Take the Pain Out of Your Planning Process

We all know that sometimes strategic planning can feel like herding cats while juggling flaming torches. Endless meetings, walls plastered with sticky notes and colored dots, and that one team member who keeps emailing version 7.2 of the document when you're already on version 8.5.

But here's the good news: you can ditch those headaches. There are some great modern tech tools that you can use to transform business and nonprofit strategic planning from a painful marathon into a manageable (and dare we say enjoyable?) process. 

Tools like Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams can make magic happen. Your team can brainstorm, edit, and comment in real time - even if your board chair is on vacation in Hawaii and your program director is stuck in traffic. Data visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI can turn mind-numbing numbers into "aha!" moments where you can spot your trends. 

And while all of those tools can be more than helpful when deployed correctly, they have a specific use that doesn’t actually solve the key problem – how to hold a productive discussion around what your business or organization should do in the future. 

At Gray Breakthroughs we know that the effective facilitation of the planning conversation is the key to a successful plan. Our favorite tool to do this in fewer steps and with less pain is SchellingPoint’s Strategic Collaboration software. Here’s how the SchellingPoint software helps us complete a planning process in fewer meetings and with less pain – (1) we collect opinions about the organization, (2) we distribute an opinion survey to as few as two people or as many as hundreds or thousands, (3) we provide an opportunity to gather more information from people whose responses aren’t aligned with the majority of the group, and (4) with all of that data in hand we facilitate your planning team’s discussion around making decisions for the future of the organization.

That’s a very simplified explanation of how we’re using tech to streamline the strategic planning process for our clients. At the end, we will break down your plan into bite-sized pieces, assign tasks to your team, and track progress in a way that increases transparency. 

If you want to know what your community or employees really think, you can skip the sparsely attended town halls and reach people where they are. We'll use our tech tool to help you gather honest feedback from stakeholders who might never make it to an in-person meeting. This helps ensure that your plan reflects complete and diverse perspectives.

Remember - you don't need to be a tech wizard to modernize your planning process. Pick tools that feel right for your team. The goal isn't to complicate things - it's to free up your time and energy for what really matters.

Want us to help make your planning process less painful? Let’s chat!