Strategic Planning Process

How to Facilitate a Strategy Meeting

By Erica Olsen ⋅ July 19, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

According to a past Fortune
cover story, 86% of business owners and managers spend less than one hour per
month discussing strategy. Not
surprisingly, this same article also reported that nine out of ten
organizations fail to implement their strategic plan. As you’ve probably
noticed from our previous columns, we’re big proponents of regular strategy
meetings. Quarterly and, in particular, monthly strategy meetings allow you to
keep your finger on the pulse of your strategic planning efforts and make any
necessary adjustments before it becomes too late.

Monthly strategy meetings don’t need to take a lot of time –
30 to 60 minutes should suffice. But it is important that key team members
report on their progress towards the goals they are responsible for - including
reporting on metrics in the scorecard they have been assigned. By using the
measurements already established, it’s easy to make course corrections if
necessary. Restricting the meeting to this reporting on measurements can help
you stay on task and keep the meeting with 30 minutes, but if you can commit to
a full hour, the meeting agenda should also include some time devoted to
working on one specific topic or on one of the quarter’s priorities where
decisions need to be made. Once agreed upon, this topic should be developed to
conclusion.

Consider these additional tips for making your monthly
strategy meetings more effective:

• Schedule the monthly strategy meetings on the same day and time each month in order to encourage making strategy a habit
• Invite individuals or heads of departments. Their presence creates visibility and recognition for the people getting things done.
• Make the meeting mandatory – no exceptions. This is 30-60 minutes time well spent
• Start and end on time and stay on task with an agenda.

Holding
meetings helps focus your goals on accomplishing top priorities and
accelerating growth of the organization. Although the meeting structure is
relatively simple, it does require a high degree of discipline. Facilitation of
monthly strategy meetings is key to implementing your strategic plan and making
strategy a habit for everyone involved.