Editorial
Strategic planning conversations are hard enough to pull off when everyone is in the same room for an extended period of time. But try designing and leading a strategic planning process when most stakeholders are remote — that’s another level of effort altogether!
That’s because true strategic planning requires several thoughtful and often complex conversations that may include agreeing on a new vision or mission, establishing strategic goals, setting shared priorities and mapping out actionable plans.
When done in person, strategic planning conversations often take multiple days with people crammed into a conference room full of flipcharts, sticky notes and pots of stale coffee. When run virtually, the process may take multiple meetings spread over weeks or months. The good news is that when done well, virtual strategic planning conversations can be more efficient, effective and inclusive than onsite sessions, including exactly the right set of people most needed for each conversation.
How to Make the Virtual Strategic Planning Process a Success
Here are 10 tips for designing, facilitating and guiding a virtual strategic planning process. They help seamlessly blend asynchronous and synchronous conversations in a way that makes it easy to integrate and synthesize all ideas and ultimately, to agree on priority goals and a plan of action that will actually be implemented.
1. Create an overall roadmap and timeline of the entire process, including all major activities, objectives by participant group, inputs, outputs and milestones. Be sure to include what happens after the final planning workshop, such as the formation of subteams, whose members may be proposing programs and resource requirements and presenting to decision-makers for approval and budget, and any other next steps that begin after the final planning workshop ends, leading to implementation.
2. Build a core team of people to help guide the process. Some members may come from your leadership group and some from the broader community. I recommend no more than five to seven people. This team might meet two to three times over the course of the planning effort to help guide and validate the process, sanity-check survey questions, discuss implications of responses, help winnow down the list of strategic priorities, and act as champions of new strategic initiatives. The total time investment may be anywhere from 8-12 hours.
3. Determine who needs to participate, in what role, at what time, and through what means. You may want broad community representation in an online conversation area, for example, when it comes to soliciting ideas, surfacing challenges and seeking other important input. But when it comes to the real-time conversations where priorities are set, decisions are reached and actions planned across a virtual table, you’re likely to be doing this with your core planning team.
4. Get the timing right. If, for example, you plan to open up an online asynchronous conversation area to gather input and ideas, give yourself enough time for people to participate. I recommend at least five working days. You also need time to review and synthesize responses as a springboard for your initial planning workshop. You can start with an online asynchronous conversation, followed by at least two to three facilitated real-time planning workshops, with “homework” of some kind in between. This might take the form of online voting, brainstorming, idea-building or action planning. I like to allow at least 10 days between virtual planning workshops, to let ideas percolate.
5. Cast a wider net through asynchronous conversations. By working virtually, we can invite a broad cross-section of the community into the conversation for minimal (or no) additional cost. To elicit the most helpful responses: Ask questions that are clear, relevant and easy to answer. Limit the time needed to complete responses to no more than about 15-20 minutes. Determine whether responses will be attributed or anonymous. (I typically recommend including the names of respondents, so people feel like they are actually having a conversation with someone, and this also makes it easier to gauge interests and follow up. If you feel that you might get more honest responses if certain questions are anonymous, make sure to use a tool that gives you flexibility.)
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6. Assemble a team to help plan and run your virtual workshops. It really does take a village. You’ll want someone who can help with the technology. (For example, I often use Zoom for audio/video and chat and another tool where people can capture ideas to debrief and save for later.) You may need a note-taker, either for the whole workshop or for breakout groups, depending on whether people will be capturing ideas as they go. Timekeepers can be essential, as are those who keep an eye out for chat responses, raised hands, or questions that the workshop facilitator may miss. If visuals of some kind are needed, determine who is responsible for creating and assembling the content. Finally, agree on who will be kicking off and closing out each workshop; ideally, this will be the “owner” of the strategic plan.
7. Divide your conversations into chunks, by objectives. Consider which objectives you can realistically achieve in a single virtual planning workshop, what kind of conversations are needed to accomplish each one, and where and when those conversations need to take place. I usually limit each workshop to a maximum of two hours, with a break at the halfway mark. Keep in mind that it’s almost impossible to have a true conversation with more than 6-7 people at a time, so consider breakout groups to foster deeper conversations and generate ideas more quickly. Allocate time for debrief and group reflection. For larger group conversations, use chat and other features of your meeting app to enable more contributions from more people. And remember: Some conversations can occur asynchronously between planning workshops.
8. Keep people actively engaged. A few tips: Limit the virtual planning workshops to no more than about 15 people or so. Establish meeting norms and revisit at the start of each session. Use at least two forms of communication to gather all ideas, questions and comments, in writing and verbally. Use breakouts to get people talking. Be ready with stimulating questions that will inspire everyone to lean in, rather than sit back. Vary activities every few minutes so people are less likely to zone out or lose interest.
9. Have a plan for balancing participation and managing difficult behavior. Knowing something about your participants can help, but it isn’t critical. What is important is to anticipate what kinds of behavior might be most likely to block progress, and to have a plan to manage it diplomatically, yet assertively. Having a set of closed-ended questions to spark conversation and shift the energy can be a lifesaver in handling many tough situations.
10. Define next steps before you start the first step. (See Roadmap) Make sure the owner of the planning process feels accountable for implementing the results. I recommend the formation of subteams to create proposed plans to implement strategic priorities, which can then be presented to decision-makers for a go/no-go decision. The plan’s ultimate owner needs to give thought to how plans will be implemented, and just as important, what can be taken off the plates of busy people to bring these strategic priorities to life. If there is no such commitment to implementing the plan, you might question the wisdom of embarking on this journey until a plan can be put into place.
Strategic planning is not the same as business planning, where organizations typically validate or tweak their current plans but for the most part, don’t deviate significantly from the status quo. True strategic planning involves looking for breakthrough opportunities never before imagined that can significantly change the trajectory of the organization for years to come.
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It calls for eliciting new ideas from a diverse stakeholder community, followed by a series of thoughtful conversations to determine which ideas, if implemented, will position organizations more strongly in the future, and for creating a realistic plan of action to bring new ideas to life. Thanks to our ability to collaborate and communicate across time and distance, we have new ways of designing and running productive strategic planning conversations, involving more perspectives than we ever imagined possible.
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