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The 10 Best Strategic Planning Software On The Market In 2023

• Julie Simpson
• November 15, 2023

By definition, strategic planning is the process of establishing a vision for the future and creating a strategy for achieving shared business goals. Strategic planning involves making decisions that allocate resources, setting performance standards, and assessing results over time. Typically, this sort of visionary planning is done by leadership, and is communicated to teams throughout the business.

Changes in strategic planning

Over the last few years, keeping strategic planning front-of-mind has become even more critical in our new hybrid and remote world. As businesses navigate their way through this unprecedented time of disruption, it is now essential to develop strategies tailored to their particular needs and challenges, which is where strategic tools become essential.

These changes in employee location require the use of technology and digital tools to develop and execute plans to replace in-person meetings and brainstorms.

What is strategic planning?

With acronyms like KPI to ROI to CI, it can be challenging to keep up with all the terminology and jargon that comes with strategic planning. However, if we remove the acronyms and focus on the nuts and bolts, strategic planning is simply a process that helps organizations maximize their resources and achieve long-term goals.

Strategic planning involves:

• Analyzing an organization’s current state.
• Setting overall objectives.
• Developing action plans to reach those objectives.
• Measuring progress.

This process can be simplified using strategic planning software that helps streamline the process by automating and tracking many of the manual steps associated with it. It’s a magic wand for planning, tracking, and achieving your long-term business goals .

Not all strategic planning software is created equal

There are specific features that help teams ensure success when planning for the future, but that doesn’t mean that the same strategic planning software is right for everyone. Here are a few elements that you should think about before committing to a strategic planning software for your team:

User-friendly interface : Look for software that is easy to navigate and understand, even for non-technical users.

Customization options : Don’t just settle for the cookie-cutter option. Choose a software that allows you to tailor its features to meet the unique needs of your business – think integrations, automations and more.

Collaboration tools : Make sure the software you choose has full ability to communicate via chat, as well as within the project and tasks themselves.

Data visualization and reporting : Look for software that can help you quickly and easily understand complex data and present it clearly and concisely.

Integration options : Your business should not be built in a silo and only use a single type of software (at least, I hope not). Make sure that the software you choose integrates with any other tools and systems you already use in your business, such as project management platforms , financial tools, and customer relationship management software.

Mobile compatibility : While this isn’t a make or break element for most teams, ensure the software can be accessed from any device, including smartphones and tablets. It’s nice to be able to work on your plan on the go – but keep your work-life balance manageable!

Scalability : Always, always, always look for software that can grow and evolve with your business. Changing software to meet your needs can be extremely pricy and resource-draining. So pick one and stick with it for the long haul.

Support and training : A good customer service portal (not just an AI asking/responding to arbitrary prompts) and good training are always necessary. Pick one that provides comprehensive support and training to get the most out of it and maximize its benefits.

Top Strategic planning software tools 

Now that we’ve reviewed the basic components of strategic planning solutions, here’s a roundup of the best strategic planning softwareto help you zero in on the best choice for your business. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it will help you determine some of the key features offered and if they would compliment your workflow.

Hive is a strategic planning software built for teams that need to plan, coordinate and track their work. Made by teams, for teams, Hive has thought of everything within the project management pipeline.

Our unique strategic planning features help teams define objectives, set milestones, and assign tasks to whole teams. Hive Goals, a new goal setting and OKR software, is also used by teams to create, set and visualize progress, keeping everyone aligned under one large company-wide goal.

Underneath the company-wide goal, teams or individuals can set sub-goals which help route strategy across the business. Goals in Hive can be measured either by the completion of associated tasks, by team progress or with manual updates. Teams can also bring their Goals, tasks, projects and Notes into one centralized dashboard with Hive Pages – a one-stop shop for strategic tracking.

The best part? You can try Hive free for 14 days to see why thousands of teams choose Hive to plan their projects and achieve their strategic goals.

Key features:

• Hive Goals allows you to assign, review and track progress on multiple tasks
• Can centralize and automate your goal-tracking and reporting
• Automated notifications that keep teams informed of changes in a project

2. ClickUp  

ClickUp is a much-loved project management platform with versatility for strategic planning. It offers a range of third-party integrations and is easily accessible on mobile devices. While it may be more involved than some of our other choices, it has an excellent customer service department and in-depth how-to articles if you ever get lost along the way. 

• Strategic planning whiteboard templates to get your team started 
• Users can set and track goals, monitor progress, and adjust plans as needed.
• Facilitates team collaboration and communication through features like comments, mentions, and real-time updates.

3. Airtable

Airtable is a cloud-based platform allowing users to create, organize and store data for their projects. It isn’t just a strategic planning software, as it is often used for reporting and customer relationship management and can easily align with strategic planning. With Airtable, you can create custom boards in minutes to track goals, monitor progress and assign tasks efficiently. While we love a good customized option, if you’re unsure where to start, the strategy planning templates are excellent and simple to follow and understand.

Key features: 

• Create custom fields as needed to track specific data points
• Designed for remote teams – access from any device.
• Real-time collaboration allows for seamless communication between team members.

4. Adobe Workfront 

For those enterprise clients, Adobe Workfront is a massive centralized hub for all your work activities and processes. It integrates with many of Adobe’s products, including Creative Cloud and Acrobat, to make it easier for teams in larger organizations to collaborate on complex projects.

As far as your strategic planning goes, Adobe Workfront offers various strategic planning features that allow teams to set goals, track progress, and analyze results. This might be the best program for you if you are a creative business and use Adobe projects religiously.

• Customized reports that tie in from all adobe platforms
• Real-time reporting capabilities so you always know where you stand
• Advanced analytics tools that let you measure success over time

Any.do is a strategic planning software that offers a free planner and customized managed workflows — ideal for any business looking to keep track of its strategic planning. You can easily access and share your plans across teams and with clients. Any.do also lets you assign tasks, chat in real-time, and onboard an entire team. Plus, Any.do can be accessed online from multiple devices, making it a great solution for remote and hybrid teams. 

• Multiple views dashboard — try personal space, workspace and my day views 

From easy access (mobile app and web-based) to flexible dashboard views (kanban-style, calendar, list views), Trello is a strategic planning software with several capabilities to track strategic planning. 

It allows you to invite new members to collaborate in your workspace, track tasks, and use color-coded labels to organize your data. Its no-code automation features help you optimize the time spent on repetitive tasks, keeping your team on target. Trello has a free version ; its paid plans start at $5 per user/month. 

• See your work from multiple angles: Kanban board, timeline, table, calendar, and more
• Automate repetitive tasks and enhance workflow
• Integrate with over a hundred of your favorite tools
• Dozens of premade templates

Unito Strategic Planning Software is an innovative and intuitive tool that helps organizations develop and manage their business and project plans. Its powerful features provide users with a streamlined and results-driven framework. Unito’s unique methodology is on open-source software to ensure flexibility, scalability, and security. With an intuitive interface, users can quickly and easily access the features they need to create and maintain strategic plans.

• Team management
• Mission statement builder
• Integrations
• Portfolio tracking
• Quick start templates – use a custom-made workflow from personal to industry-related templates.
• Protect your privacy – limit boards to a private viewing for you alone or a selected group of users.

8. Monday.com

Monday.com is a project management software with highly customizable features, making it adaptable to your specific strategic planning needs. It offers robust collaboration capabilities, powerful automations, timeline and Gantt chart views for project planning, and a multitude of integrations to seamlessly connect with your other tools. With the ability to create dashboards for high-level insights, Monday.com is able to provide a comprehensive overview of your plans, helping ensure everyone on your team stays aligned with the overall objectives. You can get started with Monday.com for free and plans start at $8/user/month.

Key Features:

• Time tracking
• Document management
• Task dependencies
• Remote collaboration tools.

Check out some alternatives to Monday.com and compare them to find the best strategic planning platform for your organization.

9. Planview AdaptiveWork

Previously known as Clarizen, Planview AdaptiveWork helps project managers gain real-time visibility across all their work, automate workflows and proactively manage risks. When it comes to strategic planning, one of the coolest features of Planview is the ability to create “what if” scenarios, where you can gain insights about your resources and reallocate them accordingly. The best way to test your strategy? Data-driven reports. Planview Adaptive Work makes reporting easy with its Slide Publisher feature. It creates automatic real-time (up-to-the-minute) status reports with impressive accuracy. Planview also integrates with most common third-party applications, such as Slack, Jira and Salesforce, and offers great customization and integration capabilities. But all this flexibility comes at a price, Planview AdaptiveWork does not have a free plan and its initial plan starts at $1,495/month. You can, however, get a free trial before making the commitment.

Key Features: 

• Resource Planning
• Portfolio Management
• Request Intake 
• Dynamic Reports and Dashboards
• Automated PowerPoint Reports
• Budget Tracking.

Wrike is a project management platform with robust features tailored for strategic project monitoring. Wrike has built-in time tracking, advanced reporting, and resource management features that make it more suitable for larger teams working with complex, multi-stage projects. Wrike also offers a variety of integrations with other tools, such as CRM systems, ERP systems, and BI tools. This can help teams to streamline their workflow and automate tasks while targeting their strategic goals and projects. Wrike has a free plan with limited capabilities. Their most popular plan starts at $24.80 per month/user, but you can get great features under a lower tier called “Team” for $9.80 per month/user.

• Integrates with various applications like Google Drive, Slack, Salesforce, and Adobe Creative Cloud
• Personalized dashboards for important tasks, updates, and project overviews
• Built-in proofing and approval tools
• Workflow automation to eliminate manual tasks
• Security features including role-based access, two-factor authentication, and data encryption

What’s next for your team’s strategic planning?

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when choosing a strategic planning software platform. From small business to enterprise-level, you need to determine what specifics you want for your business and then try out a few tools to see if it fits the mold. Hopefully, this roundup will offer you an excellent starting point as you explore your options.

Have a strategic planning software platform you love? Tell us in the comments below.

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26 Best Strategy Tools For Your Organization in 2023

Developing a sound strategy is something every organization strives to achieve. A highly effective strategy helps organizations establish their competitive position, grow market share, and thrive in a ruthless business environment. Or they become irrelevant and slowly die.

However, choosing the right tools to execute that strategy and bring their strategic processes to life is something few are concerned with. 

In this article, we’ll cover a collection of strategy tools and free templates that every growth-oriented strategist should have in their strategy toolkit:

• Strategic planning tools
• Strategic management tools
• Strategic tracking tools
• Strategy execution tool that companies prefer to keep secret 💜

Strategic Planning Tools

The first significant part of the strategic management process or business planning involves analysis and planning. The strategy tools we've listed in this section are all about helping you understand where you are today and where you should be tomorrow.

Strategy analysis tools to kickstart the strategic planning process

The first step of the strategic planning process is to study your organization’s strengths and internal and external factors to inform your strategic decisions. 

💡Analysis is key to identifying weak spots and opportunities. But don’t get trapped in that rabbit hole of endless evaluation. Focus on core business metrics , prioritize initiatives that move the needle, and take action. 

Here’s a list of free tools and templates:

1. GAP Analysis Toolkit

This toolkit will help you understand the gap between where you’re today and what you need to do to get where you want to be as a company. Free template included.  

2. SWOT Analysis

Use this guide with free template to help you identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you should consider when evaluating your strategic options.

3. PEST Analysis

PEST Analysis helps you to analyze Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors that could impact your strategy.

4. PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE Analysis is an expanded version of a PEST Analysis. It adds two more external factors to your analysis: Legal and Environmental. Grab a simple PESTLE Analysis Template here . 

5. VRIO Analysis Tool

VRIO framework will help you identify your business's competitive advantages.

6. Porter's Five Forces model

This framework (introduced by Michael Porter ) helps you identify five forces that place competitive pressure on a company in any given industry. It focuses on these five dimensions: Threat of New Entrants, Supplier Power, Buyer Power, Threat of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry.

7. McKinsey 7S Framework

Mckinsey 7S framework is an oldie but goldie. This tool will help you identify strategic alignment between departments and processes. Grab your template in this free collection of templates for internal analysis.

8. Ansoff Matrix

This matrix can help you figure out which of four strategic directions you should take to grow your business successfully. Its four quadrants include market penetration, product development, market development , and diversification.

9. BCG matrix

Boston Consulting Group developed a valuable strategic planning tool to help companies prioritize their different businesses by their degree of profitability. You can find a free BCG matrix template here . 

10. GE Matrix

McKinsey’s GE Matrix is a visual tool designed to help portfolio managers determine resource allocation for multi-business portfolios. 

Along with providing an overview of business units' performance, the GE Matrix also prescribes three strategic paths (grow, hold, and harvest) to inform strategic decisions.

11. Value Chain Analysis

Want to review your new product’s journey? This template will help you identify and analyze all related activities and processes to increase efficiency.

12. The Business Model Canvas

Use this strategic management tool to assess new business models, whether you are an existing business or a fast-growing start-up. 

👉You can also download our internal analysis toolkit with a collection of templates to help you with analysis.

📚 Recommended readings: 

• Develop An Iterative Strategic Planning Process (+Template)
• How To Conduct Internal Analysis (+ Free Templates)
• How To Perform Gap Analysis In 5 Easy Steps 

Strategic planning tools for strategy formulation

Strategy formulation is where the rubber hits the road. By now, you should have a good idea of your internal capabilities and the situation of your external business environment. So, it's time to set goals and create an action plan to achieve them. 

1. Vision Statement Toolkit

This Excel-based strategy tool will help you create a vision statement for your organization from scratch. 

2. Values Toolkit

Another pillar of your strategy is setting your strategic values. This Excel-based strategy toolkit will help with that process.

💡 When is the right time for a makeover of your company’s vision and values? It’s a good move when dealing with significant organizational changes, growth slowdowns, or cultural issues because it can boost stakeholders’ motivation. On the flip side, skip this exercise if you’re dealing with crisis management or focusing on short-term business goals like meeting quarterly financial targets.

3. Strategic planning models

We’ve put together an overview of the five most widely used strategic planning models , including: 

• Cascade Model
• Hoshin Kanri Model
• Balanced Scorecard
• V2MOM Model

💡Strategic planning models and frameworks are a great starting point to start brainstorming and formulating your strategy. But they don’t solve your alignment and execution problems. That’s why you need the right strategy tools that combine iterative strategic planning , centralized observability , and execution in one place.

4. Strategic Planning Template

Ready to turn your strategy into an execution-ready plan? Use this free strategic planning template to set clear goals, build a strategic roadmap, and assign responsibilities to ensure stakeholder engagement with your strategy.

4. KPI Cheatsheets

Here you can explore an online library of free KPI examples for various industries to inspire you. 

💡Craft a custom strategy that suits your organization's unique goals and priorities. Start with our pre-built templates as jumping-off points for a highly effective strategic plan. Check out some examples from our template library : 

• Corporate Strategy Template  
• Marketing Strategy Template
• Customer Service Strategy Template 
• Change Management Strategy Template

Strategic Management Tools

The second phase of the strategic management process is executing the strategic plan you created earlier—the most crucial part of every strategy. 

PowerPoint is a terrible tool for strategy execution, but a good presentation is a fine starting point to introduce your people to the new strategy. Up your game with an interactive Miro presentation rather than a stuffy old PowerPoint!

2. Strategic Engagement and Communication Toolkit

It all comes down to communicating your strategy and the why behind it. To drive strategy execution successfully, you need to get buy-in from involved stakeholders. This toolkit will help you plan out your strategic engagement plan to ensure you cover all the bases of effective strategy communication.

3. Alignment map

This Cascade feature helps organizations map out how their goals are connected and impact one another. 

This is our version of a strategy map that helps you visualize the alignment of objectives across multiple plans, giving you complete visibility into the execution web that's spinning inside your organization. 

As a result, you can quickly identify any risks or roadblocks, prioritize critical initiatives, and eliminate misaligned projects.

📚 Recommended reading:  

• Strategy Execution in 6 Steps
• 6 Ways To Master The Art Of Strategy Execution

Strategy Tracking Tools

The final phase of the strategic management process involves tracking the effectiveness of your strategy and then iterating where needed. These tools are all about tracking, analytics, and iteration!

Strategic analysis monitors whether or not you've delivered on your strategy and made progress toward your short- and long-term goals. It also helps you understand where you are succeeding or failing.

1. KPI Reporting Template (Excel version)

Manually track important metrics and KPIs with this Excel template.

2. KPI Reporting Template

Connect this template to your existing business strategy tools, automatically track your KPIs, and have real-time data at your fingertips. 

3. OKR Excel Template (Excel version)

Use this free and straightforward template to set and track OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). You can track company, team, or individual OKRs. 

4. Balanced scorecard

You can use this Balanced Scorecard Template to centralize the most important metrics in one place and measure your critical KPIs. Since it’s based on a traditional balanced scorecard framework , you can organize your KPIs and key initiatives into four standard categories: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, and Learning & Growth.

5. Real-time dashboards and strategy reports

Strategy tools with real-time dashboards and reports are the missing piece that help you bridge the gap between you, your teams, and your upper leadership to ensure successful strategy execution. 

By leveraging these tools, you’ll be able to stay on top of performance, adjust your strategies on the go, and keep everyone focused on strategic goals.  

📚 Recommended reading: Best Reporting Tools To Drive Strategy (Pros, Cons, Pricing & Reviews)

Strategy Execution Tool

Despite the extensive list of strategy tools, templates, and models above—what if we told you that it’s possible to plan, manage, and track your strategic and growth initiatives from one central hub ?

A tool that top companies see as a competitive advantage and prefer to keep confidential? 

From the beginning, our goal was to make a tool that consolidates different strategy tools into a single platform—taking care of all the phases of the strategic management process:

1. Planning phase: You can use customizable strategic planning models that best fit your strategy approach. Drive strategic alignment across the organization by building a high-level company strategy plan and connecting it with strategic plans at the departmental or team level.

2. Executing phase: With its powerful integrations , strategic portfolio and project management , and goal management capabilities , Cascade helps you and your team to bridge the gap between planning and execution.

3. Tracking phase: KPI tracking , real-time dashboards, or drill-down reports - you name it, we have it. You will be able to provide data-driven insights to your C-suite team or get a real-time view of what's getting done or not. That’s the only way to faster and more confident decision-making.

Today, Cascade is the leading strategy execution platform with a laser focus on progress and speed and a commitment to top-notch customer service. 

Whereas many companies fail to turn strategy into tangible outcomes, Cascade helps leaders deliver business profitability by giving them a centralized observability of what’s happening across the organization. 

Boost Your Strategy Execution With The Right Strategy Tools 🚀

Strategy planning models, tools, and templates are great for fleshing out your strategy, but to successfully execute strategy and adapt as needed, you also need the right software. 

A great strategy execution platform will help you to create a single source of truth for your strategy, eliminating wasted time in disconnected tools, confusion and potentially preventing a failed strategy execution. 

A single home for your strategy will help you to keep everyone on the same page, allowing leaders to focus on the most critical parts of strategy execution : clear goals, context, and strategic prioritization. 

And when you are not wasting your time in meetings to keep everyone aligned, you can focus on the greater purpose of actually helping your team members learn, grow, and deliver results .

Cascade makes it easy to build strategic roadmaps and assign KPIs and owners to drive accountability. It lets your employees collaborate on shared goals to drive strategy execution across the organization. 

‍ Interested in seeing Cascade in action? Get started for free or book a demo with Cascade’s experts.

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9 Strategic Planning Models and Tools for the Customer-Focused Business

Published: July 11, 2023

As the economist and business strategy guru, Michael Porter, says, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

With strategic planning, businesses identify their strengths and weaknesses, choose what not to do, and determine which opportunities should be pursued. In sales operations, having a clearly defined strategy will help your organization plan for the future, set viable goals, and achieve them.

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So, how do you get started with strategic planning? You‘ll begin with strategic planning models and tools. Let’s take a look at nine of the most prominent ones here.

Free Strategic Planning Template

Fill out the form to access your business strategic planning template., strategic planning models.

Strategic planning is used to set up long-term goals and priorities for an organization. A strategic plan is a written document that outlines these goals.

Don't confuse strategic planning and tactical planning . Strategic planning is focused on long-term goals, while tactical planning is focused on the short-term.

Here are a few strategic planning models you can use to get started.

1. The Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard is one of the most prominent strategic planning models, tailored to give managers a comprehensive overview of their companies' operations on tight timelines. It considers both financial and operational metrics to provide valuable context about how a business has performed previously, is currently performing, and is likely to perform in the future.

The model plays on these concerns: time, quality, performance/service, and cost. The sum of those components amount to four specific reference points for goal-setting and performance measurement:

• Customer: How customers view your business
• Internal Process: How you can improve your internal processes
• Organizational Capacity: How your business can grow, adapt, and improve
• Financial: The potential profitability of your business

Those four categories can inform goals that are more thoughtful and focused while surfacing the most appropriate metrics with which you can use to track them. But the elements you choose to pursue and measure are ultimately up to you. As there's no definitive list, they will vary from organization to organization.

That being said, there‘s a universally applicable technique you can use when leveraging the model—creating a scorecard. This is a document that keeps track of your goals and how you apply them. Here’s an example of what a scorecard might look like:

Image Source

The Balanced Scorecard is ideal for businesses looking to break up higher-level goals into more specific, measurable objectives. If you're interested in translating your big-picture ambitions into actionable projects, consider looking into it.

Example of the Balanced Scorecard

Let‘s imagine a B2B SaaS company that sells a construction management solution. It’s been running into trouble from virtually all angles. It‘s struggling with customer retention and, in turn, is hemorrhaging revenue. The company’s sales reps are working with very few qualified leads and the organization's tech stack is limiting growth and innovation.

The business decides to leverage a Balanced Scorecard approach to remedy its various issues. In this case, the full strategic plan—developed according to this model—might look like this:

• The company sets a broad financial goal of boosting revenue by 10% year over year.
• To help get there, it aims to improve its customer retention rate by 5% annually by investing in a more robust customer service infrastructure.
• Internally, leadership looks to improve the company's lead generation figures by 20% year over year by revamping its onboarding process for its pre-sales team.
• Finally, the business decides to move on from its legacy tech stack in favor of a virtualized operating system, making for at least 50% faster software delivery for consistent improvements to its product.

The elements listed above address key flaws in the company‘s customer perception, internal processes, financial situation, and organizational capacity. Every improvement the business is hoping to make involves a concrete goal with clearly outlined metrics and definitive figures to gauge each one’s success. Taken together, the organization's plan abides by the Balanced Scorecard model.

2. Objectives and Key Results

As its name implies, the OKR strategic planning model revolves around translating broader organizational goals into objectives and tracking their key results. The framework rests on identifying three to five attainable objectives and three to five results that should stem from each of them. Once you have those in place, you plan tactical initiatives around those results.

After you‘ve figured out those reference points, you determine the most appropriate metrics for measuring their success. And once you’ve carried out the projects informed by those ideal results, you gauge their success by giving a score on a scale from 0 to 1 or 0%-100%.

For instance, your goal might be developing relationships with 100 new targets or named accounts in a specific region. If you only were able to develop 95, you would have a score of .95 or 95%. Here's an example of what an OKR model might look like:

It's recommended that you structure your targets to land at a score of around 70% — taking some strain off workers while offering them a definitive ideal outcome. The OKR model is relatively straightforward and near-universally applicable. If your business is interested in a way to work towards firmly established, readily visible standards this model could work for you.

Example of the Objectives and Key Results

Let's consider a hypothetical company that makes educational curriculum and schedule planning for higher-education institutions. The company decides it would like to expand its presence in the community college system in California, something that constitutes an objective.

But what will it take to accomplish that? And how will the company know if it's successful? Well, in this instance, leadership within the business would get there by establishing three to five results they would like to see. Those could be:

• Generating qualified leads from 30 institutions
• Conducting demos at 10 colleges
• Closing deals at 5 campuses

Those results would lead to initiatives like setting standards for lead qualification and training reps at the top of the funnel on how to use them appropriately, revamping sales messaging for discovery calls, and conducting research to better tailor the demo process to the needs of community colleges.

Leveraging this model generally entails repeating that process between two and four more times, ultimately leading to a sizable crop of thorough, actionable, ambitious, measurable, realistic plans.

3. Theory of Change (TOC)

The Theory of Change (TOC) model revolves around organizations establishing long-term goals and essentially “working backward” to accomplish them. When leveraging the strategy, you start by setting a larger, big-picture goal.

Then, you identify the intermediate-term adjustments and plans you need to make to achieve your desired outcome. Finally, you work down a level and plan the various short-term changes you need to make to realize the intermediate ones. More specifically, you need to take these strides:

• Identify your long-term goals.
• Backward map the preconditions necessary to achieve your goal, and explain why they're necessary.
• Identify your basic assumptions about the situation.
• Determine the interventions your initiative will fulfill to achieve your goals.
• Come up with indicators to evaluate the performance of your initiative.
• Write an explanation of the logic behind your initiative.

Here's another visualization of what that looks like.

This planning model works best for organizations interested in taking on endeavors like building a team, planning an initiative, or developing an action plan. It's distinct from other models in its ability to help you differentiate between desired and actual outcomes. It also makes stakeholders more actively involved in the planning process by making them model exactly what they want out of a project.

It relies on more pointed detail than similar models. Stakeholders generally need to lay out several specifics, including information related to the company's target population, how success will be identified, and a definitive timeline for every action and intervention planned. Again, virtually any organization — be it public, corporate, nonprofit, or anything else — can get a lot out of this strategy model.

Example of the Theory of Change

For the sake of this example, imagine a business that makes HR Payroll Software , but hasn‘t been doing too well as of late. Leadership at the company feels directionless. They think it’s time to buckle down and put some firm plans in motion, but right now, they have some big picture outcomes in mind for the company without a feel for how they're going to get done.

In this case, the business might benefit from leveraging the Theory of Change model. Let‘s say its ultimate goal is to expand its market share. Leadership would then consider the preconditions that would ultimately lead to that goal and why they’re relevant.

For instance, one of those preconditions might be tapping into a new customer base without alienating its current one. The company could make an assumption like, “We currently cater to mid-size businesses almost exclusively, and we lack the resources to expand up-market to enterprise-level prospects. We need to find a way to more effectively appeal to small businesses.”

Now, the company can start looking into the specific initiatives it can take to remedy its overarching problem. Let's say it only sells its product at a fixed price point that suits midsize businesses much more than smaller ones. So the company decides that it should leverage a tiered pricing structure that offers a limited suite of features at a price that small businesses and startups can afford.

The factors the company elects to use as reference points for the plan's success are customer retention and new user acquisition. Once those have been established, leadership would explain why the goals, plans, and metrics it has outlined make sense.

If you track the process I‘ve just plotted, you’ll see the Theory of Change in motion. It starts with a big-picture goal and works its way down to specific initiatives and ways to gauge their effectiveness.

4. Hoshin Planning

The Hoshin Planning model is a process that aims to reduce friction and inefficiency by promoting active and open communication throughout an organization. In this model, everyone within an organization—regardless of department or seniority—is made aware of the company's goals.

Hoshin Planning rests on the notion that thorough communication creates cohesion, but that takes more than contributions from leadership. This model requires that results from every level be shared with management.

The ideal outcomes set according to this model are also conceived of by committee to a certain extent. Hoshin Planning involves management hearing and considering feedback from subordinates to come up with reasonable, realistic, and mutually understood goals.

The model is typically partitioned into seven steps:

• establishing a vision
• developing breakthrough objectives
• developing annual objectives
• deploying annual objectives
• implementing annual objectives
• conducting monthly and quarterly reviews
• conducting an annual review.

Note: The first three steps are referred to as the “catchball process.” It's where company leadership sets goals and establishes strategic plans to send down the food chain for feedback and new ideas. That stage is what really separates Hoshin Planning from other models.

Example of Hoshin Planning

For this example, let‘s imagine a company that manufactures commercial screen printing machines. The business has seen success with smaller-scale, retail printing operations, but realizes that selling almost exclusively to that market won’t make for long-term, sustainable growth.

Leadership at the company decides that it's interested in making an aggressive push to move up-market towards larger enterprise companies. However, before they can establish that vision, they want to ensure that the entire company is willing and able to work with them to reach those goals.

Once they‘ve set a tentative vision, they begin to establish more concrete objectives and send them down the management hierarchy. One of the most pressing activities they’re interested in pursuing is a near-comprehensive product redesign to make their machines better suited for higher volume orders.

They communicate those goals throughout the organization and ask for feedback along the way. After the product team hears their ideal plans, it relays that the product overhaul that leadership is looking into isn‘t viable within the timeframe they’ve provided. Leadership hears this and adjusts their expectations before doling out any sort of demands for the redesign.

Once both parties agree on a feasible timeline, they begin to set more definitive objectives that suit both the company‘s ambitions and the product team’s capabilities.

Strategic Plan Example

The strategic plan above is for a fictitious shoe company and outlines the way in which it'll differentiate itself within the market. It effectively uses each step in the strategic planning model framework and is written in a way to give a brief overview of how the company will enter the market and sustain longevity.

If you're working on a strategic planning model for an existing business, your plan will look similar, but have a few tweaks to the goals, including more goals about improving sales and processes. When drafting the action plan and evaluation parts of the plan, be sure to think tactically about the actions that will help you achieve the goals, and use your mission, vision, and values to guide the choices you make.

Strategic Planning Tools

There are additional resources you can use to support whatever strategic planning model you put in place. Here are some of those:

1. SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool and acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It's used to identify each of these elements in relation to your business.

This strategic planning tool allows you to determine new opportunities and which areas of your business need improvement. You'll also identify any factors or threats that might negatively impact your business or success.

2. Porter's Five Forces

Use Porter‘s Five Forces as a strategic planning tool to identify the economic forces that impact your industry and determine your business’ competitive position. The five forces include:

• Competition in the industry
• Potential of new entrants into the industry
• Power of suppliers
• Power of customers
• Threat of substitute products

To learn more, check out this comprehensive guide to using Porter's Five Forces .

3. Visioning

Visioning is a goal-setting strategy used in strategic planning. It helps your organization develop a vision for the future and the outcomes you'd like to achieve.

Once you reflect on the goals you‘d like to reach within the next five years or more, you and your team can identify the steps you need to take to get where you’d like to be. From there, you can create your strategic plan.

4. PESTLE Analysis

The PESTLE analysis is another strategic planning tool you can use. It stands for:

• P: Political
• E: Economic
• T: Technological
• E: Environmental

Each of these elements allow an organization to take stock of the business environment they're operating in, which helps them develop a strategy for success. Use a PESTLE Analysis template to help you get started.

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