For some time now, clients have been experiencing “burnout” with the traditional strategic planning process. As I have questioned them about their experience, the complaints are that it is too expensive and too time-consuming. But the expense and time commitment has not changed since organizations first started doing strategic planning. What has changed is the external environment. The external environment is changing so rapidly it’s hard to keep up. So to spend a lot of time and money producing a plan that maps out the next three to five years, and is based on the assumption that the external environment will not change substantially in that time period now feels like wasted effort.
The new focus in nonprofit management is building adaptive capacity – meaning the ability of the leadership to initiate and respond to change in a proactive manner. That is not easy. It requires embracing change as a learning opportunity, and it requires staying in touch with the larger context.
With my colleagues, I’ve been working on a new breed of strategic planning that we call Adaptive Planning. This borrows the best ideas from strategic planning (careful, targeted market research and organizational analysis) with principles of adaptive leadership (periodic, targeted re-examination of external context and willingness to shift strategies). We believe this is the best way for organizations to plan in a context of continual change. We work with our clients to create dashboards that help them monitor information about key facets of the external environment that could signal the need to shift strategies.
