How to start and promote a Strategic Plan - Part 2

There are many ways to work through the brainstorming process for reaching agreement on directions. This is one that has been used with success in a number of situations.

Beginning a meeting with introductions, what each person hopes to accomplish, what they feel their part in the process, and possibly an icebreaker to get everyone moving along the same track is advantageous but not absolutely necessary.

Start the brainstorming part of the meeting by distributing more Post-It notes (2 × 4) and a marker for each person. Then ask everyone to write 5 things they believe the organization could do or should do. The aim is to obtain between the entries 20-40 written, so as to adjust the number that each person is asked to write how many people are present. Do not worry about duplicates yet, just as they are written to obtain and publish them on the wall. A good facilitator will be looking for missing information and the request with questions like, "I do not see anything here about marketing, is that something that someone has ideas?".

When ideas are all on the wall, then a grouping process can begin. The aim is to obtain the ideas on the wall in a 'dry' of similar ideas. Let the group make decisions about what goes where and in general this will give you 3-10 buckets of ideas. Then ask the group to name each bucket documented that when the vision will become practical. You should see the pretty things that can be done with some traits that will be true for the company.

In the next installment of this series, we'll see how to develop the strategic vision of the practice....