Implementing and Sustaining Your Strategic Plan:
A Workbook for Public and Nonprofit Organizations
Based on John Bryson's acclaimed comprehensive approach to strategic
planning, the Implementing and Sustaining Your Strategic Plan workbook provides a
step-by-step process, tools, techniques, and worksheets to help successfully implement,
manage, and troubleshoot an organization's strategy over the long haul.
This new and immensely practical workbook helps organizations work through the
typical challenges of leading implementation for sustained change. It spotlights the
importance of effective leadership for long-term successful strategic plan implementation.
The authors include a wealth of tools designed to help with goal and objective setting,
budgeting, stakeholder analysis, priority reconciliation, strategies in practice, special
leadership roles, cultural changes, and more.
The workbook's conceptual framework, step-by-step process, and worksheets can
be applied in a variety of ways. It can be used as a whole, or selected parts can be used
by board members, boards of directors, senior management teams, implementation teams, and
task forces on a regular basis throughout the process of sustained implementation. The
workbook's individual worksheets, or combinations of worksheets, can be used as needed to
address a variety of implementation-related tasks.
John M. Bryson is the McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and
Public Affairs in the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of
Minnesota. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and in 2011
received the Dwight Waldo Award from the American Society for Public Administration for
"outstanding contributions to the professional literature of public administration
over an extended scholarly career." He consults widely on strategic management with
public, nonprofit, and business organizations in the United States and abroad.
Sharon Roe Anderson, cofounder of Aurora Consulting, is an experienced
facilitator and consultant around issues related to strategic planning, team building,
facilitation, nonprofit board governance, and implementation.
Farnum K. Alston is the founder of The Crescent Company and has worked on
hundreds of strategic planning projects for public, business, and nonprofit organizations.
Table of Constants
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
The Authors.
PART 1 UNDERSTANDING IMPLEMENTATION AND ASSESSING READINESS.
Step 1 Understanding Implementation and Assessing Readiness.
Worksheets.
1 Interviewing People About the Upcoming Implementation Process.
2 Implementation Readiness Assessment Questionnaire.
3 Key Implementation Design Choices.
PART 2 GETTING ORGANIZED.
Step 2 Leading Implementation.
Worksheets.
4 Implementation Process Sponsors.
5 Implementation Process Champions.
6 Identifying Possible Members of the Implementation Coordinating Committee.
7 Developing a Charge for the Implementation Coordinating Committee and Related
Subgroups.
8 Understanding and Linking Forums, Arenas, and Courts.
9 Values to Sustain Innovation and Change.
Step 3 Understanding How and Why the Strategic Plan Came to Be.
Worksheet.
10 Agenda for Follow-Up Meeting to Assess Results of Interviews of Strategic Plan
Preparers and Adopters.
Step 4 Clarifying Who the Implementation Stakeholders Are.
Worksheets.
11 Implementation Stakeholder Identifi cation.
12 External Implementation Stakeholder Analysis.
13 Internal Implementation Stakeholder Analysis.
14 Power Versus Interest Grid.
15 Implementation Support Versus Opposition.
16 Creating the Supportive Coalition.
17 Engaging External Implementation Stakeholders.
18 Engaging Internal Implementation Stakeholders.
PART 3 CLARIFYING STRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL DIRECTIONS.
Step 5 Articulating What the Organization's Mandates, Mission, Vision, and
Values Mean for Implementation and Alignment.
Worksheets.
19 Gaining Clarity About the Implications of the Organization's Mandates for
Implementation.
20 Understanding What the Organization's Mission Means for Implementation.
21 Understanding What the Organization's Values Mean for Implementation.
22 Understanding What the Organization’s Vision of Success Means for Implementation.
23 How and Why the Organization Creates Public Value.
Step 6 Getting Clear About Strategies That Will Continue, Will Be Started, or
Will Be Phased Out.
Worksheets.
24 Evaluating Priorities for Existing Strategies, Programs, Products, Services, and
Projects.
25 Evaluating Priorities for Proposed New Strategies, Programs, Products, Services, and
Projects
26 Reconciling Priorities Among Existing and Proposed Strategies, Programs, Products,
Services, and Projects.
27 Strategy, Program, Product, Service, or Project Statement and Component Elements.
PART 4 RESOURCING AND STRUCTURING IMPLEMENTATION, ALIGNMENT, AND ONGOING
LEARNING.
Step 7 Budgeting the Work.
Worksheets.
28 Developing a Budget for Strategic Plan Implementation.
29 Developing a Summary Budget for Implementation.
30 Developing a Strategic Annual Budget for Large, Complex Organizations.
Step 8 Creating an Implementation Management Structure.
Worksheets.
31 Project Assignment.
32 Assignment of Work to Project, Program, and Portfolio Categories.
33 Assignment of Projects, Programs, Portfolios, and Other Work.
Step 9 Developing Effective Implementation Teams.
Worksheets.
34 Creating Implementation Recommendation and Action Teams (I-Teams).
35 ICC and I-Team Tasks, Membership, Competencies, Roles, and Responsibilities.
36 Team Leader Self-Assessment.
37 Meeting Agenda.
38 Meeting Summary.
39 Meeting Evaluation.
40 Team Self-Assessment.
Step 10 Organizing Alignment and Learning Processes.
Worksheets.
41 Alignment Checkup.
42 Designing Learning Forums.
43 Facilitating Dialogue Guidelines.
44 Identifying Needed Formative Evaluations.
45 Employee Performance Self-Review.
46 Performance Review and Development Plan Process.
47 Coaching for Successful Implementation.
48 Professional Development Request Form.
Step 11 Putting It All Together in Strategy Maps and Action Plans.
Worksheets.
49 Board Action Plan.
50 Action Planning.
51 Action Planning for the Stop Agenda.
52 Microsoft Project Schedule Template.
53 Summary of Actions and Responsibilities.
54 Strategy/Action Status Report Form.
55 Implementation Communications Plan.
56 Creating an Elevator Speech.
PART 5 MAINTAINING, READJUSTING, OR TERMINATING STRATEGIES.
Step 12 Staying the Course—Or Changing It.
Worksheets.
57 Improving Existing Strategies.
58 Identifying Needed Summative Evaluations.
59 Improving the Implementation Process.
60 Improving the Strategic Planning Process.
RESOURCES.
A Brainstorming Guidelines.
B Snow Card Guidelines.
Glossary.
Bibliography.
320 pages, Paperback