This time of year, preparing for upcoming strategic planning exercises may seem like something far in the future.
Whether strategic planning is months away or close at hand, however, it’s always smart to get a head start tackling big strategic thinking questions that warrant in-depth consideration.
As we look ahead to clients’ strategic planning processes, we’re developing new strategic thinking questions to freshen our Brainzooming strategic planning exercises. Along the way, we try to share some of these strategic thinking questions with you to incorporate into your organization’s strategic planning exercises.
9 Big Strategic Thinking Questions to Start Addressing Now
Here are nine new strategic thinking questions were excited about in three planning areas:
Strategic Goals and Focus
- How could we focus on only one aspect of what we do to create a major impact in a completely new area?
- Where can we create at least two 0-percent or 100-percent goals for our organization?
- If we don’t already have any projects with ten-year horizons underway, what are two of them we should launch now?
Branding and Customer Experience
- What would make our tired old brand "hot" again?
- How could we create a place where future prospects and customers want to spend time “hanging out” with our brand?
- What will it take to turn every "ask permission" situation for customers into a "this is part of your solution" situation instead?
Innovation Strategy
- How can we surgically remove a promising idea from our organization and plant it in a bigger host so it flourishes more quickly?
- What are new ways to put our customers together with each other so they can identify and solve bigger challenges?
- How many times a day are we saying "yes AND" to a new idea or situation, and how do we increase that number by a factor of 10?
Which ones of those might fit into your upcoming strategic planning exercises? Contact us to let us know what works, or if you’d like to put us to work for you to get you through strategic planning in a streamlined fashion this year! - Mike Brown
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