“Strategy tells me what direction to point the troops in. Vision tells me why it’s important to head that way.” – Simon Sinek
In business, your strategic plan serves as a compass, guiding your organisation towards its envisioned future. However, it’s crucial to understand that strategic planning is not a one-size-fits-all process but a multi-faceted journey, with each phase playing a distinct role. Over the past few weeks, as a part of this month’s theme of “Strategy and Planning,” we’ve explored the importance of crafting a three-year strategic plan and the critical role of governance in shaping strategy. We’ve also delved into the roles of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) within your planning structure.
This week we embark on the next leg of our strategic voyage, focusing on developing a strategic roadmap. This essential step bridges the gap between your high-level strategic plan and the practical execution, plotting your detailed route to your objective. This article looks at the layers of strategic planning, exploring the differences between the strategic plan, roadmap, OKRs, and KPIs, and discovering how they all come together to propel your organisation forward.
The Role of a Strategic Roadmap
While your strategic plan is the overarching, high-level blueprint that outlines your organisation’s long-term vision, goals, and objectives – typically over a multi-year horizon – your strategic roadmap is the detailed, tactical plan that outlines the specific steps and initiatives required to implement your strategic plan, generally covering a shorter timeframe such as the year ahead.
While a three-year strategic plan sets the overarching vision, the roadmap outlines the detailed route to reach your destination.
Vision and Strategy – The North Star of Your Business
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of developing a strategic roadmap, it’s essential to understand the key drivers behind this process – vision and strategy. Simon Sinek’s quote, “Strategy tells me what direction to point the troops in. Vision tells me why it’s important to head that way,” encapsulates the heart of the matter.
Vision is your North Star. It defines the ultimate destination for your business. It’s the “why” behind your journey. Your vision statement should inspire and motivate not only your leadership team but everyone in your organisation. It’s your long-term, aspirational goal, with your BHAG being the “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” you’ve set for the next few years as you move inexorably towards your vision.
Strategy, on the other hand, is the roadmap itself. It outlines the “how.” It details the specific steps, decisions, and actions needed to realise your BHAG and your vision. Your strategy provides the directional guidance to move from where you are today to where you want to be in the future.
Creating Your Strategic Roadmap
Now, let’s explore the process of creating a strategic roadmap:
- It’s a Team Effort:
We’ve looked at the importance of involving your whole team in the strategic planning process, and this is, of course, equally important as you drill down to the detail needed for the roadmap.
Remember, too, that your board of directors plays a pivotal role in this process, as their expertise and experience can uncover invaluable insights as you align your strategic roadmap with your vision and business goals.
- Assess Your Current Position:
Just as before planning a journey, you need to understand your starting point, so, too, you need to be clear on where your business stands as the first part of your overall planning process – as we saw in the article on Crafting a Three-Year Strategic Plan. This includes analysing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) and evaluating your financial health, market positioning, and competitive landscape.
This analysis will be key to ensuring the success of your strategic roadmap, ensuring you start you off from the correct place.
- Plot Strategic Objectives:
Your strategic plan will contain a number of goals that will enable you to reach your BHAG, on the road to your vision. Transfer these from your strategic plan to the roadmap timeline to provide a high-level overview of major results expected in future years.
- Define Milestones:
Break down objectives into major milestones expected each year and the quarters for at least the 1-2 years ahead. These high-level OKRs represent interim targets on the path to your goals.
Also, map the logical connections between milestones across timeframes. Many later milestones depend on achieving earlier ones, perhaps even in different departments/divisions of the business.
- Identify Current Initiatives:
Taking it down a further level, pinpoint specific projects and activities, whether underway now or needing to be started, to achieve short-term milestones. This next level of OKRs forms the action layer of the roadmap.
- Link Metrics to Initiatives:
Now attach KPIs to each initiative to enable you to track progress through measurable metrics, allocate the resources you will need for these, and assign the owners of the KPIs to ensure accountability.
- Visualize on a Timeline:
Finally, plot the objectives, milestones, dependencies, initiatives, and metrics on a timeline to visualise the integrated roadmap.
- Review and Refine:
Then circulate this draft roadmap, or the portions relevant to each party, to leaders and teams for input. Refine based on feedback before finalising.
- Monitor and Adapt:
Your strategic roadmap isn’t static, of course. Monitor and review your progress on an ongoing basis, engaging with the appropriate members of the team, and your board, to assess whether adjustments are needed. The business landscape evolves, and your roadmap should adapt accordingly.
The Power of Alignment
A well-crafted strategic roadmap brings a sense of alignment to your organisation. It ensures that you have the necessary resources identified and provisioned for the journey ahead, and that everyone understands their role in the journey towards the vision.
By clearly mapping the process you:
- Communicate focus areas and key results expected in the coming months and years.
- Enable leadership to spot dependency risks and adjust timelines accordingly.
- Allow managers to visualise how their team’s projects integrate into strategic goals.
- Facilitate cross-functional collaboration as teams understand collective milestones.
- Provide a clear overview of progress on strategic initiatives through milestone and metric updates.
- Identify execution gaps quickly when milestones slip; allow course correction to keep plans on track.
- Trace how current initiatives feed into to long-term objectives, maintaining alignment.
- Keep your board aligned through regular updates at each board meeting, giving it the opportunity to provide input, too.
Final Thoughts
An effective strategic roadmap is the bridge between well-crafted plans and flawless execution. It translates your strategy into clearly sequenced action plans, milestones, and performance metrics across business units.
With clear line of sight into upcoming goals and progress, teams and leaders can identify roadblocks early and realign efforts for shared success. Initiatives stay targeted on achieving strategic priorities rather than siloed activities.
As U.S. President, General Dwight Eisenhower noted, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Your roadmap breathes life into plans through relentless implementation, monitoring, and refinement. With a live strategic roadmap guiding the way, you can confidently accelerate towards your most ambitious aspirations.
So don’t just have a strategy – map out the road ahead at every turn. Let your roadmap lead the way.
Is your business equipped with a strategic roadmap, and how does your team and board contribute to its development? Share your insights, experiences, and success stories in the comments below.
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If you’d like learn more on this topic, the following articles and posts might be of interest.
Other articles in this month’s focus on Strategy and Planning:
- Crafting a Three-Year Strategic Plan: The Roadmap to Success
- The Role of OKRs and KPIs in Strategic Planning
- Boards Shape Strategy – The Critical Role of Governance in Business Success
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Tracking and Updating Your Plan – Ensuring Your Business’s Agility in an Ever-Changing World
Related Posts
- “The future belongs to those who plan for it.” – Jim Moran
- “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight Eisenhower
- You’re Driving, But Does Everyone Know The Destination?
- “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
- Is Your Strategy Fit for Purpose?
- CEOs – 6 Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Next Year
- How a Board Enables Faster and More Sustainable Growth For Businesses of All Sizes – Small to Large
Backgrounders:
HBR: 6 Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic
Forbes: Strategic Business Plans: Why This Success-Focused Tool Is A Must-Have
Miro: Strategic Roadmaps: All You Need to Know
FastCompany: Strategy made easy: Three simple steps to start strategizing successfully
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