Finishing the Year Strong

Q4 has snuck up on me. Am I the only one?

Even though Q4 is full of its own challenges, there are things I love about this time of year here in Georgia:

• Less humidity and “cooler” weather days
• Knowing that the leaves will be transitioning soon from green to shades of red, orange, and yellow
• Everywhere you look, you find something pumpkin-scented or pumpkin-flavored!

With Q4’s arrival, it’s also a time to look at my plans for the year and see how my business is performing. With only three months left of the year, I like to take a look at how well I’m performing against my annual goals.

How well is your organization performing against your annual goals? What are you looking to get done by the end of 2022?

In a previous article, I share 8 tips to translate your strategic plan into action. The sixth tip is to determine the reporting frequency of your strategic plan progress. How often do you look at your strategic plan and monitor your progress? Monthly? Quarterly? Annually? At the end of its 3- or 5-year period? Never? 🤔

The reality is - if you only look at your strategic plan annually, it’s highly unlikely that you will meet your goals. Reviewing your plan quarterly, more than likely isn’t frequent enough as well.

Don’t believe me?

Many people set ambitious weight loss goals at the beginning of the year. Say your goal is to lose 25 lbs this year (which is quite a reasonable goal!). If you set this goal on Jan 1 and waited until Dec 31 to hop on the scale for the first time, what is the likelihood of your success? What if you waited until July 1 to check in on your weight-loss progress for the first time? 

I think you get my point.

I review my strategic plan every month.

• Based on my progress against my goals for the year, I determine which areas I need to focus on.
• For strategic projects and initiatives underway, I track my progress. How are they moving along? Do I have the resources I need to keep these projects going?
• In short, I keep a close eye on my annual goals and my progress against them so that my business can make the desired impact I’m working towards!

Why this this important and how does it apply to you and your organization?

• A solid strategic plan includes not only your vision, mission, and high-level goals for the organization, but it also includes measurable objectives and targets. This allows you and your planning team to align on where you are at the beginning of the process (baseline) and determine where you want to be (targets) on an annual basis.
• During your planning process, hopefully you and your team prioritized which strategic initiatives (programs, projects, and activities) you will focus on this year to help you meet your targets.
• Strategic initiatives are, in fact, projects and should be managed appropriately. Your strategic projects should have a project lead and the proper resources to support it. Progress should be tracked and reported on a regular basis.

So with that said, do you feel like you and your organization are reviewing your progress against your strategic plan at the right frequency?

If you’d like help with dusting off your strategy and putting it into action, there are three ways I can help you:

1.      For further helpful tips in the areas of strategy and project management, feel free to join my email list and follow me on LinkedIn to be notified of my articles and posts.

2.      If you’d like to discuss your organization’s needs and challenges with translating your strategic plan into action, feel free to reach out to me for a discovery call.

3.      If you’re interested in securing one of my open spots for one-on-one Project Leadership Coaching for one of your team members who is leading a strategic initiative, check out my website for more details and feel free to contact me for a discovery call.

Let’s finish 2022 strong!