Five Phases of Strategy

For many organizations, strategy development starts and ends with answering the big philosophical questions, such as: Who are we? Why do we exist? Where are we going? What are we unwilling to compromise on?

Well-crafted strategic objectives should be the start, not the end, of the strategic planning process.

Change can be uncomfortable. Deciding on one direction inherently means saying no to others. Too often, strategic planning attempts to keep all the good ideas by putting them in ever-expanding ‘buckets’. The result is a laundry list of actions items rather than a handful of clear priorities.

Strategic planning needs to clearly articulate the anticipated impacts of various options and what will be given up to pursue them, separating real trade-offs from perceived ones.

To avoid strategic planning pitfalls, Cascadia’s approach to strategy development has five phases. They involve three cascading layers of strategic decision-making and two tools that prepare the organization for strategy implementation.

The five phases of strategic planning are:

1. Organizational Strategy. Sets the organizational direction, aligning leadership around the organization’s values, vision, and mission
2. Competitive Strategy. Defines the customers, value proposition, and differentiators that will propel the organization forward.
3. Functional Strategy. Lays out the internal structure and resourcing that will support an organization’s operations to make the plan possible.
4. Current State Assessment. Completed after the first three phases, this information can be used to help identify what changes will be necessary to align the organization with its new strategic objectives.
5. Tactical Roadmap. Developed to ensure that the future shifts in activities are prioritized, communicated, and measured according to the new strategic objectives.

To learn more about each of the five phases, how to work through them, and what questions to ask yourself at each stage, download our full whitepaper.