Setting up a strategy process: what needs to be settled before the first meeting

What happens in the PLAN step?

PLAN is the first of the eight steps in the StrategyFrame® and the only one where nothing about content is discussed yet. This is where you decide what the process is actually about, who carries it and how long it runs.

The first question isn't about content, it's an honest one: can we do this ourselves? A strategy process needs very good planning and people who enjoy getting things done. If either is missing, it turns into a time sink with little to show at the end.

The step ends with something tangible: one sheet with twelve answered questions and a roadmap laid out by calendar week. Together, they are the contract the leadership team signs with itself before the real work on content begins.

This step gets skipped regularly because it looks like preparation rather than work. That's an expensive mistake: processes that stall during development almost always fail on something that could have been settled right here.

Which twelve questions belong before the start?

Work through them together in the closest circle. The sponsor and the process owner should be there. Even a preliminary answer beats no answer.

The questions look like bureaucracy and save you weeks later. They make assumptions, expectations and concerns explicit while doing so is still cheap.

How long does a strategy process realistically take?

Work backwards from the delivery date. In most cases there's a fixed date when you have to deliver: the shareholders' meeting, the advisory board session, the annual results press conference. That date defines the end of the development phase.

Plan at least four to eight weeks for the situation analysis. How much you need depends on the scope of the data and interview work. Then come two workshops: the first with top management, the second two to four weeks later with the extended leadership team.

Excessive time pressure backfires. It leads to gut decisions, and in the minutes those look exactly like well-founded ones. The difference only shows when someone asks what they're based on.

Between the big dates you need a rhythm. A steering committee every two weeks for half an hour is enough in most companies, as long as it actually happens and ends with a decision. A standing meeting that only collects status updates gets canceled after the third round.

What blows up the plan in practice is rarely the work. It's the scheduling. Two consecutive days for six executives realistically require six to eight weeks of lead time.

What's the difference between PLAN and planning?

The similarity of the words regularly leads people astray. Planning in the financial sense answers how much you want to sell next year. PLAN in the StrategyFrame® answers how you arrive at a strategy in the first place.

And one more mix-up regularly costs time: goals are not a strategy. Goals are hoped-for results; they come out of ambitions and intentions. So the decisive question at the start isn't which goals you're aiming for. It's which challenges you face and which opportunities are open to you. The goals follow from that, not the other way around.

Flip that order and you get a wish list. It reads well, it just can't be worked with, because nobody can say what would make it fail.

What are the most common mistakes in this step?

Three mistakes, and they cost different amounts.

• The date comes before the question. Block two days in the calendar first and figure out what it's about afterwards, and you get a well-facilitated day with no substance.
• The scope stays unclear. When half the room talks about the company as a whole and the other half about their own unit, you end up with two strategies in one set of minutes.
• Communication starts too late. If you only speak once the result is final, you're explaining a finished decision to the organization. If you speak early, you pick up input along the way that you'd otherwise never have gotten.

The third mistake is the least obvious. It only shows up when the strategy moves into execution and the people who are supposed to carry it hear about it for the first time.

What belongs in the roadmap?

At the end of this step you have a roadmap that maps the development phase onto calendar weeks. It covers the planning meeting, the kick-off, the steering committee and its cadence, the collection of quantitative data, the exploratory interviews, the analysis, Workshop I, Workshop II and the initial communication.

The roadmap is also your first communication tool. The days when top management hatched something behind closed doors and then presented it to the organization are over. Bring your people along early, even if the first message is only that you've started thinking.

The roadmap is maintained by the operational process owner and nobody else. It's on the table in every meeting, not in the intranet where nobody finds it. Once two stops have moved without anyone noticing, it's no longer a roadmap.

Make sure you have three things in place: transparent communication, so the people executing are involved in time; coordination of activities, so they pull in the same direction; and an organization with a roadmap, stops along the way and one accountable person by name.