Strategic Plan Step 6: Monitor and Review

The final step in any planning process is to monitor and evaluate progress.  The same way as you check the signposts along a road when completing a journey, it is similarly important to check that development is on track.

The management committee should use reports against its annual operational plans to review progress towards meeting the strategic aims and objectives.  Therefore, they must ensure that whoever is doing the work is keeping appropriate records so that progress can be assessed.  This will involve, at the implementation stage of your plan, being clear what systems and structures are required.  The things you decide to measure will give an indication of how well you’re doing, hence, the name indicators or performance measures.

Before completing your plan, you need to agree how and when it will be monitored and reviewed and what information the Management Committee needs to receive in order to review progress.

When reviewing progress towards achieving the strategic aims and objectives, the Management Committee should:

• ensure that activities are kept within the parameters of the agreed strategic aims and objectives
• ensure that activities are consistent with organisation’s vision, mission and values
• if the organisation is a charity, use the information collected to show the public benefit the charity is having
• keep under review internal and external changes which may require adjustments to the organisation’s strategy or affect their ability to achieve their objectives

More on monitoring and evaluation.

For further information on strategic planning and the other stages in the process, click on the links below:

• What is strategic planning?
• Step 1:  Who should be involved?
• Step 2: Where are we now?
• Step 3:  Where are we going?
• Step 4:  How will we get there?
• Step 5:  Writing your plan