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• 7 strategic planning models, plus 8 fra ...

7 strategic planning models, plus 8 frameworks to help you get started

Strategic planning is vital in defining where your business is going in the next three to five years. With the right strategic planning models and frameworks, you can uncover opportunities, identify risks, and create a strategic plan to fuel your organization’s success. We list the most popular models and frameworks and explain how you can combine them to create a strategic plan that fits your business.

A strategic plan is a great tool to help you hit your business goals . But sometimes, this tool needs to be updated to reflect new business priorities or changing market conditions. If you decide to use a model that already exists, you can benefit from a roadmap that’s already created. The model you choose can improve your knowledge of what works best in your organization, uncover unknown strengths and weaknesses, or help you find out how you can outpace your competitors.

In this article, we cover the most common strategic planning models and frameworks and explain when to use which one. Plus, get tips on how to apply them and which models and frameworks work well together. 

Connecting goals to work effectively

Learn how to align your team's work with organizational goals. Discover strategies to ensure that every task contributes to reaching your objectives quickly and efficiently.

Strategic planning models vs. frameworks

First off: This is not a one-or-nothing scenario. You can use as many or as few strategic planning models and frameworks as you like. 

When your organization undergoes a strategic planning phase, you should first pick a model or two that you want to apply. This will provide you with a basic outline of the steps to take during the strategic planning process.

During that process, think of strategic planning frameworks as the tools in your toolbox. Many models suggest starting with a SWOT analysis or defining your vision and mission statements first. Depending on your goals, though, you may want to apply several different frameworks throughout the strategic planning process.

For example, if you’re applying a scenario-based strategic plan, you could start with a SWOT and PEST(LE) analysis to get a better overview of your current standing. If one of the weaknesses you identify has to do with your manufacturing process, you could apply the theory of constraints to improve bottlenecks and mitigate risks. 

Now that you know the difference between the two, learn more about the seven strategic planning models, as well as the eight most commonly used frameworks that go along with them.

1. Basic model

The basic strategic planning model is ideal for establishing your company’s vision, mission, business objectives, and values. This model helps you outline the specific steps you need to take to reach your goals, monitor progress to keep everyone on target, and address issues as they arise.

If it’s your first strategic planning session, the basic model is the way to go. Later on, you can embellish it with other models to adjust or rewrite your business strategy as needed. Let’s take a look at what kinds of businesses can benefit from this strategic planning model and how to apply it.

Small businesses or organizations

Companies with little to no strategic planning experience

Organizations with few resources 

Write your mission statement. Gather your planning team and have a brainstorming session. The more ideas you can collect early in this step, the more fun and rewarding the analysis phase will feel.

Identify your organization’s goals . Setting clear business goals will increase your team’s performance and positively impact their motivation.

Outline strategies that will help you reach your goals. Ask yourself what steps you have to take in order to reach these goals and break them down into long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals .

Create action plans to implement each of the strategies above. Action plans will keep teams motivated and your organization on target.

Monitor and revise the plan as you go . As with any strategic plan, it’s important to closely monitor if your company is implementing it successfully and how you can adjust it for a better outcome.

2. Issue-based model

Also called goal-based planning model, this is essentially an extension of the basic strategic planning model. It’s a bit more dynamic and very popular for companies that want to create a more comprehensive plan.

Organizations with basic strategic planning experience

Businesses that are looking for a more comprehensive plan

Conduct a SWOT analysis . Assess your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT analysis to get a better overview of what your strategic plan should focus on. We’ll give into how to conduct a SWOT analysis when we get into the strategic planning frameworks below.

Identify and prioritize major issues and/or goals. Based on your SWOT analysis, identify and prioritize what your strategic plan should focus on this time around.

Develop your main strategies that address these issues and/or goals. Aim to develop one overarching strategy that addresses your highest-priority goal and/or issue to keep this process as simple as possible.

Update or create a mission and vision statement . Make sure that your business’s statements align with your new or updated strategy. If you haven’t already, this is also a chance for you to define your organization’s values.

Create action plans. These will help you address your organization’s goals, resource needs, roles, and responsibilities. 

Develop a yearly operational plan document. This model works best if your business repeats the strategic plan implementation process on an annual basis, so use a yearly operational plan to capture your goals, progress, and opportunities for next time.

Allocate resources for your year-one operational plan. Whether you need funding or dedicated team members to implement your first strategic plan, now is the time to allocate all the resources you’ll need.

Monitor and revise the strategic plan. Record your lessons learned in the operational plan so you can revisit and improve it for the next strategic planning phase.

The issue-based plan can repeat on an annual basis (or less often once you resolve the issues). It’s important to update the plan every time it’s in action to ensure it’s still doing the best it can for your organization.

You don’t have to repeat the full process every year—rather, focus on what’s a priority during this run.

3. Alignment model

This model is also called strategic alignment model (SAM) and is one of the most popular strategic planning models. It helps you align your business and IT strategies with your organization’s strategic goals. 

You’ll have to consider four equally important, yet different perspectives when applying the alignment strategic planning model:

Strategy execution: The business strategy driving the model

Technology potential: The IT strategy supporting the business strategy

Competitive potential: Emerging IT capabilities that can create new products and services

Service level: Team members dedicated to creating the best IT system in the organization

Ideally, your strategy will check off all the criteria above—however, it’s more likely you’ll have to find a compromise. 

Here’s how to create a strategic plan using the alignment model and what kinds of companies can benefit from it.

Organizations that need to fine-tune their strategies

Businesses that want to uncover issues that prevent them from aligning with their mission

Companies that want to reassess objectives or correct problem areas that prevent them from growing

Outline your organization’s mission, programs, resources, and where support is needed. Before you can improve your statements and approaches, you need to define what exactly they are.

Identify what internal processes are working and which ones aren’t. Pinpoint which processes are causing problems, creating bottlenecks , or could otherwise use improving. Then prioritize which internal processes will have the biggest positive impact on your business.

Identify solutions. Work with the respective teams when you’re creating a new strategy to benefit from their experience and perspective on the current situation.

Update your strategic plan with the solutions. Update your strategic plan and monitor if implementing it is setting your business up for improvement or growth. If not, you may have to return to the drawing board and update your strategic plan with new solutions.

4. Scenario model

The scenario model works great if you combine it with other models like the basic or issue-based model. This model is particularly helpful if you need to consider external factors as well. These can be government regulations, technical, or demographic changes that may impact your business.

Organizations trying to identify strategic issues and goals caused by external factors

Identify external factors that influence your organization. For example, you should consider demographic, regulation, or environmental factors.

Review the worst case scenario the above factors could have on your organization. If you know what the worst case scenario for your business looks like, it’ll be much easier to prepare for it. Besides, it’ll take some of the pressure and surprise out of the mix, should a scenario similar to the one you create actually occur.

Identify and discuss two additional hypothetical organizational scenarios. On top of your worst case scenario, you’ll also want to define the best case and average case scenarios. Keep in mind that the worst case scenario from the previous step can often provoke strong motivation to change your organization for the better. However, discussing the other two will allow you to focus on the positive—the opportunities your business may have ahead.

Identify and suggest potential strategies or solutions. Everyone on the team should now brainstorm different ways your business could potentially respond to each of the three scenarios. Discuss the proposed strategies as a team afterward.

Uncover common considerations or strategies for your organization. There’s a good chance that your teammates come up with similar solutions. Decide which ones you like best as a team or create a new one together.

Identify the most likely scenario and the most reasonable strategy. Finally, examine which of the three scenarios is most likely to occur in the next three to five years and how your business should respond to potential changes.

5. Self-organizing model

Also called the organic planning model, the self-organizing model is a bit different from the linear approaches of the other models. You’ll have to be very patient with this method. 

This strategic planning model is all about focusing on the learning and growing process rather than achieving a specific goal. Since the organic model concentrates on continuous improvement , the process is never really over.

Large organizations that can afford to take their time

Businesses that prefer a more naturalistic, organic planning approach that revolves around common values, communication, and shared reflection

Companies that have a clear understanding of their vision

Define and communicate your organization’s cultural values . Your team can only think clearly and with solutions in mind when they have a clear understanding of your organization's values.

Communicate the planning group’s vision for the organization. Define and communicate the vision with everyone involved in the strategic planning process. This will align everyone’s ideas with your company’s vision.

Discuss what processes will help realize the organization’s vision on a regular basis. Meet every quarter to discuss strategies or tactics that will move your organization closer to realizing your vision.

6. Real-time model

This fluid model can help organizations that deal with rapid changes to their work environment. There are three levels of success in the real-time model: 

Organizational: At the organizational level, you’re forming strategies in response to opportunities or trends.

Programmatic: At the programmatic level, you have to decide how to respond to specific outcomes or environmental changes.

Operational: On the operational level, you will study internal systems, policies, and people to develop a strategy for your company.

Figuring out your competitive advantage can be difficult, but this is absolutely crucial to ensure success. Whether it’s a unique asset or strength your organization has or an outstanding execution of services or programs—it’s important that you can set yourself apart from others in the industry to succeed.

Companies that need to react quickly to changing environments

Businesses that are seeking new tools to help them align with their organizational strategy

Define your mission and vision statement. If you ever feel stuck formulating your company’s mission or vision statement, take a look at those of others. Maybe Asana’s vision statement sparks some inspiration.

Research, understand, and learn from competitor strategy and market trends. Pick a handful of competitors in your industry and find out how they’ve created success for themselves. How did they handle setbacks or challenges? What kinds of challenges did they even encounter? Are these common scenarios in the market? Learn from your competitors by finding out as much as you can about them.

Study external environments. At this point, you can combine the real-time model with the scenario model to find solutions to threats and opportunities outside of your control.

Conduct a SWOT analysis of your internal processes, systems, and resources. Besides the external factors your team has to consider, it’s also important to look at your company’s internal environment and how well you’re prepared for different scenarios.

Develop a strategy. Discuss the results of your SWOT analysis to develop a business strategy that builds toward organizational, programmatic, and operational success.

Rinse and repeat. Monitor how well the new strategy is working for your organization and repeat the planning process as needed to ensure you’re on top or, perhaps, ahead of the game. 

7. Inspirational model

This last strategic planning model is perfect to inspire and energize your team as they work toward your organization’s goals. It’s also a great way to introduce or reconnect your employees to your business strategy after a merger or acquisition.

Businesses with a dynamic and inspired start-up culture

Organizations looking for inspiration to reinvigorate the creative process

Companies looking for quick solutions and strategy shifts

Gather your team to discuss an inspirational vision for your organization. The more people you can gather for this process, the more input you will receive.

Brainstorm big, hairy audacious goals and ideas. Encouraging your team not to hold back with ideas that may seem ridiculous will do two things: for one, it will mitigate the fear of contributing bad ideas. But more importantly, it may lead to a genius idea or suggestion that your team wouldn’t have thought of if they felt like they had to think inside of the box.

Assess your organization’s resources. Find out if your company has the resources to implement your new ideas. If they don’t, you’ll have to either adjust your strategy or allocate more resources.

Develop a strategy balancing your resources and brainstorming ideas. Far-fetched ideas can grow into amazing opportunities but they can also bear great risk. Make sure to balance ideas with your strategic direction. 

Now, let’s dive into the most commonly used strategic frameworks.

8. SWOT analysis framework

One of the most popular strategic planning frameworks is the SWOT analysis . A SWOT analysis is a great first step in identifying areas of opportunity and risk—which can help you create a strategic plan that accounts for growth and prepares for threats.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here’s an example:

9. OKRs framework

A big part of strategic planning is setting goals for your company. That’s where OKRs come into play. 

OKRs stand for objective and key results—this goal-setting framework helps your organization set and achieve goals. It provides a somewhat holistic approach that you can use to connect your team’s work to your organization’s big-picture goals.  When team members understand how their individual work contributes to the organization’s success, they tend to be more motivated and produce better results

10. Balanced scorecard (BSC) framework

The balanced scorecard is a popular strategic framework for businesses that want to take a more holistic approach rather than just focus on their financial performance. It was designed by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in the 1990s, it’s used by companies around the globe to: 

Communicate goals

Align their team’s daily work with their company’s strategy

Prioritize products, services, and projects

Monitor their progress toward their strategic goals

Your balanced scorecard will outline four main business perspectives:

Customers or clients , meaning their value, satisfaction, and/or retention

Financial , meaning your effectiveness in using resources and your financial performance

Internal process , meaning your business’s quality and efficiency

Organizational capacity , meaning your organizational culture, infrastructure and technology, and human resources

With the help of a strategy map, you can visualize and communicate how your company is creating value. A strategy map is a simple graphic that shows cause-and-effect connections between strategic objectives. 

The balanced scorecard framework is an amazing tool to use from outlining your mission, vision, and values all the way to implementing your strategic plan .

You can use an integration like Lucidchart to create strategy maps for your business in Asana.

11. Porter’s Five Forces framework

If you’re using the real-time strategic planning model, Porter’s Five Forces are a great framework to apply. You can use it to find out what your product’s or service’s competitive advantage is before entering the market.

Developed by Michael E. Porter , the framework outlines five forces you have to be aware of and monitor:

Threat of new industry entrants: Any new entry into the market results in increased pressure on prices and costs. 

Competition in the industry: The more competitors that exist, the more difficult it will be for you to create value in the market with your product or service.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers can wield more power if there are less alternatives for buyers or it’s expensive, time consuming, or difficult to switch to a different supplier.

Bargaining power of buyers: Buyers can wield more power if the same product or service is available elsewhere with little to no difference in quality.

Threat of substitutes: If another company already covers the market’s needs, you’ll have to create a better product or service or make it available for a lower price at the same quality in order to compete.

Remember, industry structures aren’t static. The more dynamic your strategic plan is, the better you’ll be able to compete in a market.

12. VRIO framework

The VRIO framework is another strategic planning tool designed to help you evaluate your competitive advantage. VRIO stands for value, rarity, imitability, and organization.

It’s a resource-based theory developed by Jay Barney. With this framework, you can study your firmed resources and find out whether or not your company can transform them into sustained competitive advantages. 

Firmed resources can be tangible (e.g., cash, tools, inventory, etc.) or intangible (e.g., copyrights, trademarks, organizational culture, etc.). Whether these resources will actually help your business once you enter the market depends on four qualities:

Valuable : Will this resource either increase your revenue or decrease your costs and thereby create value for your business?

Rare : Are the resources you’re using rare or can others use your resources as well and therefore easily provide the same product or service?

Inimitable : Are your resources either inimitable or non-substitutable? In other words, how unique and complex are your resources?

Organizational: Are you organized enough to use your resources in a way that captures their value, rarity, and inimitability?

It’s important that your resources check all the boxes above so you can ensure that you have sustained competitive advantage over others in the industry.

13. Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework

If the reason you’re currently in a strategic planning process is because you’re trying to mitigate risks or uncover issues that could hurt your business—this framework should be in your toolkit.

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a problem-solving framework that can help you identify limiting factors or bottlenecks preventing your organization from hitting OKRs or KPIs . 

Whether it’s a policy, market, or recourse constraint—you can apply the theory of constraints to solve potential problems, respond to issues, and empower your team to improve their work with the resources they have.

14. PEST/PESTLE analysis framework

The idea of the PEST analysis is similar to that of the SWOT analysis except that you’re focusing on external factors and solutions. It’s a great framework to combine with the scenario-based strategic planning model as it helps you define external factors connected to your business’s success.

PEST stands for political, economic, sociological, and technological factors. Depending on your business model, you may want to expand this framework to include legal and environmental factors as well (PESTLE). These are the most common factors you can include in a PESTLE analysis:

Political: Taxes, trade tariffs, conflicts

Economic: Interest and inflation rate, economic growth patterns, unemployment rate

Social: Demographics, education, media, health

Technological: Communication, information technology, research and development, patents

Legal: Regulatory bodies, environmental regulations, consumer protection

Environmental: Climate, geographical location, environmental offsets

15. Hoshin Kanri framework

Hoshin Kanri is a great tool to communicate and implement strategic goals. It’s a planning system that involves the entire organization in the strategic planning process. The term is Japanese and stands for “compass management” and is also known as policy management. 

This strategic planning framework is a top-down approach that starts with your leadership team defining long-term goals which are then aligned and communicated with every team member in the company. 

You should hold regular meetings to monitor progress and update the timeline to ensure that every teammate’s contributions are aligned with the overarching company goals.

Stick to your strategic goals

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a nonprofit organization with decades of experience, strategic planning is a crucial step in your journey to success. 

If you’re looking for a tool that can help you and your team define, organize, and implement your strategic goals, Asana is here to help. Our goal-setting software allows you to connect all of your team members in one place, visualize progress, and stay on target.

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20 top strategic planning tools and frameworks [templates & examples]

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If you want homemade bread, you need access to the right appliances and ingredients. And if your strategic plan is a loaf of sourdough, your strategic planning tools are the measuring spoons, the framework is the recipe, and your model is the oven. Each component works together to create the desired result.

Whether it’s baking fresh bread or increasing revenue or customer satisfaction, all goals take strategic planning initiatives — and in some cases, all-purpose flour — to accomplish. Let's go over the 15 most popular frameworks and five of our favorite strategic planning tools to achieve organizational success.

What is strategic planning?

The goal of developing a strategic plan is to communicate where your organization wants to go and determine what each team member needs to do to help get it there. Strategic planning helps your organization develop and document action items for carrying out the company vision and achieving business goals. 

While there are several models that can help you determine opportunities, priorities, and overall objectives, most strategic planning processes follow five general steps:

• Identify your organization’s vision
• Assess your current internal and external environments
• Outline goals
• Determine stakeholder responsibilities
• Measure and assess outcomes

Regardless of the process you choose, each of these steps will lead to the next, allowing you to build out a comprehensive strategic plan.

15 types of strategic planning frameworks

Strategic planning frameworks help teams with brainstorming in order to create specific goals from an overall vision. Frameworks are essentially roadmaps to take teams from ideas to actions. You don’t necessarily need to use a framework within a model — just like you don’t necessarily need to follow a recipe to bake a loaf of bread — but it helps you produce the best outcome. And don’t feel limited to using only one framework within a particular model.

Although it’s not a complete list, the 15 frameworks listed below are some of the most commonly used.

1. Balanced scorecard

Created by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton, the balanced scorecard is designed for organizations that want to focus on their business as a whole, rather than solely on financial performance. It helps give leadership teams a look at how their operations are performing, particularly within quick timelines.

When using the balanced scorecard, you’ll reference four factors to set goals and assess performance:

• Customers or clients: How your users perceive your business
• Internal processes: Your organization’s efficiency when developing quality products or services
• Organizational capacity: Your company culture and the ways in which your business can improve and grow
• Financial capacity: Your organization’s potential profitability and the effectiveness of resource allocation

Once you determine where your organization stands with regard to the factors above, you can develop specific goals, measurable objectives, and the steps you’ll need to take to achieve these.

2. Objectives and key results (OKR)

Objectives and key results (OKR) is a straightforward strategic planning framework used to translate overarching business goals into specific measurable objectives. It helps you define:

• Objectives: Identify three to five time-bound goals you want to achieve.
• Key results: Determine three to five quantitative outcomes per objective.

The OKR framework helps your team build connections between their individual contributions and your company’s success. Your team should shoot for a 70% key result success rate . If they’re hitting 100% right out of the gate, your organization’s goals weren’t ambitious enough.

Related: OKRs vs. KPIs: What’s the difference?

3. SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is a framework for strategic planning that helps you identify your organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. You should use the SWOT framework at the beginning of your strategic planning process to align stakeholders and provide a common lens through which to view your company’s current position.

List your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the four quadrants of a 2x2 box. Once outlined, your team can seek connections between quadrants that will inform your strategy. The goal of the SWOT framework is to help you create a strategy that takes advantage of growth opportunities but also prepares for worst-case scenarios.

4. PEST or PESTLE analysis

A PEST analysis is a strategic planning framework that helps teams analyze external political, economic, sociocultural, and technological factors that could impact your business goals. It could also be modified to include legal and environmental elements (PESTLE).

Like a SWOT analysis, considering each factor of PEST or PESTLE within your industry environment gives your team advanced warning about any significant or immediate threats to your organizational goals. It also enables teams to pinpoint business opportunities within each of the framework’s factors.

5. Gap analysis

The gap analysis framework should be used to compare where your organization currently stands with where you want it to be and help you understand how to bridge the gap between the two. 

With the gap analysis framework — also called the strategic planning gap, need assessment, or need-gap analysis — you’ll be able to determine weak points and root causes (or potential causes) of performance issues by comparing what you’re currently doing with what you intend to do. It helps you identify internal organizational deficiencies and create a plan that addresses them.

6. VRIO framework

The VRIO framework helps you identify your organization’s competitive advantages and is composed of four elements:

• Value: Do your resources help increase revenue or decrease costs, resulting in business value?
• Rarity: Is there a lot of competition in the market for your resources? Are other companies able to create your products and services using these resources?
• Imitability: Could a competing organization copy your products and services easily?
• Organization: Does your organization have the right systems in place to capitalize on your resources?

By analyzing these elements, you’ll be able to refine your organization’s vision and create a plan that helps you meet your customers’ needs.

7. Porter’s Five Forces

Developed in 1979 by Michael Porter, the Five Forces strategic planning framework helps you identify and understand the factors that put competitive pressure on your organization.

The five forces are:

• Bargaining power of buyers: If the same products and services are offered elsewhere with minimal differences in quality, consumers will have the power to influence pricing.
• Bargaining power of suppliers: If there are fewer product or service alternatives for consumers, suppliers like large retailers will have the power to drive down costs.  
• Threat of new entrants: What are your industry’s barriers to entry? New companies in your marketplace will increase pressure on the cost of your products and services.
• Threat of substitute products or services: Can consumers easily substitute a competitor’s product or service for yours? Your business offerings need to create value.
• Rivalry among existing competitors: How'll your competitors’ growth impact your business? The more competition in the marketplace, the harder it'll be to create value with your business offerings.

These forces determine how economic value is divided among your competitors, so using this framework for strategic planning will help you identify your company’s position in the industry.

8. 7S model

The 7S model was developed by McKinsey consultants, and it emphasizes the value of strategically aligning internal departments with business processes. The key elements organizations should be looking to align include:

• Strategy: Your organization’s business plan for outperforming your competitors supported by your company’s mission and vision.
• Structure: How your internal departments and teams are organized; the chain of command.
• Systems: The procedures, daily duties, and technical infrastructure your organization uses to perform.
• Shared values: The beliefs and norms that guide your business decisions and actions; these reflect your company’s work ethic.
• Style: The way management and other stakeholders approach leadership.
• Staff: How employees are sought out and trained and what motivates them; your workers’ general capabilities.
• Skills: Your team members’ capabilities; the level of employee competence. 

The 7S model encourages leadership teams to explore the interconnectedness of these elements within the company and look for inconsistencies or areas of weakness. Once you’ve noted the areas that need to be strengthened, you can work toward realigning these elements to accomplish strategic goals in your organization.

Related: Tactical vs. strategic planning: Why you need both

9. Ansoff Matrix

The Ansoff Matrix framework was developed to help companies plan their growth strategies. The base for this framework is a 2x2 matrix with “products” on the x-axis and “markets” on the y-axis.

Each box within the matrix corresponds to a particular growth strategy. These are:

• Market penetration: Sell an existing product in an existing market.
• Market development: Sell an existing product in a new market.
• Product development: Sell a new product in an existing market.
• Diversification: Sell a new product in a new market.

Each business strategy is increasingly risky, with diversification being the biggest swing. The Ansoff Matrix helps organizations with financial decision-making and developing an action plan for business growth.

10. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix

This matrix was developed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the early 1970s to help companies categorize products or business units based on their market growth rate and relative market share. The BCG matrix helps you prioritize resource allocation by identifying where to invest, divest, or maintain products or business units.

The four groups under the BCG matrix include:

• Stars: Products with a high market share in a fast-growing market. These top performers need investment to maintain growth.
• Cash cows: Products with a high market share in a slow-growth market. They churn out cash and require minimal investment.
• Question marks: Products or business units with a low market share in a high-growth market. They have the potential to be stars if given high investment.
• Dogs: Products with low market share in a stagnant market. They often drain resources and are candidates for divestment.

11. Feature market analysis

Feature market analysis is a strategic approach used to assess the potential of new product features or innovations in the market. 

Key steps in feature market analysis typically include:

• Segmentation: Identifying specific market segments or customer groups with distinct needs and preferences to target with new features.
• Market needs: Gathering data on customer preferences, pain points, and trends through surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other methods.
• Competitor analysis: Studying competitors' products and features to understand what is currently available in the market and identify gaps or areas for differentiation.
• Feature prioritization : Evaluating potential features based on criteria such as customer demand, feasibility, competitive advantage, and alignment with the overall product strategy.

12. Lean canvas

The lean canvas is a one-page strategic management framework adapted from the Business Model Canvas by Ash Maurya. It helps startups and entrepreneurs efficiently develop and iterate on business strategy. 

Lean canvas provides a structured framework for identifying key elements of a business model, including:

• Problem: Describes the top three problems your customers face.
• Solution: Outlines your solution to the identified problems.
• Key metrics: Lists the key performance indicators (KPIs) you'll use to measure success.
• Unique value proposition: States the unique value your product or service offers to customers.
• Unfair advantage: Highlights any strengths or advantages that give your business an edge over competitors.
• Customer segments: Identifies the target customer segments for your product or service.
• Channels: Specifies the channels through which you'll reach and acquire customers.
• Revenue streams: Details how your business will generate revenue.
• Cost structure: Outlines the fixed and variable costs associated with running your business.

13. Four corners analysis

The four corners analysis, developed by Michael Porter, helps you understand a competitor's intent, objectives, and strengths. It addresses four core questions:

• Drivers : This corner examines the driving forces behind your competitors' actions, such as market trends, customer preferences, and industry dynamics.
• Current strategy: This corner looks at your competitor's current strategy, including its objectives, goals, and the tactics it employs to achieve them.
• Management assumptions: This corner explores your competitors' beliefs and assumptions on market conditions and competitive dynamics.
• Capabilities and resources: This corner evaluates the competitor's strengths and weaknesses, such as technology, talent, brand reputation, and financial resources.

14. Pareto analysis

Pareto analysis helps you prioritize tasks, issues, or factors based on the principle that a small number of inputs (20%) typically lead to a large majority of outputs (80%).

During the strategic planning process, you often identify multiple issues or challenges you need to address to achieve your goals. With Pareto analysis, you focus on the ones that have the most significant impact on your organization's performance or objectives.

15. The 3 horizons model

This strategic framework is developed by McKinsey to help you balance focus between short-term optimization, medium-term innovation, and long-term transformation. 

The three horizons represent different timelines and levels of innovation:

• Horizon 1: Represents products, services, and business models that drive current profitability and performance. The focus is on optimizing operations and improving efficiency.
• Horizon 2: Includes emerging opportunities and initiatives that have the potential to become significant contributors to future growth and profitability.
• Horizon 3: Represents disruptive innovations and future possibilities that have the potential to reshape industries and create entirely new markets.

5 great strategic planning tools

Strategic planning tools are software programs that help teams put frameworks into action. There are many tools out there, each offering a unique specialty or perspective.

There's no one platform that's perfect for every single company. But these five are all exceptional at helping companies build their strategic plans. Find the one that best fits your company to help with planning.

Not to brag, but… Mural’s visual work platform makes strategic collaboration easier. It gives teams the tools — like custom templates and asynchronous collaboration features (like anonymous voting) — to outline business goals, identify key performance metrics, and measure results.

Mural’s templates for strategy and alignment help teams start the planning process by providing structure for frameworks like OKR or SWOT analysis . And each template features facilitation assistance to walk your team through strategic planning activities .

Cross-functional collaboration is easy in Mural — in real time or asynchronously. The anonymous voting feature, for example, lets teams come to a consensus and reach internal alignment quickly. 

ClickUp is a project management tool that helps teams prioritize tasks and organize strategic plans.

ClickUp offers templates like matrices and visual timeliness so you’re able to plug in content quickly, process this information, and start coming up with plans faster.

There’s also a feature called ClickUp Goals that helps teams break objectives down into smaller tasks using Targets or ways to measure each item. These targets include number, true/false, currency, and task.

ClickUp is comprehensive, but the pre-built automations may be limiting to some users if too many are triggered at the same time or if your organization requires more customization.

Hive marries task management with strategic planning by helping teams manage complex timelines, large-scale projects, and workflows.

Hive has goal-setting and milestone-tracking features that help teams set task dependencies, follow progress, and share reports with relevant stakeholders. Its visualization tools allow you to toggle between overarching organizational goals and individual teammate objectives. 

You can use the Hive Pages feature as a dashboard for your workspace’s hub. You can set Pages as public or private, add and customize widgets within your Pages, and even export Pages to non-Hive users.

A chat function is available within the tool, but some users have reported losing messages within the platform. So, some may find other collaboration tools more reliable for communication.

Airtable is a next-generation platform that gives teams the power of relational databases in the form of user-friendly spreadsheets. It lets users organize, collaborate on, and store strategic plans within these databases.

Airtable offers an OKR tracking template that helps align teams and manage goals while maintaining accuracy. It also includes a Sync feature that updates workflows seamlessly across teams.

Airtable is a flexible tool but may have limitations, like lagging, when dealing with complex projects or datasets. Data processing functions and complicated calculations could lead to slower response times within the platform.

Trello is a Kanban-based project management tool. Its intuitive design features boards and cards, which can be used to structure strategic models and frameworks. 

Trello offers board templates for project and task management that provide organizational structures to help teams outline deliverables and assign tasks. It also features Timeline and Calendar views, so it’s easy to envision goals and schedule deadlines.

Power-Ups are Trello board features that allow you to use your favorite third-party apps directly within the platform. However, some users may find that combining Power-Ups from different vendors may cause friction in Trello’s functionality.

Bring your organization’s vision to life

There’s no one best framework or strategic planning tool — the right options for you'll depend on your organization’s vision, mission, and available resources. 

Regardless of methodology, most strategic planning begins with analyzing your current internal business environment and external factors, developing specific objectives, and creating action items to achieve these goals. 

Not sure where to start your strategic planning? Mural's template library includes preformatted, customizable frameworks (like this radar template !) to get your team on the path to success.

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26 Best Strategy Tools For Your Organization in 2024

Developing a sound strategy is something every organization strives to achieve. A highly effective strategy helps organizations establish their competitive position, grow market share, and thrive in a ruthless business environment. Or they become irrelevant and slowly die.

However, choosing the right tools to execute that strategy and bring their strategic processes to life is something few are concerned with. 

In this article, we’ll cover a collection of strategy tools and free templates that every growth-oriented strategist should have in their strategy toolkit:

• Strategic planning tools
• Strategic management tools
• Strategic tracking tools
• Strategy execution tool that companies prefer to keep secret 💜

Strategic Planning Tools

The first significant part of the strategic management process or business planning involves analysis and planning. The strategy tools we've listed in this section are all about helping you understand where you are today and where you should be tomorrow.

Strategy analysis tools to kickstart the strategic planning process

The first step of the strategic planning process is to study your organization’s strengths and internal and external factors to inform your strategic decisions. 

💡Analysis is key to identifying weak spots and opportunities. But don’t get trapped in that rabbit hole of endless evaluation. Focus on core business metrics , prioritize initiatives that move the needle, and take action. 

Here’s a list of free tools and templates:

1. GAP Analysis Toolkit

This toolkit will help you understand the gap between where you’re today and what you need to do to get where you want to be as a company. Free template included.  

2. SWOT Analysis

Use this guide with free template to help you identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you should consider when evaluating your strategic options.

3. PEST Analysis

PEST Analysis helps you to analyze Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors that could impact your strategy.

4. PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE Analysis is an expanded version of a PEST Analysis. It adds two more external factors to your analysis: Legal and Environmental. Grab a simple PESTLE Analysis Template here . 

5. VRIO Analysis Tool

VRIO framework will help you identify your business's competitive advantages.

6. Porter's Five Forces model

This framework (introduced by Michael Porter ) helps you identify five forces that place competitive pressure on a company in any given industry. It focuses on these five dimensions: Threat of New Entrants, Supplier Power, Buyer Power, Threat of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry.

7. McKinsey 7S Framework

Mckinsey 7S framework is an oldie but goldie. This tool will help you identify strategic alignment between departments and processes. Grab your template in this free collection of templates for internal analysis.

8. Ansoff Matrix

This matrix can help you figure out which of four strategic directions you should take to grow your business successfully. Its four quadrants include market penetration, product development, market development , and diversification.

9. BCG matrix

Boston Consulting Group developed a valuable strategic planning tool to help companies prioritize their different businesses by their degree of profitability. You can find a free BCG matrix template here . 

10. GE Matrix

McKinsey’s GE Matrix is a visual tool designed to help portfolio managers determine resource allocation for multi-business portfolios. 

Along with providing an overview of business units' performance, the GE Matrix also prescribes three strategic paths (grow, hold, and harvest) to inform strategic decisions.

11. Value Chain Analysis

Want to review your new product’s journey? This template will help you identify and analyze all related activities and processes to increase efficiency.

12. The Business Model Canvas

Use this strategic management tool to assess new business models, whether you are an existing business or a fast-growing start-up. 

👉You can also download our internal analysis toolkit with a collection of templates to help you with analysis.

📚 Recommended readings: 

• Develop An Iterative Strategic Planning Process (+Template)
• How To Conduct Internal Analysis (+ Free Templates)
• How To Perform Gap Analysis In 5 Easy Steps 

Strategic planning tools for strategy formulation

Strategy formulation is where the rubber hits the road. By now, you should have a good idea of your internal capabilities and the situation of your external business environment. So, it's time to set goals and create an action plan to achieve them. 

1. Vision Statement Toolkit

This Excel-based strategy tool will help you create a vision statement for your organization from scratch. 

2. Values Toolkit

Another pillar of your strategy is setting your strategic values. This Excel-based strategy toolkit will help with that process.

💡 When is the right time for a makeover of your company’s vision and values? It’s a good move when dealing with significant organizational changes, growth slowdowns, or cultural issues because it can boost stakeholders’ motivation. On the flip side, skip this exercise if you’re dealing with crisis management or focusing on short-term business goals like meeting quarterly financial targets.

3. Strategic planning models

We’ve put together an overview of the five most widely used strategic planning models , including: 

• Cascade Model
• Hoshin Kanri Model
• Balanced Scorecard
• V2MOM Model

💡Strategic planning models and frameworks are a great starting point to start brainstorming and formulating your strategy. But they don’t solve your alignment and execution problems. That’s why you need the right strategy tools that combine iterative strategic planning , centralized observability , and execution in one place.

4. Strategic Planning Template

Ready to turn your strategy into an execution-ready plan? Use this free strategic planning template to set clear goals, build a strategic roadmap, and assign responsibilities to ensure stakeholder engagement with your strategy.

4. KPI Cheatsheets

Here you can explore an online library of free KPI examples for various industries to inspire you. 

💡Craft a custom strategy that suits your organization's unique goals and priorities. Start with our pre-built templates as jumping-off points for a highly effective strategic plan. Check out some examples from our template library : 

• Corporate Strategy Template  
• Marketing Strategy Template
• Customer Service Strategy Template 
• Change Management Strategy Template

Strategic Management Tools

The second phase of the strategic management process is executing the strategic plan you created earlier—the most crucial part of every strategy. 

PowerPoint is a terrible tool for strategy execution, but a good presentation is a fine starting point to introduce your people to the new strategy. Up your game with an interactive Miro presentation rather than a stuffy old PowerPoint!

2. Strategic Engagement and Communication Toolkit

It all comes down to communicating your strategy and the why behind it. To drive strategy execution successfully, you need to get buy-in from involved stakeholders. This toolkit will help you plan out your strategic engagement plan to ensure you cover all the bases of effective strategy communication.

3. Alignment map

This Cascade feature helps organizations map out how their goals are connected and impact one another. 

This is our version of a strategy map that helps you visualize the alignment of objectives across multiple plans, giving you complete visibility into the execution web that's spinning inside your organization. 

As a result, you can quickly identify any risks or roadblocks, prioritize critical initiatives, and eliminate misaligned projects.

📚 Recommended reading:  

• Strategy Execution in 6 Steps
• 6 Ways To Master The Art Of Strategy Execution

Strategy Tracking Tools

The final phase of the strategic management process involves tracking the effectiveness of your strategy and then iterating where needed. These tools are all about tracking, analytics, and iteration!

Strategic analysis monitors whether or not you've delivered on your strategy and made progress toward your short- and long-term goals. It also helps you understand where you are succeeding or failing.

1. KPI Reporting Template (Excel version)

Manually track important metrics and KPIs with this Excel template.

2. KPI Reporting Template

Connect this template to your existing business strategy tools, automatically track your KPIs, and have real-time data at your fingertips. 

3. OKR Excel Template (Excel version)

Use this free and straightforward template to set and track OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). You can track company, team, or individual OKRs. 

4. Balanced scorecard

You can use this Balanced Scorecard Template to centralize the most important metrics in one place and measure your critical KPIs. Since it’s based on a traditional balanced scorecard framework , you can organize your KPIs and key initiatives into four standard categories: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, and Learning & Growth.

5. Real-time dashboards and strategy reports

Strategy tools with real-time dashboards and reports are the missing piece that help you bridge the gap between you, your teams, and your upper leadership to ensure successful strategy execution. 

By leveraging these tools, you’ll be able to stay on top of performance, adjust your strategies on the go, and keep everyone focused on strategic goals.  

📚 Recommended reading: Best Reporting Tools To Drive Strategy (Pros, Cons, Pricing & Reviews)

Strategy Execution Tool

Despite the extensive list of strategy tools, templates, and models above—what if we told you that it’s possible to plan, manage, and track your strategic and growth initiatives from one central hub ?

A tool that top companies see as a competitive advantage and prefer to keep confidential? 

From the beginning, our goal was to make a tool that consolidates different strategy tools into a single platform—taking care of all the phases of the strategic management process:

1. Planning phase: You can use customizable strategic planning models that best fit your strategy approach. Drive strategic alignment across the organization by building a high-level company strategy plan and connecting it with strategic plans at the departmental or team level.

2. Executing phase: With its powerful integrations , strategic portfolio and project management , and goal management capabilities , Cascade helps you and your team to bridge the gap between planning and execution.

3. Tracking phase: KPI tracking , real-time dashboards, or drill-down reports - you name it, we have it. You will be able to provide data-driven insights to your C-suite team or get a real-time view of what's getting done or not. That’s the only way to faster and more confident decision-making.

Today, Cascade is the leading strategy execution platform with a laser focus on progress and speed and a commitment to top-notch customer service. 

Whereas many companies fail to turn strategy into tangible outcomes, Cascade helps leaders deliver business profitability by giving them a centralized observability of what’s happening across the organization. 

Boost Your Strategy Execution With The Right Strategy Tools 🚀

Strategy planning models, tools, and templates are great for fleshing out your strategy, but to successfully execute strategy and adapt as needed, you also need the right software. 

A great strategy execution platform will help you to create a single source of truth for your strategy, eliminating wasted time in disconnected tools, confusion and potentially preventing a failed strategy execution. 

A single home for your strategy will help you to keep everyone on the same page, allowing leaders to focus on the most critical parts of strategy execution : clear goals, context, and strategic prioritization. 

And when you are not wasting your time in meetings to keep everyone aligned, you can focus on the greater purpose of actually helping your team members learn, grow, and deliver results .

Cascade makes it easy to build strategic roadmaps and assign KPIs and owners to drive accountability. It lets your employees collaborate on shared goals to drive strategy execution across the organization. 

‍ Interested in seeing Cascade in action? Get started for free or book a demo with Cascade’s experts.

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9 Strategic Planning Models and Tools for the Customer-Focused Business

Updated: July 11, 2023

Published: May 15, 2019

As the economist and business strategy guru, Michael Porter, says, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

With strategic planning, businesses identify their strengths and weaknesses, choose what not to do, and determine which opportunities should be pursued. In sales operations, having a clearly defined strategy will help your organization plan for the future, set viable goals, and achieve them.

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So, how do you get started with strategic planning? You‘ll begin with strategic planning models and tools. Let’s take a look at nine of the most prominent ones here.

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Strategic planning models.

Strategic planning is used to set up long-term goals and priorities for an organization. A strategic plan is a written document that outlines these goals.

Don't confuse strategic planning and tactical planning . Strategic planning is focused on long-term goals, while tactical planning is focused on the short-term.

Here are a few strategic planning models you can use to get started.

1. The Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard is one of the most prominent strategic planning models, tailored to give managers a comprehensive overview of their companies' operations on tight timelines. It considers both financial and operational metrics to provide valuable context about how a business has performed previously, is currently performing, and is likely to perform in the future.

The model plays on these concerns: time, quality, performance/service, and cost. The sum of those components amount to four specific reference points for goal-setting and performance measurement:

• Customer: How customers view your business
• Internal Process: How you can improve your internal processes
• Organizational Capacity: How your business can grow, adapt, and improve
• Financial: The potential profitability of your business

Those four categories can inform goals that are more thoughtful and focused while surfacing the most appropriate metrics with which you can use to track them. But the elements you choose to pursue and measure are ultimately up to you. As there's no definitive list, they will vary from organization to organization.

That being said, there‘s a universally applicable technique you can use when leveraging the model—creating a scorecard. This is a document that keeps track of your goals and how you apply them. Here’s an example of what a scorecard might look like:

Image Source

The Balanced Scorecard is ideal for businesses looking to break up higher-level goals into more specific, measurable objectives. If you're interested in translating your big-picture ambitions into actionable projects, consider looking into a Balanced scorecard software .

Example of the Balanced Scorecard

Let‘s imagine a B2B SaaS company that sells a construction management solution. It’s been running into trouble from virtually all angles. It‘s struggling with customer retention and, in turn, is hemorrhaging revenue. The company’s sales reps are working with very few qualified leads and the organization's tech stack is limiting growth and innovation.

The business decides to leverage a Balanced Scorecard approach to remedy its various issues. In this case, the full strategic plan—developed according to this model—might look like this:

• The company sets a broad financial goal of boosting revenue by 10% year over year.
• To help get there, it aims to improve its customer retention rate by 5% annually by investing in a more robust customer service infrastructure.
• Internally, leadership looks to improve the company's lead generation figures by 20% year over year by revamping its onboarding process for its pre-sales team.
• Finally, the business decides to move on from its legacy tech stack in favor of a virtualized operating system, making for at least 50% faster software delivery for consistent improvements to its product.

The elements listed above address key flaws in the company‘s customer perception, internal processes, financial situation, and organizational capacity. Every improvement the business is hoping to make involves a concrete goal with clearly outlined metrics and definitive figures to gauge each one’s success. Taken together, the organization's plan abides by the Balanced Scorecard model.

2. Objectives and Key Results

As its name implies, the OKR (objectives and key results) strategic planning model revolves around translating broader organizational goals into objectives and tracking their key results. The framework rests on identifying three to five attainable objectives and three to five results that should stem from each of them. Once you have those in place, you plan tactical initiatives around those results.

After you‘ve figured out those reference points, you determine the most appropriate metrics for measuring their success. And once you’ve carried out the projects informed by those ideal results, you gauge their success by giving a score on a scale from 0 to 1 or 0%-100%.

For instance, your goal might be developing relationships with 100 new targets or named accounts in a specific region. If you only were able to develop 95, you would have a score of .95 or 95%. Here's an example of what an OKR model might look like:

It's recommended that you structure your targets to land at a score of around 70% — taking some strain off workers while offering them a definitive ideal outcome. The OKR model is relatively straightforward and near-universally applicable. If your business is interested in a way to work towards firmly established, readily visible standards this model could work for you.

Example of the Objectives and Key Results

Let's consider a hypothetical company that makes educational curriculum and schedule planning for higher-education institutions. The company decides it would like to expand its presence in the community college system in California, something that constitutes an objective.

But what will it take to accomplish that? And how will the company know if it's successful? Well, in this instance, leadership within the business would get there by establishing three to five results they would like to see. Those could be:

• Generating qualified leads from 30 institutions
• Conducting demos at 10 colleges
• Closing deals at 5 campuses

Those results would lead to initiatives like setting standards for lead qualification and training reps at the top of the funnel on how to use them appropriately, revamping sales messaging for discovery calls, and conducting research to better tailor the demo process to the needs of community colleges.

Leveraging this model generally entails repeating that process between two and four more times, ultimately leading to a sizable crop of thorough, actionable, ambitious, measurable, realistic plans.

3. Theory of Change (TOC)

The Theory of Change (TOC) model revolves around organizations establishing long-term goals and essentially “working backward” to accomplish them. When leveraging the strategy, you start by setting a larger, big-picture goal.

Then, you identify the intermediate-term adjustments and plans you need to make to achieve your desired outcome. Finally, you work down a level and plan the various short-term changes you need to make to realize the intermediate ones. More specifically, you need to take these strides:

• Identify your long-term goals.
• Backward map the preconditions necessary to achieve your goal, and explain why they're necessary.
• Identify your basic assumptions about the situation.
• Determine the interventions your initiative will fulfill to achieve your goals.
• Come up with indicators to evaluate the performance of your initiative.
• Write an explanation of the logic behind your initiative.

Here's another visualization of what that looks like.

This planning model works best for organizations interested in taking on endeavors like building a team, planning an initiative, or developing an action plan. It's distinct from other models in its ability to help you differentiate between desired and actual outcomes. It also makes stakeholders more actively involved in the planning process by making them model exactly what they want out of a project.

It relies on more pointed detail than similar models. Stakeholders generally need to lay out several specifics, including information related to the company's target population, how success will be identified, and a definitive timeline for every action and intervention planned. Again, virtually any organization — be it public, corporate, nonprofit, or anything else — can get a lot out of this strategy model.

Example of the Theory of Change

For the sake of this example, imagine a business that makes HR Payroll Software , but hasn‘t been doing too well as of late. Leadership at the company feels directionless. They think it’s time to buckle down and put some firm plans in motion, but right now, they have some big picture outcomes in mind for the company without a feel for how they're going to get done.

In this case, the business might benefit from leveraging the Theory of Change model. Let‘s say its ultimate goal is to expand its market share. Leadership would then consider the preconditions that would ultimately lead to that goal and why they’re relevant.

For instance, one of those preconditions might be tapping into a new customer base without alienating its current one. The company could make an assumption like, “We currently cater to mid-size businesses almost exclusively, and we lack the resources to expand up-market to enterprise-level prospects. We need to find a way to more effectively appeal to small businesses.”

Now, the company can start looking into the specific initiatives it can take to remedy its overarching problem. Let's say it only sells its product at a fixed price point that suits midsize businesses much more than smaller ones. So the company decides that it should leverage a tiered pricing structure that offers a limited suite of features at a price that small businesses and startups can afford.

The factors the company elects to use as reference points for the plan's success are customer retention and new user acquisition. Once those have been established, leadership would explain why the goals, plans, and metrics it has outlined make sense.

If you track the process I‘ve just plotted, you’ll see the Theory of Change in motion. It starts with a big-picture goal and works its way down to specific initiatives and ways to gauge their effectiveness.

4. Hoshin Planning

The Hoshin Planning model is a process that aims to reduce friction and inefficiency by promoting active and open communication throughout an organization. In this model, everyone within an organization—regardless of department or seniority—is made aware of the company's goals.

Hoshin Planning rests on the notion that thorough communication creates cohesion, but that takes more than contributions from leadership. This model requires that results from every level be shared with management.

The ideal outcomes set according to this model are also conceived of by committee to a certain extent. Hoshin Planning involves management hearing and considering feedback from subordinates to come up with reasonable, realistic, and mutually understood goals.

The model is typically partitioned into seven steps:

• establishing a vision
• developing breakthrough objectives
• developing annual objectives
• deploying annual objectives
• implementing annual objectives
• conducting monthly and quarterly reviews
• conducting an annual review.

Note: The first three steps are referred to as the “catchball process.” It's where company leadership sets goals and establishes strategic plans to send down the food chain for feedback and new ideas. That stage is what really separates Hoshin Planning from other models.

Example of Hoshin Planning

For this example, let‘s imagine a company that manufactures commercial screen printing machines. The business has seen success with smaller-scale, retail printing operations, but realizes that selling almost exclusively to that market won’t make for long-term, sustainable growth.

Leadership at the company decides that it's interested in making an aggressive push to move up-market towards larger enterprise companies. However, before they can establish that vision, they want to ensure that the entire company is willing and able to work with them to reach those goals.

Once they‘ve set a tentative vision, they begin to establish more concrete objectives and send them down the management hierarchy. One of the most pressing activities they’re interested in pursuing is a near-comprehensive product redesign to make their machines better suited for higher volume orders.

They communicate those goals throughout the organization and ask for feedback along the way. After the product team hears their ideal plans, it relays that the product overhaul that leadership is looking into isn‘t viable within the timeframe they’ve provided. Leadership hears this and adjusts their expectations before doling out any sort of demands for the redesign.

Once both parties agree on a feasible timeline, they begin to set more definitive objectives that suit both the company‘s ambitions and the product team’s capabilities.

Strategic Plan Example

The strategic plan above is for a fictitious shoe company and outlines the way in which it'll differentiate itself within the market. It effectively uses each step in the strategic planning model framework and is written in a way to give a brief overview of how the company will enter the market and sustain longevity.

If you're working on a strategic planning model for an existing business, your plan will look similar, but have a few tweaks to the goals, including more goals about improving sales and processes. When drafting the action plan and evaluation parts of the plan, be sure to think tactically about the actions that will help you achieve the goals, and use your mission, vision, and values to guide the choices you make.

Strategic Planning Tools

There are additional resources you can use to support whatever strategic planning model you put in place. Here are some of those:

1. SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool and acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It's used to identify each of these elements in relation to your business.

This strategic planning tool allows you to determine new opportunities and which areas of your business need improvement. You'll also identify any factors or threats that might negatively impact your business or success.

2. Porter's Five Forces

Use Porter‘s Five Forces as a strategic planning tool to identify the economic forces that impact your industry and determine your business’ competitive position. The five forces include:

• Competition in the industry
• Potential of new entrants into the industry
• Power of suppliers
• Power of customers
• Threat of substitute products

To learn more, check out this comprehensive guide to using Porter's Five Forces .

3. Visioning

Visioning is a goal-setting strategy used in strategic planning. It helps your organization develop a vision for the future and the outcomes you'd like to achieve.

Once you reflect on the goals you‘d like to reach within the next five years or more, you and your team can identify the steps you need to take to get where you’d like to be. From there, you can create your strategic plan.

4. PESTLE Analysis

The PESTLE analysis is another strategic planning tool you can use. It stands for:

• P: Political
• E: Economic
• T: Technological
• E: Environmental

Each of these elements allow an organization to take stock of the business environment they're operating in, which helps them develop a strategy for success. Use a PESTLE Analysis template to help you get started.

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The Best Strategic Planning Tools: A Comprehensive List [2024]

Strategic planning is key to steering your organization toward its goals. With the right tools, you can analyze various internal and external factors to set clear objectives, make informed decisions, and adapt to changing conditions.

However, finding the right planning model can be difficult with so many options available. In this guide, we'll cover some of the best strategic planning tools for 2024.

Whether you need to align your team's efforts, foster innovation, or prepare for what's ahead, these tools can help you build a strategy that fits your organization’s needs.

Main Takeaways From This Article:

• Strategic planning tools come in various forms, such as frameworks, software, and templates, each designed to streamline different aspects of the planning process.
• The strategic planning process is essential for aligning an organization's actions with its long-term vision, with tools playing a critical role at each stage.
• Popular strategic planning models like the Balanced Scorecard, SWOT Analysis, and Porter's Five Forces offer structured approaches to guide decision-making and strategy execution.
• Choosing the right strategic planning model depends on your organization's goals, challenges, and environment, with some situations benefiting from a combination of models.
• Strategic planning software, such as Spider Impact, is crucial for implementing and monitoring strategies effectively, ensuring that plans are executed and adjusted as needed.

What Is a Strategic Planning Tool?

A strategic planning tool helps organizations create, implement, and monitor their strategic plans. These tools guide the process, from analyzing the current environment to setting goals and tracking progress.

Strategic planning tools come in various forms, including:

• Frameworks and Models: Structured approaches like the Balanced Scorecard, SWOT Analysis, and Porter's Five Forces help define objectives, analyze data, and develop strategies.
• Software Solutions: Digital platforms that streamline planning , enabling collaboration, data management, and real-time performance tracking with features like dashboards and reporting.
• Templates and Worksheets: Simple resources for organizing thoughts, gathering information, and documenting plans during the initial stages.

The main purpose of these tools is to make strategic planning more efficient and aligned with organizational goals. They help visualize data, identify risks and opportunities, and ensure everyone is working toward the same objectives.

Understanding the Strategic Planning Process

To effectively use strategic planning tools, it's important to understand the key stages of the process and how different tools support each phase.

• Defining the Mission and Vision: Start by clearly articulating the organization's mission (core purpose) and vision (future goals). This foundational step ensures that all planning activities are aligned with the organization's overall objectives.
• Conducting a Situational Analysis: Next, assess internal strengths and weaknesses , as well as external opportunities and threats. Tools like SWOT Analysis help provide a comprehensive view, guiding organizations to focus on key areas.
• Setting Strategic Goals: With an understanding of the environment, set specific, measurable, and time-bound goals. Strategic planning tools help align these goals with the mission and vision, directing efforts toward desired outcomes.
• Developing Strategies and Tactics: After setting goals, outline specific actions, assign responsibilities, and set timelines. Tools like the Balanced Scorecard or OKR frameworks break down goals into actionable steps.
• Implementation: Put the plan into action by deploying resources and coordinating efforts across teams. Using a strategic management model for projects and performance tracking tools is crucial here to ensure effective and timely execution.
• Monitoring and Evaluation: Continuously monitor progress and evaluate the effectiveness of strategies. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) and make necessary adjustments. Tools with real-time dashboards and reporting capabilities help organizations stay agile and responsive.

Strategic Planning Models and Frameworks

Strategic planning models offer structured approaches to help organizations develop and execute their strategies. These frameworks simplify complex decision-making by providing clear methods for analyzing data using financial and operational metrics, setting objectives, and aligning activities with strategic goals. Below are some widely used strategic models that can support your organization's success.

Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) helps align business activities with organizational vision and strategy by evaluating performance across four critical perspectives:

• Financial : Monitors metrics like revenue growth and profitability to ensure strategic initiatives contribute to financial health.
• Customer : Measures customer satisfaction and retention to gauge how effectively the organization meets client needs.
• Internal Processes : Assesses operational efficiency to ensure processes are optimized in support of strategic goals.
• Learning and Growth : Focuses on innovation, employee development, and cultural improvements to drive continuous organizational progress.

This balanced approach encourages a comprehensive view, preventing an undue focus on financial outcomes alone.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis is a simple yet powerful tool that identifies an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses, along with external opportunities and threats. It provides a holistic view of factors that can influence an organization’s success:

• Strengths: What does the organization do well? What unique resources or capabilities provide a competitive edge?
• Weaknesses: Where could the organization improve? What limitations might hinder progress?
• Opportunities: What external trends or changes could the organization capitalize on?
• Threats: What external challenges could negatively impact the organization?

By thoroughly analyzing these elements, organizations can craft strategies that leverage strengths, address weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate potential threats.

Porter's Five Forces

Porter's Five Forces model analyzes an industry's competitive environment to help organizations understand the factors affecting profitability and strategic positioning. The model examines five key forces:

• Bargaining Power of Buyers: How much influence do customers have on prices and quality demands?
• Bargaining Power of Suppliers: How much control do suppliers have over input costs and material availability?
• Threat of New Entrants: How easy is it for new competitors to enter the market and challenge established players?
• Threat of Substitutes: How likely are customers to switch to alternative products or services?
• Competitive Rivalry: How intense is the competition among existing players in the industry?

Understanding these forces enables organizations to develop strategies that strengthen their industry position, counter competitive threats, and enhance long-term profitability.

Objectives and Key Results (OKR)

Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is a goal-setting framework that helps organizations set clear, measurable objectives and track progress through defined key results. It ensures that all team members are aligned with the organization's strategic goals.

• Objectives: Specific, qualitative goals that are inspiring and direction-setting.
• Key Results: Quantitative measures that track progress toward objectives are clear, specific, and time-bound.

The OKR framework fosters transparency and accountability, with regular reviews of progress, allowing organizations to remain agile and responsive to change.

Scenario Planning

Scenario Planning is a strategic method used to prepare for potential uncertainties by developing multiple future scenarios. It helps organizations anticipate and plan for various challenges and opportunities.

• Developing Scenarios: Create a range of possible future scenarios based on different assumptions about key factors like economic conditions or technological changes.
• Analyzing Impacts: Understand the potential impact of each scenario on the organization, identifying risks and opportunities.
• Formulating Strategies: Develop flexible strategies that can adapt to different future conditions.

Scenario Planning is particularly valuable in volatile environments, equipping organizations with the foresight to effectively navigate unexpected changes.

Hoshin Kanri (Hoshin Planning)

Hoshin Kanri, also known as Hoshin Planning, is a strategic methodology that ensures alignment between strategic goals and operational activities, enabling the entire organization to work toward shared objectives.

• Policy Deployment: Strategic goals are broken into actionable tasks deployed throughout the organization, ensuring alignment at every level.
• Continuous Improvement: Incorporates continuous improvement (Kaizen) into the planning process, allowing for regular feedback and adjustments.
• Catchball Process: A back-and-forth communication method between different organizational levels to refine and clarify goals, ensuring mutual understanding.

Hoshin Kanri focuses on strategic alignment and continuous improvement, helping organizations achieve long-term goals while remaining adaptable to change.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy encourages organizations to create uncontested market space, making the competition irrelevant through innovation and differentiation.

• Value Innovation: The core of Blue Ocean Strategy —pursuing both differentiation and low cost to create significant value for the organization and its customers.
• Strategic Canvas: A tool to map the current market landscape and identify where the organization can stand out by offering unique value.
• Four Actions Framework: Rethinks industry assumptions to determine which factors should be reduced, eliminated, raised, or created to break away from the competition.

By focusing on innovation, Blue Ocean Strategy helps organizations move beyond existing market boundaries to capture new demand.

VRIO Framework

The VRIO Framework evaluates an organization’s resources and capabilities to determine if they can provide a sustainable competitive advantage based on four attributes:

• Value: Does the resource help the organization exploit opportunities or neutralize threats?
• Rarity: Is the resource rare and not widely available to competitors?
• Imitability: Is the resource difficult for competitors to imitate or replicate?
• Organization: Is the organization structured to capitalize on this resource?

When a resource meets all four criteria, it can contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage, positioning the organization to outperform competitors over the long term.

Issue-Based Strategic Planning

Issue-Based Strategic Planning is a focused approach that addresses immediate issues and challenges, helping organizations resolve specific problems quickly.

• Identifying Issues: Start by identifying the most pressing challenges, such as financial difficulties, operational inefficiencies, or external threats.
• Developing Actionable Plans: Create targeted, detailed plans to address these issues, specifying steps, responsibilities, timelines, and resources.
• Implementation and Monitoring: Implement the plans and closely monitor progress to ensure effective resolution of the issues.

This framework is ideal for organizations needing to respond quickly to environmental changes or overcome specific obstacles to success.

Gap Planning

Gap Planning, also known as Gap Analysis, helps organizations identify the difference between their current state and desired future state. The focus is on understanding where the organization is now, where it wants to be, and what needs to happen to bridge that gap.

• Assessing the Current State: Analyze the organization’s current capabilities, resources, and performance.
• Defining the Desired Future State: Set strategic objectives or desired outcomes, such as market expansion or increased revenue.
• Identifying the Gap: Determine the differences between the current state and the desired future state, such as resource shortages or process inefficiencies.
• Developing Strategies: Create action plans to close the gap and achieve strategic objectives.

Gap Planning is particularly useful for organizations aiming to transform operations or achieve specific strategic goals.

Alignment Strategic Planning

The Alignment Strategic Planning Model ensures that all parts of an organization are working cohesively toward strategic goals. This model emphasizes aligning resources, capabilities, and activities with the organization's mission and vision.

• Mission and Vision Alignment: Clearly define the mission and vision, ensuring they are understood across the organization.
• Aligning Resources and Capabilities: Review resources and activities to ensure they support strategic goals. This may involve reallocating resources or adjusting processes.
• Continuous Monitoring: Regularly monitor alignment and make adjustments as needed to keep the organization on track.

This strategic planning model is particularly effective for large organizations or those undergoing significant changes, where unified direction is essential.

Vision-Based Planning

Vision-Based Planning centers around a clear and compelling vision statement that guides all strategic goals and initiatives. The focus is on having a strong, guiding vision that inspires and directs the organization's efforts.

• Creating the Vision Statement: Craft a vision statement that articulates the organization’s long-term aspirations, aligning with core values.
• Aligning Strategic Goals: Develop goals and initiatives that directly support the vision, ensuring every action contributes to making the vision a reality.
• Engaging the Organization: Communicate the vision effectively to ensure all team members are motivated to contribute.

This model is ideal for organizations aiming to inspire and unify their teams around a shared purpose.

Ansoff Matrix

The Ansoff Matrix, or Product/Market Expansion Grid, is a strategic tool used to explore growth opportunities by focusing on product and market combinations. It offers four strategies:

• Market Penetration: Increase market share with existing products in existing markets through marketing, pricing, or customer service enhancements.
• Market Development: Enter new markets with existing products, targeting new geographical areas or customer segments.
• Product Development: Create new products to serve the existing market, ideal for companies looking to innovate within their current customer base.
• Diversification: Enter new markets with new products, which can involve related or unrelated diversification.

The Ansoff Matrix aids organizations in systematically exploring growth strategies while assessing potential risks.

PEST Analysis

PEST Analysis is a tool used to analyze the external factors that impact an organization’s performance and decision-making. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors:

• Political Factors: Government policies, regulations, and legal issues that affect business operations, such as tax policies or trade restrictions.
• Economic Factors: Economic conditions like growth, inflation, and interest rates that influence consumer behavior and demand.
• Social Factors: Cultural, demographic, and societal trends that affect consumer needs, such as lifestyle shifts or changes in social values.
• Technological Factors: Technological advancements that affect the competitive landscape, including automation, R&D, and innovation.

PEST Analysis helps organizations anticipate challenges and opportunities, enabling informed strategic decisions and adaptability to external changes.

Which Strategic Planning Model Is Right for You?

Choosing the right strategic planning model depends on your organization's goals, resources, and business environment.

For aligning daily activities with long-term objectives, the Balanced Scorecard may be the best choice. If your focus is on handling uncertainty, Scenario Planning can prepare you for multiple future possibilities. If innovation and market differentiation are your priorities, the Blue Ocean Strategy might be most suitable.

The ideal model fits your organization's specific needs and can adapt as those needs evolve. Assess your current challenges and long-term goals to select the model that will most effectively guide your strategy.

Should You Switch or Combine Strategic Planning Models?

If your current model no longer aligns with your strategic objectives or fails to address emerging challenges, it may be time to consider switching. For instance, if your organization is expanding into new markets, the Ansoff Matrix could help focus on growth strategies.

Combining models can also be highly effective. For example, you might use SWOT Analysis for initial assessments and the Balanced Scorecard to track performance across various business perspectives. A hybrid approach can offer a more comprehensive framework, addressing a broader range of strategic challenges.

Ultimately, whether you choose to switch or combine models should be based on a thorough evaluation of your strategic needs, organizational culture, and desired outcomes.

Exploring Strategic Planning Software

To effectively implement strategic planning models, organizations often rely on specialized software solutions. Different types of software cater to various aspects of the planning process:

• Balanced Scorecard Tools : Platforms like Spider Impact help track key performance indicators (KPIs) across different business perspectives, ensuring activities are aligned with strategic goals.
• Project Management Software : These tools assist in setting milestones, managing tasks, and monitoring progress, ensuring that projects align with broader strategic objectives.
• Scenario Planning Tools : These applications allow organizations to model potential outcomes and prepare for future uncertainties, supporting informed decision-making.
• Collaboration Platforms : Enhance communication and coordination among teams, ensuring that everyone is aligned and working towards shared goals.

Should you ever feel the need to switch strategic planning models, your chosen solution should be able to adapt to your organization's key internal elements to ensure successful outcomes.

Elevate Your Strategic Initiatives with Spider Impact

Strategic planning is vital for aligning your organization's goals and actions and enhancing your internal processes' organizational capacity, but without the right tools, even the best-laid plans can go astray. Spider Impact elevates your strategic initiatives by providing a centralized platform that seamlessly integrates planning, execution, and performance tracking.

From creating dynamic strategy maps to monitoring KPIs in real-time, Spider Impact ensures every department is aligned and focused on achieving your organization's key objectives. By automating data updates and providing powerful business intelligence, Spider Impact helps you stay agile and make informed decisions.

Ready to transform your strategic planning process? Book a live demo today to see Spider Impact in action.

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