Goal setting defines your vision, strategic planning gets it done. Use a custom strategic planning template to outline key objectives that—once completed—will turn your vision into reality.
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When you’re first mapping out your business strategy, how do you know what to prioritize? Strategic planning templates outline your key initiatives and the tasks that will help you achieve them. By connecting your work to overarching company mission and vision statements, you can see exactly how the work your team does supports business goals. We’ll show you how to create your own custom strategic planning template so you’re always prepared.
A strategic planning template is a measurable tool used to map out how you’re going to achieve large scale business strategies and goals. It acts as a roadmap between where you are now and where you want to go. Usually, your strategic planning template includes your company mission statement, long-term goals, and short-term actionable tasks that will help you achieve those goals. Your strategic plan is the umbrella planning template from which you’ll create your action plans, marketing plans, and other business strategics.
Your strategic plan outlines longer-term goals and ambitions, but these will most likely need to be changed on a routine basis. Creating a strategic planning template allows you to quickly and easily make adjustments to your plan, without needing to start from scratch. Plus, larger organizations might need multiple strategic plans at once. Creating one template that you can use cross-functionally helps you streamline work across teams, so all projects lead back to your biggest company goals.
Using a strategic planning template gives you a structure for your strategy. Once you’ve created your template, you can:
A strategic planning template takes the guesswork out of strategy. Once it’s created, you know exactly what you need to do—down to the smallest tasks—to hit your loftiest strategic goals.
The mission is your overarching company purpose and the reason your product or service exists. Similarly, your vision is where you see your company going. Writing these is the first step in defining who you are as a business and what you hope to accomplish. Then, include them in your template to ensure new strategic plan is aligned with your company’s mission or vision.
Once you determine your mission (what you want to help solve), look at how you can use your unique offerings to accomplish it. Use a competitive analysis or SWOT analysis to determine where you stand in the marketplace, and look for the gaps (opportunities) where your company can outperform others. Review all data you have about your company, including market insights, customer feedback, and employee insights before building out your strategic planning template.
Your strategic planning template will act as a central source of truth for much of your business or team planning and strategy, so it should connect your company’s larger initiatives to project planning. The most efficient way to do this is with project management software, where you can include all relevant information in the same space as your plan. Here, you can attach key elements to your template, including goals, milestones, and to-do lists—so you can see how each action directly ties back to the bigger-picture company vision.
When creating your template, create sections for:
As a general rule, you can use strategic planning templates for any large-scale strategic objectives or business goals. Often, strategic plans are used by new businesses or during long-term planning. For example, if you’re a startup, you can use a strategic plan to clarify direction and get more organized about action steps. Or if you’re a long-standing business, you can use a strategic 10 year plan to determine what’s next for the company. Non-profits also use strategic planning for transparency with donors to show how they’re putting donations to good use.
To use your template for strategic planning, follow these four steps: Know where you are now, develop a strategy, create a plan, and share it with others.
Create mission and vision statement to inform your template, then build a template with space for your company information (including a competitor analysis to show your market fit), key objectives, goals, and metrics that will let you know when you’ve been successful.
Strategic planning templates outline the key elements you need to give structure to your loftier goals and overarching company mission—including short-term goals, KPIs, and competitive analyses.
Yes, startups and small businesses can benefit from strategic planning templates. They’re completely customizable, so you can create a template that fits your exact needs—then adjust it as your company changes and grows.