Elements of a strategic plan

Following my many readings on strategic planning and combining the theory with my experience, here are the sections of a solid strategic plan with the critical questions for each.

Hope this helps in planning the growth in your businesses. I know it helped me (and my clients) a great deal.

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Mission statement
- To define the organization's core purpose.
- Why do we exist ?

Vision
- To explain where you are headed, your future state.
- To formulate a picture of what your organization's future makeup will be and where is the organization headed.
- What will your organization look like in 5 to 10 years from now ?

Values statement or guiding principles
- To clarify what you stand for and believe in.

SWOT
- To assess the particular strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that are strategically important to your organization through        Market Attractiveness and Business Strength

Competitive advantage
- To define what you are best at.
- What can your organization potentially do better than any other organization ?

Strategic objectives
- To connect your mission to your vision.
- Strategic objectives are long-term, continuous strategic areas that get you moving from your mission to achieving your vision.
- What are the key activities that you need to perform in order to achieve your mission ?

Strategies
- To establish a guide that matches your organization's strength with market opportunities to position your organization in the mind of the customer.
- Does the strategy match your strengths with how you will provide value to and be perceived by your customers ?

Short-term goals / priorities / initiatives
- To set goals that convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets.
- Effective goals clearly state what, when, how, and who and are specifically measurable.
- What are the 1 - 3 year goals you are trying to achieve to get to your strategic objectives ?

Actions items / plans
- To set specific action plans that lead to implementing your goals.
- Are your actions comprehensive enough to achieve your goals ?

Scorecard
- To measure and manage your strategic plan.
- What are the key performance measures you can track in order to monitor whether you are achieving your goals ?

Financial assessment
- To determine whether your strategic plan makes financial sense.
- Do the estimated revenue projections exceed your estimated expenses ?