Tools · Strategy Execution

Translate Strategy to Impact

Walk one priority from your strategic plan to a tested outcome with its measures, its off-ramps, and its place in the sequence

A strategic plan states intent. The harder work is converting a goal, objective or area of focus into something a leadership team can run, measure and sequence over the life of the strategy. This tool walks one priority through seven steps across two stages: Ideation, where you test the logic and find the assumptions that could sink it, and Activation, where you write the outcome, decide your team's role, choose milestones or a bet, and set the measures. It ends with a one-page outcome plan and the steps to take with your team. Work through your plan one item at a time and the implementation sequence begins to write itself.

What you get

• A logic test for the priority: if we do this, then this changes for these people, because of this, with the assumptions that would have to be true
• A read on each assumption, and an off-ramp agreed in advance for any that are load-bearing, so a decision reaches the agenda while there is still time to change course
• A drafted outcome statement in a standard form: as a result of this work, who will do, experience or have what, because of the condition that now exists
• A measurement chain from a weekly lead action to a leading indicator (6-12 months) and a lagging indicator (24-36 months), each with a baseline, target, collector and cadence
• A suggested sequencing tier drawn from prerequisite value, readiness, and the cost of a year's delay, plus the one thing that will wait or stop to make room
• A one-page outcome plan you can save as a PDF or copy as text and bring to your leadership team, kept in your browser as you go