creating opportunities or threats for our organization type right now?"
Scan for emerging trends. You can ask Kai: "What economic shifts should a our organization type anticipate in the next 3-5 years?"
Political & Legal Factors
What changes in power, policy, or law are altering or may alter the rules of the game?
Examples include: Shifts in government priorities, regulatory climate, trade policies, or labor standards.
Identify current trends. You can ask Kai: "What recent regulatory or political changes are impacting our organization type right now?"
Scan for emerging trends. You can ask Kai: "What potential legislative changes or political shifts could impact a our organization type in the next 3-5 years?"
Social & Demographic Factors
How are people, communities, and cultural values evolving?
Examples include: Shifts in lifestyle choices, workforce expectations, population dynamics, or ethical priorities.
Identify current trends. You can ask Kai: "What key demographic or social trends are shaping consumer behavior and the workforce in our industry right now?"
Scan for emerging trends. You can ask Kai: "How might emerging values and social trends among consumers and the workforce reshape our organization and demand for our products/services in the next 3-5 years?"
Technological Factors
How is innovation solving problems in new ways or rendering old ways obsolete?
Examples include: AI that improves work, replaces tasks, or enables new possibilities; tools that impact production, communication, distribution, or customer experience.
Identify current trends. You can ask Kai: "What technologies are currently disrupting or enhancing operations in our industry?"
Scan for emerging trends. You can ask Kai: "What emerging technologies (like AI or automation) might fundamentally change our business model in 3-5 years?"
Market & Industry Factors
How is the playing field changing within your specific sector?
Examples include: Changes in supplier power, buyer behavior, competitive intensity, or substitute products.
Identify current trends. You can ask Kai: "What are the top market opportunities and pressures affecting our industry right now?"
Scan for emerging trends. You can ask Kai: "What non-traditional competitors or new business models might alter our market in the next 3-5 years?"
Environmental Factors
What sustainability and resource availability trends are affecting or may impact your future?
Examples include: Climate risks, energy transition, resource scarcity, or sustainability expectations.
Identify current trends. You can ask Kai: "What environmental or sustainability trends are currently affecting our industry?"
Scan for emerging trends. You can ask Kai: "What new opportunities or threats might our organization type expect from climate change and the green economy in the next 3-5 years?"
💡 To go further: Look for Weak Signals
Before you prioritize, you might want to go deeper. "Weak signals" are early indicators that something is changing but the change isn't widely recognized yet.
Ask yourself: What are we hearing about or seeing signs of that isn't a big deal yet, but could be in 3-5 years? These might include:
- Technologies still in the lab or just gaining traction.
- Shifts in attitudes among younger generations.
- New competitors trying strange business models.
You can ferret out weak signals by asking Kai, doing internet searching, consulting with industry experts, or asking employees and vendors who have their fingers on the pulse of business. For these "weak signal" possiblities that seem to offer the potential of changing the game for your organization, add them to your trends list above and tag them as opportunities or threats.
💡 The rest of this section is optional: You already have identified trends to populate opportunities and threats in your SWOT analysis. Parts 2 and 3 use more advanced tools that can help you sharpen your priorities and build scenarios useful in developing robust strategies.
Part 2 (Optional): Categorize & Prioritize Trends
How to categorize the trends for further insight
What you will do in this step
You will sort the trends into four boxes based on:
- how important each trend is, and
- how predictable it seems.
This will help you determine which trends are:
- "Important and predictable" to consider in your strategy,
- "Important and unpredictable" for possible use in creating 4 different scenarios describing possible futures,
- "Unimportant and unpredictable" to merely monitor, and
- "Unimportant and predictable" to set aside for now.
The grid boxes are on two axes
The vertical axis is Importance
Ask yourself: “How much is this trend likely to affect our organization and our ability to achieve our vision?”
- More important: likely will have a big impact, good or bad.
- Less important: likely will have a small or limited impact, good or bad.
The horizontal axis is Predictability
Ask yourself: “How predictable is this trend over the next 2–5 years?”
- More predictable: the trend seems likely to continue or unfold in a fairly clear way.
- Less predictable: the trend could shift in unexpected ways or depends on uncertain forces.
What the 4 boxes mean
These trends are likely to matter and are fairly predictable.
Use them in your planning.
These trends could matter a lot, but their direction is uncertain.
Good candidates for scenario-building.
These trends are unlikely to matter much, and they’re unpredictable.
Monitor lightly.
These trends are predictable but probably won’t matter much.
Set aside for now.
How to decide where each trend goes
You can start by asking: “Is this trend important enough that we should consider it in our strategy?”
If yes, place it in either: (1) More Important & Predictable or (2) More Important & Less Predictable.
If not, place it in either: (4) Less Important & Predictable or (3) Less Important & Less Predictable.
Optional: Put a short reason in each trend
If you want more clarity, you can add a short note like:
Example:
“I’m putting this trend in Box 2 because it could significantly affect our market, but the direction is unclear.”
Or you can use this:
“This trend is (1) More Important & Predictable, (2) More Important & Unpredictable, (3) Less Important & Predictable, or (4) Less Important & Unpredictable, with a short reason for each.”
What to do now
-
Start with your Important (Tagged) items.
For each one, decide:
– More predictable → put it in Box 1
– Less predictable → put it in Box 2 -
Then sort the rest of the trends.
For trends you did not tag as Important:
– Less predictable → put it in Box 3 (Monitor)
– More predictable → put it in Box 4 (Set Aside)
💡 User Tip: If a box becomes too full to easily read, click the Expand Icon (⤢) in the top-right corner of the box to view all the contents. Click it again (⤡) to return to the grid view.
Your Trends from Part 1
High Importance (Tagged)
Drag to Box 1 or 2
Lower Importance
Drag to Box 3 or 4
1. Plan For These:
Important & Predictable Trends
(These changes are coming and will have a big impact. Your strategic plan must address them directly.)
2. Prep For Uncertainty:
Important & Unpredictable Trends
(These matter, but could go different ways. You will use these in Part 3 to build "what if" scenarios.)
3. Keep an Eye On:
Unimportant & Predictable Trends
(These will likely happen but won't break the business. Monitor them, but don't over-plan.)
4. Set Aside:
Unimportant & Unpredictable Trends
(Low impact and unpredictable. You can safely ignore these for this planning cycle.)
What to do with your results:
- Items in Box 1 (Plan For These): These are near certainties. You will consider strategies to address them in the "Create Your Plan" phase.
- Items in Box 2 (Prepare For Uncertainty): These are your "wild cards." These trends will be considered in Part 3 below to build your Scenarios.
- Items in Boxes 3 & 4: These are low priority trends. Keep an eye on those in Box 3. Otherwise, focus your resources on the top row.
Part 3 (Optional): Futures Analysis
Why look at different futures?
Some of the most important trends—the ones you put in the "Prepare for Uncertainty" box—could unfold in very different ways. Instead of betting everything on one prediction, use this section to explore a few different "what if" stories. This helps you build a plan that works no matter which way the wind blows.
Step 1: Pick Your Two Biggest "Question Marks"
Look at your list from the "Prepare for Uncertainty" box (Box 2). Select the two trends that:
- Could change your business the most (for better or worse).
- Are independent of each other (they don't necessarily move together).
Tip: Pick the two that keep you up at night or get you most excited.
(No items in Box 2 yet. Drag items into the "Prepare For Uncertainty" box in Part 2 to populate this list.)
Step 3: Build Your Scenarios
Don't worry about which scenario is 'most likely.' The goal is to have four distinct pictures of what your world might look like, so you can build strategies that work in all of them.
Give each scenario a short name (such as “Rapid Growth” or “Lack of Talent”) and write 1–3 sentences describing what it would look like if it comes to pass.
Examples of Scenario Names and Stories
Scenario A – Trend 1 Favorable, Trend 2 Favorable
- Rising Tide: The overall environment is supportive, and your organization can grow programs, partnerships, and capacity without major constraints.
Scenario B – Trend 1 Favorable, Trend 2 Unfavorable
- The Wild West: You have freedom and flexibility to innovate, but budgets are tight and decision-makers are cautious about spending.
Scenario C – Trend 1 Unfavorable, Trend 2 Favorable
- The Walled Garden: Demand is strong, but regulations, compliance requirements, or internal constraints slow down your ability to respond.
Scenario D – Both trends Unfavorable
- The Squeeze: Costs are rising while demand or funding is falling. You must make tough trade-offs to stay viable.
Scenario A
In this world:
Scenario B
In this world:
Scenario C
In this world:
Scenario D
In this world:
Step 4: How to Use These Scenarios
As you move into the "Create Your Plan" phase, test your strategies against these four worlds:
- Stress Test: Would your goals still make sense if the "Unfavorable" scenario happens? If not, do you need a backup plan?
- Flexibility: The best strategies work reasonably well in all four scenarios.
- Early Warning: Keep an eye on these trends. If you see the world moving toward one specific scenario, be ready to adjust your tactics quickly.
Stakeholder Insight
Stakeholder Insight (optional): Why and how to generate and use it
Stakeholder Insight is optional, but powerful when used intentionally. FastTrack helps you design questions and apply what you learn—it doesn’t run the survey for you.
- Prepare — choose stakeholder groups and questions
- Collect — gather responses in your preferred survey tool and export to CSV
- Apply — turn responses into themes, tensions, SWOT items, and priorities you will use
FastTrack helps you design a stakeholder survey, but it does not collect responses. You will copy the questions into your own survey tool (for example, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms).
- Use the question bank below - these are the questions all stakeholders should answer.
- Click Copy the question bank, paste it into your survey tool, and add your intro/instructions.
- You can add extra questions to your survey, but note that longer surveys are likely to generate less response and fewer completions.
- Collect responses using Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey (or similar).
- Export to CSV. (Optional) use the FastTrack template and upload your file here.
- Note: If you asked extra questions, you will have to revise the FastTrack template if you want to include them in the analysis.
- Use AI (recommended): click Copy Kai analysis prompt, paste into Kai (or another AI), and use the output to fill in the fields below.
- Capture only what’s strategically useful: themes, tensions, SWOT items, and priorities.
- Use “Achieve in 5 years” responses to sharpen your picture of success.
- SWOT: In the SWOT section, click Add Stakeholder Insight Findings to bring in items you selected for SWOT.
- Goals & Strategies: Themes and tensions you selected for strategy appear as hints while drafting goals and strategies.
- Synthesis:
Synthesis: Stakeholder insight informs decisions—it doesn’t dictate them.
Combine it with business and environmental data.
Step 1: Prepare for Stakeholder Insight
This step offers recommended survey questions to use to gather insight for analysis in this section. Copy and paste the question bank into your survey or interview guide. Note: If you want to add other questions to your survey, you will have to adapt the csv format offered in the next step.
- 1. What do you see as the organization’s greatest strengths?
- 2. What do you see as the organization’s greatest weaknesses?
- 3. What opportunities do you think the organization should pursue to be more effective, innovative, financially strong, or successful over the next five years?
- 4. What do you see as the greatest threats to the organization’s financial integrity, service quality, and overall success over the next five years?
- 5. What do you think are the most important things the organization should begin doing now for greater future success?
- 6. Envision the organization five years from now. What do you think are the most important things it should achieve by then?
Step 2: Collect & import responses
Collect & import responses (recommended workflow)
Click Download CSV template for a preformatted template to use for uploading multiple stakeholder survey or interview responses.
Click Upload completed CSV to upload responses: The uploaded CSV can be the preformatted downloaded CSV template (see above) or a Google/Microsoft Form CSV export. (The uploader attempts to map common headers like “strengths”, “weaknesses”, etc.)
Click Clear responses to delete all responses from the Responses table below.
Click Copy Kai analysis prompt for a prompt to paste into Kai (or another AI) to analyze the responses for Key Themes; Tensions / Contradictions; Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats; and Strategic Priorities.
Add a single response manually (optional)
Responses
Step 3: Analyze, synthesize & apply insights
Stakeholder input compilation
Stakeholder insights
Suggestion: Copy and paste from Kai's analysis and edit as needed. You can selectively feed items into your SWOT Analysis and Strategy creation.
Group similar points; label each theme clearly. Check Use in Strategy Creation for themes you want to carry forward into creating Goals and Strategies.
Capture key tradeoffs where stakeholder groups disagree or pull in different directions. These are strategic decisions to resolve (not problems to average away). Mark Use in Strategy Creation for tensions you want to keep visible when drafting Goals and Strategies.
List strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Check Use in SWOT for the items you want imported when you click Add Stakeholder Insight Findings in the SWOT Analysis section.
List stakeholder priorities, phrased as action-oriented statements (e.g., “Modernize onboarding to reduce time-to-productivity by X”).
Competitive Analysis
Determining your competitive positioning
Analyze your key competitors to understand your competitive positioning. You can analyze up to five key competitors or competitor types.
For each competitor, evaluate their characteristics and identify their advantages and vulnerabilities relative to your organization.
In the SWOT section you will get the opportunity to import your competitive advantages and vulnerabilities versus the competition as strengths and weaknesses.
💡 Competition exists in all sectors - businesses compete for customers, non-profits compete for donors and attention, and government agencies compete for resources and talent.
Competitor 1
SWOT Analysis
Before You Begin: How This SWOT Fits Into Your Plan
A SWOT analysis summarizes your internal Strengths & Weaknesses and external Opportunities & Threats. The SWOT can be fed directly from your earlier work—you can use the results from prior sections to populate the inputs. Use the Add buttons to bring items forward; then review and refine them and through brainstorming or individual insight add what might be missing, and, finally, prioritize them to focus your plan.
How to work this section:
- Step 1 — Gather, add, and condense: Import items from the earlier sections using the Add buttons. Then brainstorm well to add what is missing. Run a focused brainstorming exercise with your team (or solo): aim for quantity first (no judging), then combine duplicates or similar items, clarify wording, and remove weak items. But it's OK it the list is still long. The next step addresses that.
- Step 3 — Rank by importance: Make quick, paired comparisons that produce each item’s Importance (0–100).
- Step 4 — Synthesize for action: In this step you get the initial ranking, and you can optionally run Refine Rankings for a short set of “Most vs. Least Important” prompts to improve separation among close items. (Some ties may remain—that simply means items are statistically close.)
Shortcut to remember: Go wide → go narrow → then decide. Start broad, consolidate and rank, then decide with an eye to pressing your advantages, lowering your risks, and addressing near-term feasibility.
Step 1: Brainstorm & Refine
Instructions: This is your brainstorming and refinement hub.
- Capture: First, use the "Add" buttons to import key findings from your previous work. Then, type any additional items directly into the four textareas below (one item per line). The goal is to get all potential factors down without judgment.
- Refine: After your initial brainstorm, review the lists. This is your opportunity to edit items for clarity, combine similar ideas into a single, stronger point, or delete items that are duplicates or no longer seem relevant.
- Confirm: The refined lists you finalize here will be used in the next step for prioritization. Once you are satisfied, proceed to Step 2.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Step 2: Consolidate Your SWOT Items
Instructions: Click the green Archive less important items button if you want to drop SWOT items to focus on what's more important. Click the green Combine similar items button if you want to reduce similar entries. Your changes will show in the SWOT Analysis in Step 1 and the sidebar when you click Save SWOT changes.
- Archive less important items: Click Archive less important items, then check items you want to move out of the active list and click Archive selected. Archived items are listed for review.
- Combine similar items: Click Combine similar items, then check two or more duplicates and click Combine selected. Edit the suggested wording if needed and click Save. Combined items are listed for review.
- Finish: When you’re satisfied with your consoliated SWOT, click Save SWOT changes at the bottom.
Step 3: Prioritize Your SWOT Items
Instructions: This step uses a powerful method called Best-Worst Scaling to turn your brainstormed lists into a clear, ranked order of importance. This process is more effective than simple rating, as it forces strategic trade-offs.
- Prioritize: Click the "Prioritize" button. For each category, you will see a series of simple tasks.
- Choose Best & Worst: In each task, you will see a small set of items (typically 3 or 4) from your list. From that set, simply select the one you believe is the Most Important and the one that is the Least Important.
- Suspend & Resume: Your progress is saved with every click. You can use the "Close & Save Progress" button inside the pop-up to stop at any time. When you click "Prioritize" again, you will resume exactly where you left off.
- Reset: If you want to start over, click the "Reset / Start Over" button. This will clear all your prioritization and let you begin from scratch.
Note: For very short lists (3 items or fewer), you will be asked to simply drag them into rank order.
Step 4: Synthesize & Strategize
Instructions: This step turns your ranked SWOT lists into a practical plan. Review the rankings and (optionally) refine close calls before you choose how many items to carry forward.
- Review ranked lists: Each item shows an Importance (0–100) score and a bar. Higher scores = higher priority in that category.
- Refine close calls (optional): If items cluster with the same score, click the small button near a list header (e.g., Refine Scores). You’ll answer a few “Most/Least Important” prompts among the top items.
Note: This improves separation but does not guarantee all ties disappear—ties simply mean the items are statistically close in priority. - Select items for your plan: Use the sliders to choose how many of the top-ranked items to include from each category. When scores are tied at the cutoff, decide with judgement:
- Prefer items that offer strong advantages that you want to press or reduce risks you need to address.
- Favor items that clearly connect to your Vision, Goals, and near-term capacity.
- Confirm your choices: Your selections flow into the next sections (Vision, Goals, Strategies and Action Steps).
Create Your Plan
Mission & Values
Mission Statement: What is your organization's purpose?
Your mission statement defines your organization's core purpose—what you do, who you serve, and the value you provide every day. It is the anchor for your strategic plan.
How it's used in planning: Every part of your strategic plan, from your ambitious Vision to your daily Action Steps, must align with and support this mission. It acts as a critical filter for decision-making: if a potential goal or strategy doesn't help you fulfill your mission, it should be reconsidered.
Mission Statement Guidance
Consider these questions to help you define your organization's mission:
- Purpose: What do we do? What is our core activity?
- Customer/Audience: Who do we serve? Who benefits from our work?
- Value: What value do we provide? What need do we fulfill? What problem do we solve?
- Approach: How do we do it? What are our core competencies?
A good mission statement often follows this format: To [action verb] for [target audience] by [means] to [achieve this outcome].
Examples of Effective Mission Statements
- Aldi: Provide value and quality to our customers by being fair and efficient in all we do.
- Clarks: Our passion is to listen to our customers and deliver the right product at the right place and the right time.
- Feeding America: Working together to end hunger.
- Kroger: To be our customers' favorite food store.
- LinkedIn: Connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful.
- Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
- Southwest Airlines: The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.
- Tesla: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
- Whole Foods: Nourish people and the planet.
- Yeti: Built for the wild.
- American Red Cross: Prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.
- Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
- World Wildlife Fund: To conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth.
- Girl Scouts of the USA: Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.
- Microsoft: To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
- Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
- United Way: To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good.
- Habitat for Humanity: Bringing people together to build homes, communities and hope.
- Uber: We ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion.
- Zoom: Delivering happiness.
- Walmart: We save people money so they can live better.
Values: What principles guide your organization?
Your core values are the enduring principles that define your organization's character and guide how you behave and make decisions. They are the non-negotiable beliefs that dictate what is right and wrong for your organization.
How they're used in planning: Your values set the boundaries for your strategy. As you develop your Vision, Goals, and Strategies, your values ensure you pursue success in the right way. They help you answer not just "what" you will do, but "how" you will do it, ensuring your strategic choices reflect the culture you want to build and maintain.
List your core values and define how each is lived out in behavior:
Examples of Organizational Core Values
- Patagonia:
- Build the best product
- Cause no unnecessary harm
- Use business to protect nature
- Not bound by convention
- Google:
- Focus on the user and all else will follow
- It’s best to do one thing really, really well
- Fast is better than slow
- Democracy on the web works
- You can make money without doing evil
- Zappos:
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Be Passionate and Determined
- The Nature Conservancy:
- Integrity Beyond Reproach
- Respect for People, Communities, and Cultures
- Commitment to Diversity
- One Conservancy
- Tangible, Lasting Results
- IBM:
- Dedication to every client's success
- Innovation that matters – for our company and for the world
- Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships
Vision
Create a compelling vision
Your vision statement describes what great success looks like at the end of your planning period. It should paint a compelling picture of the future you want to create so it can guide your goals, strategies, and action steps.
How to create your vision
- Pick the time horizon: Think “at the end of this plan.”
- Describe the outcome: What will be true because you succeeded? What impact will you have?
- Make it specific and vivid: Include the kind of results, reputation, or reach you want (avoid generic phrases like “we are the best”).
- Write from the perspective of the future: Describe the organization’s success when it reaches the mountaintop.
- Keep it short: Aim for 1–2 strong sentences people can remember and repeat. (You can also write a longer internal version, including details you may not share externally—such as revenue or profitability.)
Quick formats that work
- By the end of this plan, we are… (future state + outcome)
- We are known for… (reputation + distinctiveness)
- Our customers/community are… (impact + benefit)
- We deliver… at scale by… (results + reach)
Strong vision checklist
- Inspiring: People feel motivated by it
- Concrete: You can tell what “done” looks like
- Ambitious but believable: A stretch, not fantasy
- Aligned: Fits your mission and values
- Useful: Helps you develop goals and strategies
Using FastTrack™ to create your vision
Refer to the vision statement examples and consider the contents of your SWOT analysis. You can use the questions and/or work with Kai to generate several draft visions, then rate them with VisionLens™ to pick the best one.
When you have a vision set, enter it in the Vision Statement box below.
There are several ways to develop your vision. Choose the level of assistance you need.
If you already have a vision: Enter it in the Vision Statement box above. When you’re satisfied, you can move on.
If you’d like help drafting one: Use the input and examples below to think through what extraordinary success would look like. Draft your vision and place the result in the Vision Statement box.
If you want advanced support: You can generate multiple vision options in two ways:
- Draft-based prompt: Start with a draft you’ve written. It's a simple process to use your pre-planning inputs (including SWOT, stakeholder input, mission, and values) to build a prompt you can paste into Kai. Kai will generate 3 vision options you can refine.
- Question-based development: Answer a set of questions to help you (or Kai) generate vision options. THe prompt builder will give you a prompt for Kai so it will generate up to 5 drafts.
Evaluate and refine (optional but powerful): You can rate up to five vision options at a time using the VisionLens™ Evaluator. Edit and re-rate drafts as needed. When you’re ready, click Use This Vision to adopt a draft—your chosen vision will populate the Vision Statement box.
Examples of effective vision statements
- Amazon: To be Earth's most customer-centric company.
- ASOS: To be the go-to fashion destination for 20-somethings, globally.
- Charity:Water: To end the water crisis in our lifetime by ensuring that every person on the planet has access to life's most basic need — clean drinking water.
- Hulu: Lead the future of Streaming TV by creating new and familiar experiences for our viewers, amplifying bold voices, and challenging our diverse builders and creators to push the boundaries of storytelling and technology.
- Mayo Clinic: To provide an unparalleled experience as the most trusted partner for health care.
- PayPal: Democratizing financial services and empowering people and businesses to join and thrive in the global economy.
- Purely Elizabeth: We believe that food can heal. The scale of food production is enormous, but it is also our greatest opportunity to make a positive impact on the health of the planet and individuals through responsible sourcing and agricultural practices. We know it won't happen overnight, but we're committed to this journey and its role in helping you thrive.
- Weyerhaeuser: Working together to be the world’s premier timber, land, and forest products company.
- Whirlpool Corporation: Be the best kitchen & laundry company, in constant pursuit of improving life at home.
Accept the vision you have entered or choose your approach:
Refine and strengthen your vision
If you already have a draft vision above, you can refine it directly by editing it. If you'd like help from Kai, use the prompt builder below to generate 3 improved alternatives (grounded in your plan), then paste the best version back into the Vision Statement box above.
Generate & Compare Vision Options
Generate & Compare Vision Options
Here are questions to prompt thinking about how the organization would appear and be doing if it were extraordinarily successful in achieving its mission over the duration of this plan. With your answers in hand, you can draft and evaluate compelling visions of great success to find the vision that's just right.
Generate 5 draft visions with Kai (recommended): Use the prompt builder below to generate five varied, grounded draft visions in “mountaintop future-state” voice. Then paste each draft into the Draft Vision boxes in the next section and score them with VisionLens™.
Evaluate & Select the Strongest Vision
Draft Vision Statements
When you have draft vision statement options, you can rate up to five of them using the VisionLens™ Vision Evaluator below and edit and re-rate them as needed. When you find the vision statement that's just right, click the "Use This Vision" button below it and it will appear in the Vision Statement box.
💡 Hint: You and/or team members can draft multiple vision statements to test. Kai can help you process your responses to the vision creation questions into several draft vision statements. Use the prompt builder above to generate drafts, then refine and mash up the best parts.
VisionLens™ Vision Evaluator
How the VisionLens™ Evaluator Works
This tool helps you objectively assess the strength of your draft vision statements. For the draft you've selected to rate:
- Score Each Criterion: Read each criterion and its description, then assign a score based on how well the draft vision meets that standard.
- Document Your Rationale: Use the notes field to explain why you gave that score. This is crucial for team discussions and refining the vision.
- Review the Total Score: The evaluator will automatically calculate a total score out of 100 and provide a recommendation (e.g., from "Exceptional" to "Ineffective").
What to Do with the Evaluations:
The goal is to find or create the most powerful and achievable vision.
- Compare Drafts: Rate each of your draft vision statements. The one with the highest score is likely your strongest candidate. The "Top Score" badge will automatically highlight the best-rated draft.
- Identify Weaknesses: Look at the scores for individual criteria. A low score in an area like "Stakeholder Appeal" or "Realism of the Timeline" indicates a specific weakness you can address.
- Iterate and Refine: Use the scores and your notes to revise your drafts. Can you make a "Promising" vision into a "Strong" one by making it more inspiring or realistic? Combine the best elements of different drafts to create a new, higher-scoring version.
- Adopt the Best: Once you have a vision with a high score that the team agrees on, use the "Use This Vision" button to make it your official vision statement for the plan.
Draft Vision Being Evaluated:
Vision Power (45 points)
Strategic Feasibility (30 points)
Implementation Readiness (25 points)
Strategic Gaps & Remedies
Identifying Strategic Gaps
Strategic gaps are the major variances between the future described in your strategic vision and the likely future your organization will experience without intervention.
Use what you've already uncovered:
- What was rated "so-so" or "poor" in your Business Assessment?
- What are your weaknesses and threats in the SWOT?
- What must be overcome or corrected to reach your vision?
Enter up to 10 gaps and their remedies. For the most critical items you want to address, click the "Tag for Strategy" button.
These tagged items will then be displayed in the Strategic Goals and Strategies sections to help you develop a plan to overcome them.
Your Vision:
Not set
Keep your vision in mind as you identify strategic gaps that must be addressed to achieve it.
Strategic Goals by Strategy Area
How to set strategic goals
What You Will Do in This Section
Define 1–3 strategic goals for each strategy area. These goals describe the essential outcomes your organization must achieve over the term of your plan to move toward your vision of great success.
How to Develop Your Strategic Goals
- Start with your vision. Ask: “In the next X years (the length of your plan), what must become true for our vision to come to life?”
- Focus on each strategy area. Identify 1–3 significant outcomes needed for progress.
- Use your prioritized SWOT. Build on strengths, address weaknesses, seize opportunities, and guard against threats.
- Use your tagged Gaps & Remedies. Set goals that close priority gaps keeping you from your future state.
- Review your uncertainties and future scenarios (if you developed them in the Strategic Foresight section). Ask: “Which goals position us well across multiple plausible futures?”
- you are freer to use your strengths and opportunities to press for greater success, change, and growth. Favor goals that stretch the organization—pursuing growth, new opportunities, greater progress, and bigger outcomes.
- you are directed to mitigate or remedy weaknesses and exposure to threats. Seek goals that strengthen your foundation, align the organization, close critical gaps, shore up finances, improve operations, and/or reduce risk exposure before committing to major growth or expansive new initiatives.
What Strong Strategic Goals Look Like
- Grow and diversify revenue streams to strengthen financial resilience.
- Expand market reach through new partnerships and customer pathways.
- Enhance operational efficiency to improve delivery and scalability.
- Build organizational capacity to support long-term growth and innovation.
Input for setting strategic goals
Examples of Strategic Goals
Financial
- Generate 60% of revenue from recurring contracts
- Achieve positive cash flow every month
- Build cash reserves equal to six months operating expenses
- Secure multi-year commitments from five major funders
Customer/Client
- Become the preferred provider in our target market
- Achieve 85% client retention rate
- Double our commercial client base
- Serve 5,000 beneficiaries annually
People
- Retain 90% of high-performing staff year-over-year
- Achieve employee engagement scores above 80%
- Develop internal talent to fill 80% of leadership positions
- Achieve employer of choice status in our sector
Operations/Processes
- Reduce program delivery costs by 30%
- Implement integrated client management system
- Earn the Baldrige Quality Award
- Launch three new revenue-generating services
Strategic Goals
Strategies by Strategy Area
How to create strategies
What You Will Do in This Section
Strategies are the major commitments your organization will make to achieve each strategic goal. They describe the main approaches, initiatives, and decisions that will drive progress toward the goals and, thus, the vision.
How to Develop Your Strategies
- Start with your strategic goals. Ask: “What major approaches will help us achieve this goal?”
- Revisit your prioritized SWOT. Design strategies that leverage strengths, address weaknesses, seize opportunities, and protect against threats.
- Align with your leverage and risk scores. When leverage is high and risk is low/moderate, you can stretch for growth. When risk is high, prioritize stabilizing and mitigating weaknesses/threats.
- Incorporate tagged Gaps & Remedies. Look for strategies that close critical gaps and strengthen your foundation.
- Consider uncertainties and scenarios. Ask: “Which strategies work well across multiple plausible futures?”
What Strong Strategies Look Like
- Launch new revenue-generating services aligned with market needs.
- Build repeatable business development and marketing systems.
- Modernize internal systems and tools to improve speed and scalability.
- Invest in talent acquisition and onboarding to strengthen capacity.
Input for creating strategies
Examples of Strategies
Financial
- Create premium service tier to capture high-margin opportunities
- Develop recurring revenue through subscription or retainer models
- Expand revenue diversification to reduce dependency on one market
- Increase pricing strategy sophistication to strengthen profitability
Customer/Client
- Launch targeted customer acquisition campaigns in priority segments
- Expand distribution channels through partnerships
- Improve customer experience through service redesign
- Develop new offerings tailored to emerging client needs
People
- Implement leadership development program for key managers
- Create employee retention strategy and incentives
- Strengthen hiring and onboarding systems for key roles
- Implement cross-functional team structure
Operations/Processes
- Implement data-driven decision making across all operations
- Partner with technology provider for digital transformation
- Create franchise or licensing model for geographic expansion
- Integrate backward into supply chain to control quality and costs
Strategies
Objectives by Strategy Area
Developing Your Objectives by Strategy Area
Objectives are the key outcomes your organization must achieve within each Strategy Area to realize your Strategic Goals and, ultimately, fulfill your Vision. They act as a vital bridge, translating your broader goals into more focused statements of achievement. These objectives will later guide the development of your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and form the building blocks of your Strategy Map (Logic Model).
Next Steps: For each of your defined Strategy Areas, define its key objectives:
- Review Context: Carefully consider your organization's Vision, the adopted Strategic Goals for each Strategy Area, and the adopted Strategies for each area. These elements provide the primary inspiration for your objectives.
- Derive Key Outcomes: Based on this context, ask:
- "For each strategy area, what absolutely must be true or achieved within the Strategy Area for its Strategic Goals to be met?"
- "What are the most critical results that will demonstrate progress towards the Vision through this area?"
- Focus on Outcomes, Not Actions: Objectives describe what will be achieved (the desired state), not how it will be done.
- Example: Instead of "Implement a new outreach program," an objective is "Expanded community engagement."
- State Objectives as Achieved Results: Write your objectives as if they are already accomplished.
- Example: Instead of "To create a welcoming facility," your objective is "A welcoming facility."
- Aim for Clarity and Impact (4-6 per Strategy Area): Define a focused set of powerful objectives.
- Initial Measure of Success: For each objective, briefly note how you might measure its achievement. This is a preliminary thought for KPIs.
- Save Your Objectives: Once your objectives and their measures are developed, be sure to to save the plan. You can go back to edit or delete them at any time.
Input for creating objectives
Vision
Not set
Examples of Objectives
People & Operations Focused:
- Strong infrastructure for Board and volunteer team
- Paid CEO and paid staff
- Specific identified roles for volunteers
- Cohesive, supportive work culture
- A full set of standard operating procedures
- Operational policies and documents in place
- Technology that is enabling well-oiled operations
- Consistent client experience
- Clearly defined SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
Service Delivery & Impact Focused:
- Service model clarified and documented
- Services designed for high-quality and high-impact outcomes
- Outcomes measurement system operating effectively
- Improved and expanded services
- More people served
- Services well-aligned with community needs
- People served experience positive outcomes
Financial & Revenue Focused:
- Sustainable revenue model in place
- Diversified funding sources
- Predictable income from donors, grants, and programs
- Financial systems and reporting operating effectively
- Strong financial position with adequate reserves
- Budget aligned to strategic priorities
Visibility, Marketing & Engagement Focused:
- Stronger visibility in the community
- More engaged supporters and volunteers
- Clear brand and messaging
- Expanded outreach and partnerships
- Broader stakeholder engagement
- Desired client mix and project mix achieved
- Stronger organizational brand
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Defining Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Defining Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measures that help your organization track progress towards achieving its strategic objectives and, ultimately, its vision. Think of KPIs as signs or mileposts that tell you if you're on course and how far you have come.
To develop effective KPIs:
- Review Your Objectives: Each KPI should directly support one of your strategic objectives for a Strategy Area. The objective and its preliminary measure (if defined) will be shown as context.
- Define the KPI Details: For each objective you want to measure, define one or more KPIs by specifying:
- KPI Name: A clear, descriptive name for the measure (e.g., "Monthly New Client Acquisition Rate," "Average Project Completion Time").
- Type:Running total, level, or Non-Numeric/Project.Unit of Measure: How the KPI will be quantified (e.g., %, $, Number, Days, Score out of 10).
- Target: The specific, desired level of performance you aim to achieve (e.g., "15%", "$50,000", "250 new clients").
- Baseline: The historical level, level at the start of the measurement period, or the current performance level before improvements are made. This helps in setting realistic targets and measuring progress.
- Benchmark: Optional. A reference point or standard used to compare your organization's performance against others—such as competitors, industry averages, or best-in-class performers (e.g., American Productivity & Quality Center - 15% or lower hospital readmission rate standard, Construction Industry Institute -top-quartile construction firms complete 80% or more of projects on or ahead of schedule.
- Person Responsible: The individual or team accountable for this KPI's performance.
- Data Source: Where the data to calculate the KPI will be obtained (e.g., "CRM System," "Financial Statements," "Customer Surveys").
- Reporting Frequency: How often the KPI will be tracked and reported (e.g., "Monthly," "Quarterly," "Annually").
- Consider KPI Target Time Periods: Effective management of your KPIs requires setting appropriate target time periods and establishing clear cycles for resetting those targets. This ensures your KPIs remain relevant and actionable throughout the plan's lifecycle.
- Annual targets work best for strategic, high-level metrics (revenue growth, market share, profitability) and goals tied to budgeting and strategic planning cycles. They suit metrics that need time to show meaningful change.
- Quarterly targets are ideal for many operational KPIs, sales and marketing metrics, and product development milestones, allowing for course correction while maintaining momentum.
- Monthly targets suit fast-moving operational metrics, customer service levels, digital marketing performance, and cash flow metrics.
- Weekly/Daily targets are only for highly operational metrics (call center volume, production output) and real-time performance management, metrics that are influenced day-to-day.
- Focus on What Matters: Don't create too many KPIs. Focus on the critical few that truly indicate success for each objective. Consider "leading indicators" (which measure activities driving future success) where possible, not just "lagging indicators" (which measure past results).
- Adopt Your KPIs: Once a KPI is defined and you're satisfied with it, "Adopt" it to include it in your plan. You can edit or unadopt KPIs later.
These KPIs will form the basis of your implementation dashboard and regular progress reviews, helping you stay on track and make informed decisions.
💡 A Note on Timelines: For best results, we recommend aligning your KPI time periods with your plan's official start date. Choosing 'Calendar year' for a non-calendar-year plan might make sense if your organization does important things on a calendar year basis (e.g., has an annual calendar year budget). But recognize that not aligning KPIs to the actual plan year may lead to confusion when reviewing plan outcomes.
Input for Creating KPIs
Your Vision:
Not set. Please define your Vision first.
Examples of KPIs
Below are illustrative examples. Actual KPIs should be tailored to your specific objectives and context.
Example 1: Financial Growth
- KPI Name: Annual Revenue Growth
- KPI Type: Level KPI: A constant number or percentage, with higher values the goal
- Unit of Measure: % | Target: 15% | Baseline: 10% (Previous Year) | Benchmark: Industry Average 12%
- Owner: CFO / Head of Sales
- Data Source: Accounting System / Sales Reports
- Reporting Frequency: Quarterly | KPI Time Period: Next 12 months
Example 2: Customer Satisfaction (Service Focus)
- KPI Name: Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- KPI Type: Level KPI: A constant number or percentage, with higher values the goal
- Unit of Measure: Score (-100 to +100) | Target: +50 | Baseline: +40 | Benchmark: Industry Top Quartile +45
- Owner: Head of Customer Service
- Data Source: Post-service Surveys
- Reporting Frequency: Monthly | KPI Time Period: Next 12 months
Example 3: Operational Efficiency (Non-Profit Program)
- KPI Name: Program Participant Completion Rate
- KPI Type: Level KPI: A constant number or percentage, with higher values the goal
- Unit of Measure: % | Target: 85% | Baseline: 75% | Benchmark: Similar programs average 80%
- Owner: Program Manager
- Data Source: Program Attendance & Completion Records (CRM)
- Reporting Frequency: Per Cohort / Quarterly | KPI Time Period: Next 12 months
Example 4: Staff Development (Internal Focus)
- KPI Name: Employee Training Hours per Quarter
- KPI Type: Level KPI: A constant number or percentage, with higher values the goal
- Unit of Measure: Hours/Employee | Target: 8 hours | Baseline: 4 hours | Benchmark: Company Goal based on development needs
- Owner: HR Manager
- Data Source: HR Training Logs / LMS
- Reporting Frequency: Quarterly | KPI Time Period: Next 12 months
Example 5: Customer Acquisition Cost
- KPI Name: Customer Acquisition Cost
- KPI Type: Level KPI: A constant number or percentage, with lower values the goal
- Unit of Measure: $ | Target: 50 | Baseline: 75 | Benchmark: 60
- Owner: Marketing Director
- Data Source: Sales/Marketing Budget
- Reporting Frequency: Monthly | KPI Time Period: Next 12 months
Example 6: Marketing Leads Generated
- KPI Name: Marketing Leads Generated
- KPI Type: Running Total KPI: Targeted increase or decrease from baseline, evenly spread over the time period
- Unit of Measure: Number | Target: 200 | Baseline: 100 | Benchmark: 150
- Owner: Marketing Team
- Data Source: CRM/Website Forms
- Reporting Frequency: Monthly | KPI Time Period: Next 12 months
Example 7: Operating Cash Flow
- KPI Name: Operating Cash Flow
- KPI Type: Running Total KPI: Targeted increase or decrease from baseline, seasonally adjusted over the time period
- Unit of Measure: $ | Target: 1,200,000 | Baseline: 0 | Benchmark: 950,000
- Owner: Chief Financial Officer
- Data Source: Financial Management System
- Reporting Frequency: Monthly | KPI Time Period: Fiscal year
- Seasonal Adjustments:
Jul: $60,000 | Aug: $85,000 | Sep: $130,000 | Oct: $70,000 | Nov: $120,000 | Dec: $95,000
Jan: $140,000 | Feb: $75,000 | Mar: $150,000 | Apr: $80,000 | May: $125,000 | Jun: $70,000
Example 8: New Employee Onboarding Program Launch
- KPI Name: New Employee Onboarding Program Launch
- KPI Type: Non-Numeric/Project KPI: Not started/In progress/Completed
- Unit of Measure: Status | Target: Launched | Baseline: Not started | Benchmark: N/A
- Owner: HR Director
- Data Source: HRIS/Project Plan
- Reporting Frequency: Quarterly | KPI Time Period: Other period
12‑Month Action Steps
Developing Your 12-Month Action Steps
Transforming Strategies into Action: Your 12-Month Action Steps
Effective strategies are only as good as their execution, and execution hinges on well-defined, actionable steps. Planning without a clear path to implementation is a common pitfall. This section helps you break down your adopted strategies into concrete 12-Month Action Steps.
Why Action Steps Matter:
- Clarity & Focus: They translate broader strategies into specific tasks.
- Accountability: Assigning ownership is critical for execution. (Owner and Timeline fields will be available for adopted action steps).
- Momentum: They create a rhythm of progress, preventing your plan from becoming a static document.
- Adaptability: While the vision and strategies might be long-term, 12-month action steps allow for agility and adjustment as circumstances change.
Developing Your Action Steps:
For each adopted Strategy within every Strategy Area, define the key Action Steps needed over the next 12 months to move that strategy forward. (While an Action Step is often thought of as a one-step tactic, it also can be a Strategic Initiative that is a series of coordinated tactics or a discrete project.) Think SMART:
- Specific: What exactly needs to be done? Who is involved?
- Measurable: How will you know it's complete or successful? What does "done" look like?
- Achievable: Is it realistic given your resources and constraints?
- Relevant: Does this action step directly support the parent Strategy and, ultimately, your Vision?
- Time-bound: What is the target completion timeframe (e.g., Q1, by end of June)?
Use the checkboxes for each draft action step to self-assess its SMARTness. A higher score indicates a more robust and implementable action step.
Next Steps:
- Review each adopted Strategy under its corresponding Strategy Area.
- At the top of the section, confirm any adopted 12-Month Action Steps, organized by strategy.
- Scroll down to develop additional 12-Month Action Steps as needed.
- For each Strategy, click the "+ Add Action Step" button.
- Define the action step clearly and concisely.
- Use the SMART criteria checkboxes to evaluate and strengthen your action step. Aim for a high SMART score.
- Once satisfied, Adopt the action step. Adopted steps will appear in the top list under the appropriate strategy.
- After adopting action steps, assign an owner, select start and end timelines, and drag and drop steps so they are correctly sequenced in a logical implementation order. (Note: An owner does not necessarily do the work. An owner’s responsibility is to ensure the work gets done.)
Remember, the key is not just setting goals (or in this case, action steps) but having a system for their implementation and tracking. This section is the first crucial part of that system.
💡 A Note on Timelines: For best results, we recommend aligning your Action Step time periods with your plan's official start date. Choosing 'Calendar year' for a non-calendar-year plan might make sense if your organization does important things on a calendar year basis (e.g., has an annual calendar year budget). But recognize that not aligning action steps to the actual plan year may lead to confusion when reviewing plan outcomes.
Input for creating action steps
Vision
Not set
Examples of Action Steps
Strategic Planning & Leadership
- Conduct quarterly leadership team reviews of strategic plan progress and adjust priorities based on results
- Establish a strategic plan dashboard with key metrics and share monthly updates with all stakeholders
Financial Management & Sustainability
- Implement new financial reporting system to provide real-time budget vs. actual data by March 31
- Diversify revenue streams by launching 2 new income sources by year-end
- Apply for 5 new grant opportunities aligned with strategic priorities by Q3
Customer/Constituent Engagement
- Launch customer/member satisfaction survey program with quarterly touchpoints starting Q1
- Implement new CRM system to track all constituent interactions by June 30
- Establish 24/7 online self-service portal for common requests by September
Marketing & Communications
- Develop comprehensive brand guidelines and train all staff by end of Q1
- Launch redesigned website with improved user experience by April 15
- Create content calendar for social media with 3x weekly posts starting immediately
Staff Development & Operations
- Implement quarterly performance review process for all staff by Q2
- Launch professional development program with $1,000 annual budget per employee
- Deploy new project management system to improve team collaboration by Q1
Program/Service Enhancement
- Pilot new service delivery model in 2 locations by Q2, evaluate for expansion
- Digitize top 5 manual processes to improve efficiency by year-end
- Launch online training/education platform reaching 500 users by Q4
Partnership & Collaboration
- Formalize 3 strategic partnerships with MOUs signed by June 30
- Host quarterly partner roundtables to coordinate services and reduce duplication
Technology & Innovation
- Complete IT infrastructure assessment and upgrade critical systems by Q3
- Implement cybersecurity training program for all staff with quarterly updates
- Automate top 10 repetitive tasks to free up 20% more staff time for strategic work
Measurement & Accountability
- Develop logic model linking activities to outcomes for all major programs by Q1
- Create public-facing dashboard showing progress on key goals, updating monthly
- Produce annual impact report showcasing measurable results by year-end
Growth & Expansion
- Open new location/expand service area to reach 25% more constituents by Q4
- Launch major donor/funder campaign targeting $500K in new commitments
- Increase membership/participation by 20% through targeted recruitment campaign
Adopted 12-Month Action Steps (drag and drop steps to reorder them under the strategy)
Develop 12-month action steps for implementing these strategies
Implement Your Plan
Implementation Readiness
Preparing to Implement
Before you commit time, money, and attention to execution, confirm your plan is complete and aligned, stress-test financial feasibility (optional), and assess readiness to implement.
Step 1: Plan Completeness & Alignment Check
This check gives you quick feedback on overall plan completeness and coherence. It does not force a single strategy style—it simply highlights missing pieces and obvious contradictions.
What it looks at: Vision clarity, goals/strategies/action steps coverage, and whether your selected basis for competition and business model(s) are reflected in your vision options.
Tip: Your Implementation Readiness % is limited by plan quality. If your Readiness Assessment score is higher than your Plan Completeness & Alignment score, we show the lower number.
Step 2: Financial Modeling to Validate Your Plan and Guide Implementation (Optional)
Step 3: Implementation Readiness Assessment
Use this assessment to gauge your organization's readiness to execute the strategic plan effectively. A high score indicates a strong foundation for success.
This assessment is a dynamic checklist, not just a one-time score. As you complete the following implementation planning steps—defining your team, setting milestones, and creating a communication schedule—you will be able to return to this assessment and check off the corresponding items.
Updating your assessment will improve your score, directly reflecting your organization's increased readiness to execute the plan effectively. This approach turns the assessment from a simple report card into an actionable guide for preparing your launch.
Requirement
Team and Leadership
Communication
Action Steps and Timing
Resources
Monitoring and Measurement
Implementation Plan
Developing Your Implementation Plan
With your Vision, Goals, Strategies, Objectives, KPIs, and 12-Month Action Steps defined, the next critical phase is to detail how this plan will be brought to life. An Implementation Plan serves as the operational roadmap for executing your strategy, ensuring accountability, and managing resources effectively.
Simply having a strategic plan is not enough; success hinges on a disciplined execution process. Planning is not an event—it’s an ongoing process.
This section helps you turn your strategic plan into an actionable roadmap—clarifying who will lead implementation, how progress will be monitored, and how you will keep the organization aligned and engaged.
In this section, you will:
- Assess your readiness to implement your plan.
- Define leadership and accountability for implementation.
- Confirm your annual action steps, owners, and start and completion dates.
- Set key milestones with target completion dates and metrics for success.
- Set quarterly and annual plan update, assessment and replanning dates.
- Consider the resources needed for effective plan implementation.
- Create a risk and contingencies plan to raise the odds of successful implementation.
- Craft your strategic messaging.
- Set your schedule for communicating plan progress.
Step 1: Strategic Plan Summary
To change the implementation dates, please update the "Planning Period" and/or the "Plan Implementation Start" and "Plan Implementation End" dates in the "Initial Information" section. This may require you to reset the timelines for your 12-Month Action Steps.
Step 2: Plan Management
Step 3: Action Step Implementation Plan
To change your action steps and/or owners and start and complete dates, go to the 12-Month Action Steps Section. Otherwise, this is your roadmap for implementation. You will have further opportunities to update it in your monthly check-ins and in your quarterly progress assessments.
Step 4: Key Milestones & Validation
What is a Milestone? While your Objectives describe the ongoing conditions of success (e.g., "A strong financial position"), Milestones are the major, specific achievements that prove you are on your way. They are the most important signposts on your implementation map.
A good litmus test is to ask: "Is this something we complete once, or is it a state we must continuously maintain?" If you complete it once (like "Launch new website"), it's a Milestone. If it's a state you must maintain (like "An effective online presence"), it's an Objective.
Examples of Milestones
- Milestone: Expand into new international market
Target Completion: Q2 2024
Metric for Success: Generate 10% of total revenue from the new market within the first year - Milestone: Launch new flagship product
Target Completion: Q3 2023
Metric for Success: Achieve 25% market share within the first 6 months of launch - Milestone: Complete company-wide digital transformation
Target Completion: Q4 2025
Metric for Success: Increase operational efficiency by 30% and reduce IT costs by 20% - Milestone: Establish strategic partnership with industry leader
Target Completion: Q1 2024
Metric for Success: Secure two joint projects within the first year of partnership - Milestone: Acquire complementary business to expand offerings
Target Completion: Q2 2026
Metric for Success: Integrate acquired company and achieve 15% revenue growth in combined business - Milestone: Implement new sustainability initiative
Target Completion: Q4 2023
Metric for Success: Reduce carbon footprint by 25% and improve ESG rating - Milestone: Rebrand company to reflect new market positioning
Target Completion: Q3 2024
Metric for Success: Increase brand awareness by 50% and improve customer sentiment scores - Milestone: Open new research and development center
Target Completion: Q1 2025
Metric for Success: Develop two new patent-pending technologies within the first 18 months - Milestone: Launch employee development and upskilling program
Target Completion: Q2 2023
Metric for Success: Achieve 90% employee participation and improve retention rates by 15% - Milestone: Complete IPO and become publicly traded company
Target Completion: Q4 2026
Metric for Success: Raise $100 million in capital and achieve target valuation
Step 5: Plan Assessment and Update Dates
See the following Implement Your Plan sections - Monthly Check-In, Quarterly Progress Assessment, and Annual Assessment and Replanning - for guidance on setting and conducting periodic plan assessment, adjustment, and replanning sessions. It's a best practice to set the dates for these sessions at the start of the annual plan implementation cycle.
Step 6: Resource Planning Guidance
A strategic plan is only achievable if it is properly resourced. A comprehensive budget and resource plan is a detailed, offline process. Use the following prompts to guide your internal planning meetings.
Financial Resources
- To implement your action steps for the next 12 months, what is a high-level cost estimate (e.g., staffing expense, marketing spend, capital expense)?
- Is this cost already covered in your existing operating budget? If not, what is the plan to secure these funds?
Human Resources & Expertise
- Do your current team members have the skills and bandwidth for the key first-year action steps?
- What are the most critical skill gaps? Do these require hiring new staff, training existing staff, or engaging contractors/consultants?
Technology & Tools
- What specific software, equipment, or other tools are necessary to execute the plan, and have the costs and implementation timelines been assessed?
Step 7: Risk and Contingency Plan
Proactively identify potential obstacles to your plan's success. For each risk, describe how you might prevent it (mitigation) and what you will do if it occurs anyway (contingency).
Examples of Risks & Contingencies
- Risk: Data breach compromises customer information
Mitigation: Implement multi-factor authentication and encrypt sensitive data
Contingency: Have a crisis communication plan ready and offer identity protection services to affected customers - Risk: Key supplier goes out of business
Mitigation: Diversify supply chain and maintain relationships with backup suppliers
Contingency: Activate alternative suppliers and adjust production schedule to minimize disruption - Risk: Negative media coverage damages company reputation
Mitigation: Foster positive relationships with media and proactively manage brand image
Contingency: Deploy a pre-prepared crisis PR plan and engage in transparent communication with stakeholders - Risk: New competitor enters the market with a disruptive product
Mitigation: Continuously invest in R&D and stay attuned to market trends
Contingency: Accelerate innovation efforts and consider strategic partnerships or acquisitions - Risk: Economic downturn leads to reduced consumer spending
Mitigation: Build a diverse product portfolio and maintain a lean cost structure
Contingency: Adjust pricing strategy and focus on value-driven offerings to retain customers - Risk: Regulatory changes disrupt business operations
Mitigation: Engage in proactive government relations and stay informed of potential policy shifts
Contingency: Adapt business processes to ensure compliance and explore new opportunities created by the changes - Risk: Talent shortage impedes company growth
Mitigation: Develop a strong employer brand and invest in employee training and development
Contingency: Explore alternative talent pools and consider outsourcing or automation for certain roles - Risk: Cybersecurity attack halts business operations
Mitigation: Implement robust cybersecurity measures and conduct regular employee awareness training
Contingency: Have a detailed incident response plan and maintain offline backups of critical data and systems
Step 8: Communicating Your New Strategic Direction
A critical part of successfully implementing your new strategic plan is clearly communicating the rationale, purpose and expected impact of the plan to both internal and external stakeholders. Develop a concise, powerful message that articulates your new strategic direction and conveys:
- The importance and boldness of your vision for the future
- The case for why change is imperative
- The benefits that will come from successfully implementing the plan
- A call-to-action to rally people behind the plan
Your strategic direction message should inspire confidence, motivation and alignment around the path forward. It will serve as the foundation for ongoing communications. Consider your key audiences and what will resonate most with them.
Examples of Strategic Direction Messages
Walmart's Strategic Direction (2022):
"Our world is rapidly evolving, and to better serve our customers and communities, Walmart must transform. Our strategic direction is to become the world's most trusted retailer by doubling down on our strengths and innovating for the future. We will accelerate investments in our people, technology, and supply chain to deliver exceptional value, convenience, and customer experience across all channels. By leveraging our scale and embracing change, we will create shared value, strengthen our business, and help people live better. Together, we will unlock the full potential of our business and shape the future of retail. Join us in making a difference for the millions of customers we serve worldwide."
Unilever's Strategic Direction (2021):
"At Unilever, our strategic direction is driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace. We will continue to evolve our portfolio into high-growth spaces, build a purpose-led, future-fit organization, and deliver superior long-term financial performance. Our multi-stakeholder model, focus on operational excellence, and commitment to being a leader in sustainability will create value for all. By empowering our people, leveraging our global scale, and collaborating with partners, we will create a brighter future for all our stakeholders. Our strategic choices will not only drive growth and profitability but also contribute to a fairer, more socially inclusive world. Join us as we work to deliver consistent, competitive, profitable, and responsible growth."
Amnesty International's Strategic Direction (2022-2030):
"In a world where human rights are under unprecedented threat, Amnesty International's strategic direction is more critical than ever. Our vision is a world where everyone enjoys all human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To achieve this, we will grow our global movement, strengthen the impact of our campaigns, and be an unstoppable force for change. We will adapt to new challenges, invest in our people and technology, and be a true ally to those fighting for justice. By harnessing the power of collective action and fearless advocacy, we will hold the powerful to account and create lasting human rights impact. Join us as we work to create a world where human rights are enjoyed by all."
Step 9: Communication Schedule
Ongoing communications about plan progress help drive implementation. Set dates for quarterly updates to be issued after the dates for quarterly update sessions set in Step 7: Plan Assessment and Update Dates.
Enter planned dates:
Quarterly plan communication updates for staff and stakeholders (enter planned dates for each):
Implementation Dashboard
How to Use Your Strategic Implementation Dashboard
Your Implementation Dashboard is a living tool designed to drive strategic execution through regular monitoring and action. Here's how to maximize its value:
Review Frequency
- Weekly or bi-weekly and at least monthly: Upadate the dashboard. Check KPI trends and action step progress. Look for concerning or positive trends and changes and review financial ratios
- Quarterly if not monthly: Assess Milestone and Strategic Objectives progress and consider action plan adjustments to advance this progress
Focus Your Attention
- Start with the status indicators - Red items need immediate attention
- Check milestone progress - Ensure you're on track for major deliverables
- Review KPI trends - Look for patterns, not just point-in-time data
- Identify blockers - What's preventing progress on yellow/red items?
Drive Action
- Don't just monitor—act: Each review should result in specific next steps
- Update ownership: Ensure every metric and action has a clear owner
- Escalate early: Address yellow items before they turn red
- Celebrate wins: Acknowledge completed milestones and met targets
Keep It Current
- An up-to-date dashboard enables proactive decision-making and helps keep your plan alive and relevant in achieving your strategic vision and goals.
- Update data at least monthly and preferably weekly
- Refresh targets based on learnings
- Add new initiatives as strategies evolve
Remember: This dashboard is meant to facilitate conversations and decisions, not replace them. Use it as a springboard for strategic discussions about what's working, what isn't, and what needs to change.
Strategic Implementation Dashboard
Last Updated: Not set
12-Month Action Steps
Using Action Step Progress Reviews for Strategy Management
Maintain Momentum Through Regular Reviews:
- Clarity & Focus: Action Steps translate your broad strategies into concrete, manageable tasks. Update and review them at least monthly to track progress and keep the team focused.
- Accountability: Each step has an owner. Regular check-ins reinforce this ownership and ensure progress doesn't stall.
- Identify Blockers: Use your reviews to ask critical questions: Is this step on track? If not, what's blocking it? Does the owner have the resources they need? Is the timeline still realistic?
- Adaptability: While your vision is long-term, your action steps are agile. Use this dashboard to adjust near-term priorities in response to challenges and opportunities without losing sight of the main strategy.
No action steps defined or adopted yet.
Key Performance Indicators
Using Key Performance Indicators for Strategy Management
Look Beyond the Numbers to Guide Your Strategy:
- Focus on Trends: Update and review your KPIs at least monthly. Don't just look at a single data point. Are your KPIs trending in the right direction over time? A single red month might be an anomaly; three red months indicate a strategic issue.
- Start a Conversation: A red or yellow KPI is an invitation for a strategic conversation, not blame. Ask "why?" Is the strategy driving this KPI flawed? Is the execution off track? Or is this the wrong KPI to measure success?
- Connect to Action: Your KPIs should directly measure the success of your objectives. If your action steps are all "complete" but your KPIs aren't moving, it's a sign that your actions are not having the desired strategic impact.
No KPIs defined or adopted yet.
Key Financial Ratios
Financial ratios will appear here once calculated.
Key Milestones
Using Key Milestones Progress Reviews for Strategy Management
Track Your Most Important Checkpoints:
- Major Signposts: Milestones represent the major, one-time achievements that prove your strategy is being implemented successfully. They are the most critical signposts on your implementation map.
- Proactive Risk Management: Review milestone progress monthly. Are you on track to meet the target date? What are the biggest risks to completion, and what is the plan to mitigate them?
- Celebrate Success: Hitting a key milestone is a significant accomplishment. Acknowledge and celebrate these wins with your team to maintain morale and momentum for the journey ahead.
No milestones defined yet.
Strategic Objectives
Using Strategic Objectives Progress Reviews for Strategy Management
Validate Your Desired Outcomes:
- The "Why": Your objectives describe the strategic outcomes you must achieve to realize your vision. They are the "why" behind your KPIs and Action Steps.
- Connect the Dots: Update your strategic objectives progress monthly. Then ask the ultimate question: Are our actions (Action Steps) and our measures (KPIs) actually leading to the results described in our Objectives?
- Test Your Assumptions: If your KPIs are green and action steps are complete, but an objective still feels "Not Achieved," it's a critical strategic insight. It may indicate that you've chosen the wrong actions or are measuring the wrong things.
No objectives defined or adopted yet.
Monthly Check-In
Conducting Effective Monthly Check-Ins
Monthly Check-Ins keep implementation moving. Use the Run Monthly Check-In button below to launch a guided 3-step “meeting runner.”
What happens when you click “Run Monthly Check-In”
- If your Implementation Dashboard looks out of date (KPIs and/or Action Steps), you’ll see three choices: Go Update Dashboard Now, Proceed Anyway (Use Last Saved Data), or Cancel.
- The runner then walks you through: Step 1 KPI Red Flags, Step 2 Action Step Exceptions, and Step 3 Decisions & Commitments.
- You can enter notes during each step. When you finish, the meeting notes are saved and show up under Previous Monthly Check-In Meeting Notes.
Purpose
- Action Steps: Confirm what’s due or in focus; surface anything blocked, at risk, behind schedule, overdue, or not started when it should be.
- KPIs: Review leading indicators that are off track or trending the wrong way; agree on what to adjust.
- Obstacles & resourcing: Identify roadblocks, remove constraints, and confirm owners.
- Accountability: Capture decisions, commitments, and next steps.
Suggested agenda (20–30 minutes)
- Reconfirm this quarter’s top priorities.
- KPI snapshot: what’s off track and what needs action.
- Action Step exceptions: blocked / at risk / behind / overdue / not started when it should be.
- Decisions & next steps: who will do what by when.
Dashboard housekeeping: Update actuals on the Implementation Dashboard. If a KPI is Active, wait to Finalize, Roll Forward, or Archive until the last reporting period ends.
Previous Monthly Check-In Meeting Notes
Quarterly Progress Assessment
Conducting Your Quarterly Progress Assessment
Quarterly Progress Assessments are a deeper 90-day review than the Monthly Check-In. Use them to confirm what’s working, correct what isn’t, and set clear priorities for the next quarter.
Before you start
- Update your Implementation Dashboard so it reflects your latest KPI actuals and Action Step statuses.
Run the assessment in this sequence
- Review KPI performance: Focus on quarterly-target KPIs and anything At Risk or Off Track. Identify what’s driving results and where the breakdown is happening.
- Check progress by Strategy Area: Are you advancing your Goals and Objectives? Are your Strategies closing key gaps and moving you toward the Vision?
- Review Action Step execution: Confirm completion and impact from the last 90 days. Flag exceptions (blocked, at risk, behind schedule, overdue, or not started when they should be) and decide what to stop, start, or accelerate.
- Confirm resources and execution health: Validate people/time/budget, skills, ownership, decision clarity, information flow, and whether teams have the processes/support needed. Surface systemic issues and emerging risks.
- Capture learnings and commitments: Record next-quarter priorities, course corrections, decisions, owners, and due dates.
Key questions to ask
- Do we have the right resources and skills for the next quarter?
- Is ownership clear for each Strategy, KPI, and Action Step?
- Are targets, decision parameters, and success criteria still clear and relevant?
- Is the Dashboard giving the right insights—and are we updating it consistently?
- Is information flowing well across teams, or are handoffs/approvals slowing execution?
- Are teams spending too much time inventing the work (a sign we need better processes, tools, or support)?
Where changes happen: KPI operations (Finalize, Roll Forward, Archive) happen on the Implementation Dashboard. KPI structural changes (targets, definitions, new KPIs) happen in the KPI section.
What happens when you click “Run Quarterly Assessment”
- KPI snapshot: Reviews KPIs that are At Risk or Off Track using your latest saved Dashboard data.
- Action Step exceptions: Surfaces adopted Action Steps that are blocked, at risk, behind schedule, overdue, or not started when they should be.
- Course corrections: Captures quarterly priorities, adjustments, decisions, and commitments.
Tip: For best results, update your Implementation Dashboard first.
Previous Quarterly Assessment Notes
Annual Assessment and Replanning
Annual Replanning: roll your plan forward for the next 12 months
Outcome: At the end of this section, your plan should be rolled forward for the next 12-month period.
Assumptions: Mission, Values, Basis for Competition, and Business Model(s) are assumed to be set and still be appropriate for the next 12 months.
Note: If any of these are missing or need to change, go to the appropriate section(s) and update them there. If you change the Basis for Competition or Business Model(s), revisit the "Create Your Plan" sections to keep your plan aligned. If you revise the Vision, revisit the other "Create Your Plan" sections to ensure goals, strategies, objectives, KPIs, and action steps still align with it.
When a new plan is needed: Annual replanning rolls your plan forward. Develop a new plan when the current plan is no longer valid — for example, a key market deteriorates, funding is pulled, a key product/service becomes outmoded, major new information invalidates the vision/strategies, or the plan’s time horizon is reached (e.g., at the end of Year 4 in a four-year plan). When that happens, restart where the plan breaks: if strategies are wrong, redo strategies; if the vision is wrong, start over.
What you will do here:
- Confirm whether the plan still feels relevant and whether implementation is on track.
- Capture meaningful changes since your last update that may require plan adjustments.
- Decide whether Goals or Strategies need to change (and understand what else must be revisited if they do).
- Update execution items: Action Steps, Objectives, and KPIs for the new 12 months.
Step 1: Confirm relevance and implementation status
Use this if you want to restart the annual update early. This clears the entries in this section only.
These are assumed to still be appropriate:
- Basis for competition: Not set
- Business model(s): Not set
- Mission: Not set
- Vision: Not set
- Values: Not set
Note: If any of the above plan elements are missing or need to change, go to the appropriate section(s) and update them there. If you change the Basis for Competition or Business Model(s), you should revisit the "Create Your Plan" sections to assure your plan remains aligned with the changed element. Similarly, if you revise the Vision, you should revisit the other "Create Your Plan" sections to assure your plan aligns with the revised Vision.
Step 2: Capture meaningful changes since the last plan update
Keep it practical. Capture only the changes that may require plan adjustments. Use the add buttons to capture the few that matter most.
A) Internal changes not reflected in this plan
Examples: owner health issue, key employee departure, new AI capabilities, quality slippage, unexpected growth requiring capacity, new location, major process breakage.
B) Significant change in financial situation
Which ratios or indicators changed meaningfully? (Select what applies — no numbers required.)
C) Important trends that have emerged since the last plan update
Add the new trends that matter most to the future for your organization. Mark each as an Opportunity or Threat. (If a trend is both an opportunity and a threat, enter it twice and mark one entry an Opportunity and the other a Threat.)
D) Changes in regulations, partners, suppliers, and technologies since the last plan update
Capture anything new or changed that creates an opportunity or risk.
E) Significant competitive changes since the last plan update
Examples: significant new competitor or competitor class, a competitor weakening/disappearing, major new substitute, pricing pressure, new distribution channel.
F) Other changes since last plan update that merit consideration in this plan update
Add other changes that should influence your plan update, and label each item as a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, or Threat.
Step 3: Reconsider strategic goals and strategies (if needed)
Important dependency reminder:
- If you change Strategic Goals, you should reconsider Strategies, Objectives, and KPIs.
- If you change Strategies, you should reconsider Objectives and KPIs.
What your plan currently contains
If you revise goals, plan to revisit strategies, objectives, and KPIs afterward.
If you revise strategies, plan to revisit objectives and KPIs afterward.
Step 4: Update execution items (Action Steps, Objectives, KPIs)
Goal: Update execution items for the next 12 months.
- Update existing Action Steps for the next 12 months using the Year-End Action Step Refresh tool below.
- Click Add Action Steps to add new action steps for the next 12 months, then return here to continue the plan update.
- Add or update Objectives (and adjust dates/targets as needed).
- Add or update KPIs (and adjust dates/targets as needed).
Step 5: Plan Completeness & Alignment Check
Use this check to confirm plan quality while you roll the plan forward.
For a better score: complete any missing plan elements and address missing or weak alignment among the Basis for Competition, Business Model(s), and Vision.
Tip: Save your plan regularly as you update it.