What is a strategic plan meeting?

What is a strategic plan? 

Overwhelmed by the hurdles your organization is facing? Then you should consider making a strategic plan to figure out how to move your company forward. 

The goal of a strategic plan is to define direction, break down big, overwhelming objectives into manageable phases, so you can address the situation, identify any problems and direct your actions accordingly.

Often, strategic planning is long-term. This means most businesses will do it annually, but sometimes it can be even longer. Two to five years isn’t uncommon in some industries. It’s not about digging into the minute details of how things will be done day-to-day, but rather senior management making a decision of where they want the company to be based on evidence.

What happens in a strategic plan meeting?

It’s best you start with an ultimate goal in mind. Strategic planning is more about fulfilling a vision than setting KPIs or looking at potential projects next quarter. 

Instead, in a strategic plan meeting, you’ll be gathering specific data and feedback from team members, executives and stakeholders. Then those in attendance will have a thorough discussion to chart a course to the place they want the company to be.

A strategy plan meeting is all about brainstorming new ideas and collaboration. You’ll have to develop potential solutions to different issues in your organization and these solutions will end up setting the tone and strategic direction for your team.

Conducting an effective strategic planning meeting requires careful preparation and planning to involve all the right members of your team.

Start by creating an agenda for the meeting to confirm a mutual awareness of the goals. Take a few minutes to debrief the attendees at the start to ensure that everyone understands what you want to accomplish.

Create a roadmap in advance and share it so you have something to start with. Next, encourage everyone to provide feedback, offer suggestions and tailor their areas of expertise into something workable.

You might need several meetings to achieve your goal, so be sure to document everything you do and refine the final report or plan into something that is digestible and can be shared across your entire organization.

How do you schedule your strategic planning meeting? 

These sessions require lots of busy people and it can be hard to get them together for enough time to discuss what you want. Doodle can make it easy. 

Using Group Poll you can get your planning session in the diary in no time. All you do is select a range of times you’re free and send it to the people you need. They’ll decide what works for them and you’ll have a time to meet. 

Doodle Professional lets you reclaim your day by automating scheduling. You can add your own branding to meeting invites, get rid of ads and set deadlines for when people need to respond. Plus you can create unlimited Booking Pages - a powerful way to get a handle on your schedule.

Don’t worry if you’re meeting online, with Doodle you can add your favorite video conferencing tool and its links will automatically be added to any invites you send.

Doodle makes strategic planning quick and easy. No email back and forth, no more stress, just more free time for you to focus on more important things. Try it for free today.