It is vacation time! You can go anywhere you want to for one week. Where would you go?
Let us pretend that you choose – Destin, FL – one of my favorite vacation destinations. You decide to drive there. Before you determine your route to Destin, what do you need to know?
You need an exact starting location. Why? Without an exact starting location, you cannot even generate a driving route to Destin, FL.
There are many different routes that one can take when driving to Destin. However, since time and money are limited, the best driving route would look like the one below:
The blue circles above on the route represent milestones/checkpoints that I planned before I started the journey. Once my car passed that milestone or once we got off at that checkpoint for fuel or gas, it would confirm to me that I was making satisfactory progress to Destin. Make sense?
Driving Blind Without a Roadmap
I think that all would agree that driving while blind is extremely dangerous to oneself and others.
If your organization does not know its specific starting point, or does not have a clear destination in mind, or does not have a specific roadmap with milestones or checkpoints, you are in a terrible place. You are driving while blind. Doing so is extremely dangerous for your organization and your funding is likely to decrease.
If your organization is driving while blind, then you cannot answer the following questions:
- What is working? How do we know? Why is it working?
- What is not working? How do we know? Why is it not working?
- What actions steps should we take to help us better meet our goals?
- How do we get there?
- Who will do the work?
- By when?
In today’s data-driven world, not knowing the answers to the questions above is not good.
Not having answers to these questions leads to rejections from grantors and funders.
When most organizations are in this situation, they do not have true outcomes data to prove the worth of certain programs or even their organization. So, let me ask you a question: Why would anyone support an organization or give money to it, if it cannot answer the questions above?
The 1795 Group Method of Strategic Planning
If you partner with the 1795 Group, we will help you answer each question above. Our method of strategic planning helps you develop a roadmap. We will help your organization identify its exact starting point, develop a specific route to a specific destination while planning specific milestones/checkpoints along the way.
We will collaborate with you to create a roadmap with goals, objectives, and specific strategies for reaching those goals. Rather than leave you with a nice map with no specifics, we will work with you to create an “action plan” that assigns responsibilities to specific people with due dates.
Having a specific action plan makes it much easier for your leadership team to use it during meetings and foster ownership, accountability, and its completion.
We Can Help
When the 1795 Group partners with you, we help you and your organization develop a specific and strategic way forward. We have experts on our team who are specialists in strategic planning. Call or email us today to brainstorm ways that we can collaborate.
We offer a wide variety of services to help a wide variety of clients:
Looking forward to hearing from you!
– Dr. Jordan