How do you improve your strategy review process?

Engage a diverse group of stakeholders in your strategy review process. Consider involving not only internal team members but also external experts, customers, and partners who can provide valuable insights and different perspectives.

Conducting a frequent “Strategy Review” process helps organizations in minimizing obscurity – to as much as possible - and staying focused; through refining the plans. Once the purpose and scope are defined, organizations may be able to have some clarities/answers on certain assumptions like: - Hindsight: about what happened and why (i.e. inside organizations, markets, competitors, etc.) - Insights: about what the future holds (i.e. trends, customers’ preferences, opportunities, threats, etc.) - Foresights: on how to realize the future (i.e. re-focus areas, objectives, initiatives, etc.)

The strategic planning process can take some time, but it’s beneficial for everyone involved. Successful strategic planning involves a team effort among you and your employees, as well as among you and your vendors and other outside people. Strategic planning also needs to be flexible. When strategic planning is successful, everyone in your business is on the same page with the business’s direction and goals. Strategic planning is as important as having a business plan and can lead to the success of your business.

One thing I found valuable is analyzing the “Industry Landscape (Arena Map) over Time”. This is one of many powerful strategy tools that helps in examining the market evolvement along with its growth/threat areas. By critically analyzing the value chain of the sub-industries’ landscape, organizations can refine their business plans with respect to markets, customer segmentation, channels of sales, and mega trends, etc.

Mapping the customer journey helps identify pain points, touchpoints, and opportunities for improvement. By empathizing with your customers and their unique journeys, you can refine your strategy to enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the integration of key stakeholders’ (Partners) engagement into the process of strategy creates a sense of “shared values” and “mutual benefits”. This also prevents organizations from duplicating work or overlapping execution. Tools of engagement are plenty, and can be conducted through regular/irregular, brainstorming, and feedback sessions (i.e. surveys to focus groups to meetings, etc.).

Surveys allow you to gather input from a broader audience efficiently. Design targeted questionnaires for various stakeholder groups, including customers, employees, and partners.

Diverse perspectives enrich the review process. Including voices from various departments or even external partners can provide multifaceted insights into the strategy's effectiveness. Regularly scheduled feedback sessions, where stakeholders can openly discuss what's working and what isn't, ensure continuous improvement.

Your stakeholders likely won't have time to review comprehensive reports. Consider adopting a "key takeaways" approach, where findings are presented succinctly at the start, followed by in-depth analyses. This approach caters to both high-level executives looking for a quick overview and those who want a deep dive into the data.

I know it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day running of a business and lose sight of long-term planning. This is why scheduling regular policy review meetings is so important. This will force you and your team to take a step back and think about the bigger picture.

An effective strategy review process should be seen as a cycle, not a linear progression. After actions are implemented and monitored, they feed back into the next review process.