Lumen Impact Group
Lumen Impact Group

Your Strategic Plan is Done– Now What?: How Operational Planning Makes Strategic Plans a Reality

Published: October 18, 2024

There’s something energizing about strategic planning. After days of focused work to build a plan at the board level, you feel accomplished and excited as you present the plan to your team. But, now what? 

With so many competing demands for your time and energy, how will your team prioritize follow-through on the actions that move your big picture ideas forward? 

All big ideas require a lot of “how to” planning and energy to really make them happen; that’s where operational planning comes in.

The Difference between Strategy and Operational Levels

Imagine you decide that you are going to do better about eating healthy meals at home for the sake of your general health and your budget, so you’re going to meal plan for the next year. Meal planning is the objective or initiative that will move your goal of being healthier and thriftier forward — it’s part of your strategy. It’s specific, yet still high-level and you can measure whether you’ve been successful based on things like your weight, blood pressure, and bank account balance.

The thing is, whoever at your house does the shopping and cooking knows that it’s not as simple as just saying you’re going to meal plan. To actually make it happen, you have to find recipes for healthy meals, figure out how you can share ingredients across recipes for budget efficiency, and fit the demands of shopping and cooking into your schedule. This kind of planning is more in the weeds, and it’s what we call operational planning. In operational planning, you start to parse out the steps involved: the timing, the responsibilities, and the check-ins along the way to ensure you keep moving and get to the outcomes you were hoping for.

Keeping it moving, even with “Life” happens

With a plan at any level, things get in the way. Maybe someone gets sick, and you can’t shop on your normal day, or something at work ran late, and now there’s no time to prep the meal that was in the plan for tonight. These hiccups don’t mean that we throw out the plan and go back to ordering Doordash or running out to the nearest drive-through; but they do mean that we need to stay flexible.

You can flip flop a quick meal meant for Thursday to be your new Tuesday plan, or grab pizza one night, so you can go to the store and get back on track. The important thing is that these hiccups don’t become the norm, but it can be hard to stay on track when life gets in the way. Because of this, we know that successful operational planning requires regular check-ins to see if we’re moving things along, even with the roadblocks that inevitably come.

When you’re checking in on operational targets, you need things that are shorter-term. Maybe you’re looking to see how much food you’re wasting, how your pants fit each day, or how much you’re still spending on takeout each week. That information is going to help you see whether you’re getting around roadblocks and keeping momentum, or if the plan is not working and you need to reassess. It could be that your recipes were too ambitious, or that you need to do grocery pick up instead of going into the store. It could be that the meals you chose were easy and quick, but not healthy enough to make a difference. Without regular targets and checks to keep accountable, it’s hard to know if your actions will have the impact you want in the end.

You got this

Good operational planning and implementation can be challenging. We’ve seen it with our clients, and we’ve seen it internally with our own team at Lumen. So many great strategies and visions gather dust on shelves as teams get busy with day-to-day work. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Is your organization’s strategy gathering dust on a shelf? It’s time to grab a feather duster and reacquaint yourself with the plan, getting serious about what you can do operationally to move the strategy forward. Sometimes, bringing in another set of eyes and ears can be necessary to evaluate what’s working, identify where you have gaps, and help you build a plan for day-to-day operations that will keep your strategic plan top of mind and moving forward. If this is a priority for you, reach out to us. We’d love to help your team reach your goals and grow your impact.

Testimonials

"Lisa did a fantastic job with our entire strategic planning team. Her process was beyond organized. As a new administrator, I was able to lean on Lisa for her expertise and knowledge of strategic planning. She did everything from meeting organization and to facilitating subgroups, focus groups and staff culture surveys. Her work with the school board and administrative team was respectful, while also filled with appropriate advice and constructive feedback. I could not imagine going through this process without Lisa. She will continue to be a trusted resource for years to come."
Jamie DeWitt
School Leader, NexTech High School
"Lumen Impact Group has been critical in supporting Bluum’s efforts in Idaho to manage our $17.1 million federal Charter School Program grant. As one of the country’s first non-profit organizations to receive federal CSP funding, the stakes for our work are very high, and our efforts to help open, expand and replicate public charter schools face scrutiny. I sleep better knowing Lumen Impact Group has worked closely with us to build our processes, procedures and playbook for managing the responsibility of directing and overseeing a significant federal grant. I highly recommend them to others. They are true pros."
Terry Ryan
CEO, Bluum
"As a family-owned and operated company, we needed to preserve our culture and define our mission, vision and values better as we grew. Lumen Impact Group helped capture a variety of diverse perspectives and hopes for the future in a way that connected everyone involved. Lumen Impact Group helped us create a clear strategic focus and for our future stabilized our culture. Lisa also coached our leadership team in supporting implementation."
Mark Smith
President, Krapohl Ford & Lincoln
"Lisa Diaz and Lumen Impact provided invaluable support to Colorado Charter Facility Solutions during our start-up phase. I was the new non-profit organization’s executive director (and only employee at the time), and Lisa knew answers to questions that I did not even know to ask. She made sure the board of directors was set up correctly and that the organizational documents were in place. Lisa helped me establish the organization’s goals and ways to track progress. Lisa is organized, patient and kind, and worked quickly, thoroughly and collaboratively. She is a good listener and even acted as an executive coach/therapist at times. When necessary, Lisa can be direct, yet she is always focused on the goals of the organization and its success. I highly recommend Lisa Diaz and Lumen Impact Group. "
Jane Ellis
Executive Director, Colorado Charter Facility Solutions
"I have worked with Lumen Impact Group at both the individual and organizational level. As a coach, Lisa has a natural ability to get to the heart of the matter quickly and to ask questions that help her clients translate insight into action. Each team member who has worked with Lisa in a coaching capacity has demonstrated visible growth that has positively impacted individual and team performance. As an organization, we are trying to be purposeful about the culture we are creating, as a means of best fulfilling our mission. Lumen Impact Group has been a tremendous thought partner along the way and has facilitated critical steps in a collaborative yet efficient and fun way. Our team was in awe at how much we accomplished collectively in a short period of time. We are moving toward our ideal culture much more quickly than I thought possible, and I have no doubt it is because of Lumen Impact Group’s guidance. "
Kasey Miller
Chief of Staff, National Association of Charter School Authorizers