Sample planning model

Sample Planning Model

Although an organization’s plan should be designed to meet its specific needs, all processes have similar steps. These steps are:

• Get organized: assess whether you are ready
  
  • Put together a plan for your process
  • Get the commitment of board, staff and other key players
  • Form a planning committee or designate some one or a group to oversee the effort
• Take stock: examine your current realities
  
  • Look at where the organization is currently, both internally and externally.SWOT analysis is one commonly used technique, which allows the organization to identify internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external forces (opportunities and threats) and provides insight into factors that influence the organization and its future decision-making. Click here for an easy to follow guide for completing a SWOT analysis.
  • Methods for doing this assessment might include: surveying, interviews, written assessments, historical data, focus group meetings, research, competitive analysis, white papers, outside experts, talking with other arts organizations
• Dream and debate: articulate mission and vision
  
  • Often groups have a retreat to dedicate the time to this
• Develop the plan: identify specific goals, objectives and strategies
  
  • This step allows you to move from intensions to specific ways you can achieve your objectives and identify the knowledge, tools and resources needed to advance your efforts
• Draft and approve the plan
  
  • Ultimately the board of directors need to formally adopt the written document

Planning process best practices

A Successful Planning Process
Successful processes and plans reflect and are tailored to the unique needs and characteristics of the organization. It takes into account current realities, working styles, dynamics, environments, vision, beliefs and needs.

Successful strategic planning processes:

• Are supported by organizational leadership – board and staff
• Build a shared vision that is values-based
• Are inclusive and participatory processes in which board and staff take on joint ownership
• Provide opportunity for collaboration and broad involvement of those who impact and are impacted by the plan
• Are externally focused and sensitive to the organization’s environment
• Accept accountability to the community
• Require openness to questioning the status quo, flexibility and provide a fluid process for learning and discovery through which creative strategies can emerge
• Are based on quality data
• Proceed from mission and values, and express how an organization over time can breathe new life into its mission and build a bridge from current realities to desired futures
• Lead to action and are a key part of effective management – the plan does not sit on a shelf and implementation is not left up to chance
• Acknowledge that disagreement is inevitable, welcome divergent ideas, really work to get the best ideas out, are not afraid of arguing, and allow for talking through delicate subjects. They acknowledge that the process can produce conflict and anxiety because no one controls the outcome of the process and this can lead to tension.

Planning process obstacles

What hinders planning?

• Lack of, or limited, understanding, familiarity and comfort with planning
• Limited financial, personnel and time resources to carry out the process
• Resistance to planning on the part of board members, staff and other individuals due to fear of change in the organization’s structure, operations, or interpersonal dynamics
• Inability to see beyond current problems and the immediate future
• Lack of commitment to implement
• Unpredictability of external environment

Typical plan components

What's In A Plan?
Typical components of a plan include:

• Mission statement
• Artistic values and vision
• Goals
• Objectives
• Strategies
• Action steps with time lines, responsible parties, needed resources

Often planning documents will include specific sections addressing particular organizational concerns, such as programming, audience development, financial development, organizational infrastructure, board governance or facility.

The language of planning
Key in a planning effort is to ensure that everyone is speaking the same language. Without it, confusion can easily occur.

The following are commonly used planning terms and definitions:

Vision
A description of the reality you expect to create. What will success look like? If a strategic plan is the “blueprint” for an organization’s work – the vision is the “artist’s rendering” of the achievement of that plan.

Mission
Answers the question – why do we exist? What you are here to do, and what is your unique approach to the business you are in? This statement is key to the organization, as everything that it does should flow from your mission.

Values
Answers the question – what do we believe? What are the abstract qualities that you prize?

Goals
Answers the question – what do we want to see happen? This is a desired result or condition that is generally intermediate and consistent with the overall mission. Some describe goals as critical competencies the organization must have to achieve its vision, values, and mission.

Measurable Objectives
Specific, measurable, time-bound, and achievable short-term results that are consistent with a goal. Indicates when a goal is achieved.

Strategies
The ways your organization will accomplish its goals.

Action Steps or Tactics
Specific steps to be taken to implement the strategies. Each action step will be assigned to an individual who is responsible and will carry a start date and a completion date.

Find additional information on planning in the Planning Toolkit on the National Endowment for the Arts website, and the Alliance for Nonprofit Management website.

Action Plans

An action plan is a detailed, prioritized list of steps you must take to achieve your organization's goals.

Creating an action plan is the process of determining which steps are necessary.

Prioritizing the plan is the process of determining which of these steps have the highest positive impact with the least amount of capital or effort. This helps you determine the important items you are most likely to accomplish given current resources.

As you develop and prioritize your action plan—each action item that you want to do as an organization—you should use this chart to help you prioritize and to start thinking about strategies—what you need to do to achieve the action step.

Download and print this chart: (doc) (pdf)

• Capacity - our ability to achieve the action step, given our resources
• Impact - the degree to which the action step will positively affect us

To use this chart, write each action item separately on sticky notes. Place each action item on the chart in the location that matches that item's capacity and impact.

Lower left quadrant
How would you prioritize an action step if it falls in the lower left quadrant? Low priority, you may even consider dismissing that step from the plan.

Upper right quadrant
How would you prioritize an action step if it falls in the upper right quadrant?

• If you have the capacity and the action item has high positive impact, we might give it high priority.

Lower right quadrant
How would you prioritize an action step that falls in the lower right, for example building a Parking Lot? You might decide that because of the high impact, you need to develop a strategy to increase your capacity to do it.