Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Evaluating Your Strategic Plan

Now that your plan is all together in one place, take a step back and evaluate. Did you create the strategy you intended to create? More than likely, you and your team have put a lot of time into the document you now have in front of you. Put it away for a week and don't look at it. No peeking! After working on this document for months, you can easily get so close to the plan that you miss obvious flaws (called the not-seeing-the-forest-for-the-trees syndrome).

When you pick your plan back up, reread it and answer these questions:

• Does your plan connect your mission to your vision? Make sure that all your goals and strategies align with your vision and support your mission. Modify or delete any outliers. You want all your energy focused on reaching your vision.
• Is your plan realistic? Over planning is a common problem. Consider pushing some deadlines out farther than you originally anticipated.
• Is your plan integrated? Make sure that all the elements of your plan support each other. (See “Mapping your strategy” earlier in this chapter for information on developing a strategy map to help answer this question.)
• Is your plan balanced? You developed your plan using the Balanced Scorecard Framework. Make sure that you have a good balance between financial, customer, internal business process, and employee and learning goals.
• Is the plan complete? Identify any holes in your plan or potential activities that are unsupported.
• Is the document clear? Writing ...