Is your plan alive? · Bluestem Advisory

Five questions about where your organization is heading — whether that lives in a strategic plan the board approved, a page of goals, or in conversations nobody has written down yet. Two minutes, honest answers. You'll get a straight, kind read on screen, and the written version by email. And if you don't have a strategic plan at all, say so — there's a path for that too.

What you write here comes to us and stops there. There's no account to make and no list you're joining.

To start

First — where does your strategic plan live today?

In a written strategic plan the board approved.
In a slide, a page, or a set of goals we've written down.
In conversations — we know what we're about, but it isn't written down.
Honestly, we don't have a strategic plan.

Question 1 of 5

If you stopped three people in the hallway — a board member, a manager, someone on the front line — and asked why the organization is heading where it's heading, what would you hear?

The same one or two sentences, in their own words.
The same idea in different words; someone might need a moment.
One of them could say it; the other two would guess.
A list of goals — or a friendly shrug.

Question 2 of 5

Think of one thing in your strategic plan — or one thing the organization has decided to do this year — a project, a change, a push. Who owns it?

One named person, and they'd tell you so themselves.
A named person on paper; in practice it's shared.
A team, or a committee.
It's "all of us" — which usually means no one in particular.

Question 3 of 5

What has to happen in the next ninety days for that to move — and by when?

We could tell you the first steps and their dates; they're on people's calendars.
We know the steps; the dates are "this year".
We know the direction, not the steps.
We haven't broken it down that far yet.

Question 4 of 5

How will you know the plan is working — and do you know where you started?

We have measures with a starting number, a target, and the steps between.
We have targets; starting numbers for some.
We'd know it when we saw it.
We haven't put numbers to it — it's an aim.

Question 5 of 5

When did leadership and the board last look together at where the organization is heading — the direction, not the budget?

Last quarter, in the same shape as the quarter before.
Once this year, in whatever form was to hand.
When the plan — or the goals — were approved.
It doesn't really come up as its own conversation.

Where should the written version go?

You'll see your result on the next page. Leave an email and the written version — a line on where your plan lives, your band, and the two answers that pulled the score down — arrives from us within a minute.

Your name

Organization

It's a…

I'd like to talk this through — please get in touch.

A note on the score: it asks whether your direction is alive — owned, dated, measured, looked at, and understood by more than the people who set it — not whether it's clever, and not whether it's written down. Five questions can't see your organization; they can only ask what you'd say out loud.