Frameworks for Strategic Planning

Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World (John P. Kotter, 2014)

This book is based on an award-winning article in the Harvard Business Review by leadership expert John Kotter. Accelerate provides a framework for success in an often-turbulent world. Kotter explains how traditional organizational hierarchies have evolved to meet daily demands. For most organizations—public and private—the hierarchy is a singular operating system. But this system is not built for an environment where change has become the norm. Kotter advocates a new system—namely, incorporating a second, more agile, network-like structure that operates in concert with the hierarchy to create a dual operating system. This new dual system approach allows organizations to overcome challenges and make progress toward goals and results.

Applied Strategic Planning: How to Develop a Plan That Really Works (Leonard Goodstein, Timothy Nolan, and J. William Pfeiffer, 1993)

(Leonard Goodstein, Timothy Nolan, and J. William Pfeiffer, 1993) This book shows managers a clear, effective way to identify and carry out strategic objectives. It presents information on organizational culture, integration of operational and functional plans, performance audits, gap analysis, and values clarification. The book also covers aspects of the planning process, including the following:

• Determining if an organization is ready for strategic planning
• Effectively communicating a corporate vision
• Recognizing the role of culture in changing strategic direction
• Understanding the various roles of a consultant
• Writing effective mission statements
• Creating contingency plans

This book includes charts, diagrams, and checklists along with examples.

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement, 4th edition (John M. Bryson, 2011)

Bryson provides a strategic planning model and outlines the reasons public and nonprofit organizations must embrace strategic planning to improve performance. The book offers leaders, managers, and students detailed guidance on implementing the process and specific tools and techniques to make the process work.

Trying Hard is Not Good Enough 10th Anniversary Edition: How to Produce Measurable Improvements for Customers and Communities (Mark Friedman, 2015)

This book is for managers and decisionmakers in many different settings. Friedman provides practical methods for taking action that are simple and are based on common sense, use plain language, produce minimum paper, and are useful to managers, community members, and decisionmakers.

The book’s results accountability framework can be used to improve the quality of life in communities, cities, counties, and states.

Planning, Communication and Assessment Tools

The Collective Impact Forum is hosted by the nonprofit organizations FSG and the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions. The goal of this community forum is to support collaboration and systems-level change. There are many resources available organized by topic and type. Tools for Working Groups and the Working Group Planning Template include resources to develop implementation plans and measurement indicators.

The Government Alliance on Race and Equity’s (GARE) Racial Equity Communications Guide, developed in partnership with the Center for Social Inclusion, Living Cities, the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, and Provoc and updated in May 2018, helps jurisdictions enhance their communication on racial equity work.

Podcasts

Accelerate Your Performance

Episode 166: “Refresh Strategic Goals to Move Forward” (April 8, 2021)

In this episode, a school district superintendent describes how her leadership team refreshed their goal areas with better-defined action steps and measures that were instrumental to making significant progress toward goals.

Strategy and Leadership

Episode 85: “How this University Created Their Strategic Plan (During a Pandemic) with Dr. Alison Van Rooy” (December 2020)

In this episode, an expert planner shares her experience of helping an organization create its strategic plan during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization had to make alterations to its strategic planning approach, including partner engagement. It also had to revise how it ultimately executed the plan.