The One-Page Strategic Plan – The Easy Way

Strategic plans don’t need to be long, complicated documents covering a multi-year horizon and a big initiative. The bottom line is they have to help you achieve goals effectively.

They can be as short as 1 page, cover a short timeframe and a single initiative or objective. It’s particularly easy if you use our Strategic Planning Guide, available for free.

No matter what your responsibilities are, you can improve your results with a simple strategy that outlines your goal and how to achieve it.

And a strategic plan doesn’t just have to be for a new project or initiative, it can even be used to plan your approach to get approval or buy-in or deal with an issue with a colleague, customer or employee. It can be about something you need to do tomorrow or something you plan on doing next year.

By using this strategic planning guide, you can develop a quick strategic plan in 3 steps, then follow-up with your implementation plan using the 5 step guide.

The 3-Step Strategic Planning Guide

By following the three simple steps in the guide and writing them down, you will have the outline of your strategic plan.
Even if you need to develop it into a longer document, this will help you develop your thoughts and the core of your plan.

Once your outline is complete, you can expand the information where needed to assure approvals and communication. That will also help you develop your implementation plan.

Part of the process in writing a strategic plan involves identifying the options you have to achieve your goals. With each option identified, you can better quantify the timelines, costs and resources involved in each option and settle on the best course of action.

The 5-Step Implementation Guide

By following the 5 steps in the implementation guide, you can develop the implementation plan for your newly created strategic plan.

Again, even if you have to expand it, this tool helps you develop the core elements and is a catalyst for your thinking.

By making this a separate process from your strategic plan, you can focus on your strategy first without letting implementation issues negatively influence your strategic plans. If, down the road, it turns out that your strategy cannot be implemented, use that knowledge to create Plan B. But don’t settle for Plan B in the first place.

The implementation phase includes getting approval and resources and defining the steps you need to take to achieve your strategic objective. Often, the implementation plan is iterative. That is, you come up with a plan, then verify it with others involved before adjusting it based on their input.

Use the form to start your implementation planning and expand as necessary once you’ve documented the key elements of your plan.

Download this Strategic Plan Guide with both the 3-Step Strategic Plan template and the 5-Step Implementation template.

Here is the download link for Members: