Skip to content

Strategic planning meetings

Description

Strategic planning meetings are an important part of the strategic planning process for organizations or units within organizations. Strategic planning meetings can create a space for information sharing, in-depth discussions and creative thinking about mission, vision, goals, objectives and actions which will guide the organization or unit for the future. Strategic planning meetings are an essential way to create inclusiveness in the strategic planning process and ensure that the final plan is viewed as relevant and valuable to all members of the staff. Strategic plan meetings can be organized in various configurations, depending on the number of participants who will be involved in planning and the expected final output (structure and parameters of the strategic plan). Strategic planning meetings may involve larger committees and smaller subcommittees or working groups, depending on the size of the organization or unit and the elements of the strategic planning effort.

Checklists

Structural & planning

Checklist for initial organization
  • Determine the final strategic planning product and specific elements that will be required in the plan.
  • Identify the participants in the strategic planning process, and the participants in this meeting/set of meetings
  • Create structure: Agree upon and send out a format for the strategic plan along with which elements the meeting will address.
  • Provide context: complete a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to provide a shared context for the group.

Pre-meeting

Create an agenda for the meeting and assign roles so that attendees know what to expect.

Checklist before a meeting
  • Define meeting goals, objectives, and key results.
  • Create a clear agenda and define guiding questions.
  • Reference the strategic plan timeline and identify where this meeting falls in the process.
  • Identify a meeting facilitator.

In meeting

Checklist for in-meeting agenda and organization
  • Restate goals of meeting, along with expected outcomes.
  • Provide questions and prompts to frame the discussion around big-picture thinking that is on target for this meeting.
  • Ensure that there are multiple modes of participation available - e.g. live notes documents.
  • Leave space for out-of-box ideas.

Post-meeting

Checklist for immediate post-meeting actions
  • Decide if more meetings are needed.
  • If not, finalize the contributions to the strategic plan and communicate to everyone.