From completion rates to staff sizes and more, the data from our 2026 Strategic Planning Report reveals what each sector does best — and where execution breaks down.
Key Takeaways
  • Keep the plan under 20 total elements. Plans that small succeed 68% of the time, versus 8% for plans with 60 or more.
  • Give every element one named owner. Initiatives with a named owner complete at 2.5× the rate (21.5% vs. 8.7%).
  • Treat a long project list as a warning sign. Education runs the most projects of any sector and has below-average completion.
  • Review progress every quarter. High performers in every sector do, while unowned, unreviewed elements sit unmonitored.
  • Benchmark your plan against your sector in the 2026 Strategic Planning Report. It has complete benchmarks, methodology and industry comparisons.
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Every industry thinks its strategic planning challenges are unique: budget constraints, regulatory pressure, volunteer boards, lean teams.

They’re right that the pressures differ. The data shows how differently those pressures play out.

ClearPoint’s 2026 Strategic Planning Report analyzed 31.2 million rows of activity data from over 20,000 strategic plans across seven industries: Education, Energy & Utilities, Financial Services, Government, Manufacturing, Nonprofits, and Professional Services. The result is a cross-industry benchmark on strategic planning. Here’s what it shows.

Want to reach more of your objectives this year? Learn how high performers achieve more by reviewing the data in our 2026 Strategic Planning Report.

Who Executes Best — and Where the Gaps Are

Project completion rate is the most direct measure of strategy execution. It shows whether organizations finish what they start.

The spread across industries is wide:

  • Energy & Utilities: 25.81%, top performer by a wide margin
  • Financial Services: 17.48%
  • Government: 17.38%
  • Manufacturing: 16.95%
  • Education: 14.29%
  • Professional Services: 9.05%
  • Nonprofits: 5.29%

The top industry completes about one in four strategic projects. So the question is less who succeeds and who fails than where the biggest gaps are and why they exist.

The strategy performance curve is bottom heavy chart

Plan Structure: Size Varies Significantly By Industry

How organizations structure their plans differs as much as how they execute them.

Goals, the top-level strategic priorities, vary widely by sector:

  • Manufacturing, Nonprofits, and Professional Services: median of 10 goals, the highest
  • Government and Financial Services: median of five goals, the leanest

That difference matters.

The data clearly shows that plans with fewer than 20 total elements succeed 68% of the time. Plans with 60 or more succeed just 8% of the time. Sectors with leaner goal counts tend to execute more cleanly.

Measures show even wider variation:

  • Education tracks the most: median of 16
  • Financial Services tracks the fewest: median of 11

Projects by industry:

  • Education runs the most active projects: median of 13.9, nearly double most other sectors
  • Government, Financial Services, and Nonprofits: median around 5–6

Milestones show the biggest range of all:

  • Energy & Utilities: median of 20, highest by far
  • Education: median of 13
  • Nonprofits and Professional Services: median of 14

Team Size: Who Staffs Strategy and Who Doesn’t

Team size alone does not predict execution. Professional Services averages the most collaborators per plan and still ranks near the bottom on project completion. Government has far fewer owners and outperforms them significantly.

The data shows that the composition of the team matters more than its size:

  • Energy & Utilities: 4.9 owners per plan, highest completion rate at 25.81%
  • Professional Services: 17.3 collaborators per plan, completion rate of 9.05%
  • Government: 2.95 owners per plan, completion rate of 17.38%

More people with diffused accountability get less done than fewer people with clear ownership. The next section covers ownership.

Strategy team size by industry

Ownership: The Pattern That Runs Across Every Industry

Across the full dataset:

  • Initiatives with a named owner complete at 2.5x the rate (21.5% vs. 8.7%), and ClearPoint shows which strategic goals still need an owner
  • ClearPoint shows which measures, milestones, and projects still need an assigned owner

ClearPoint also shows which assigned owners are active, meaning they’ve updated their element in the last 90 days. The rest show up too, so teams can follow up before the review.

This “owner follow-through” problem shows up across every sector. Plans look solid on paper. In practice, ClearPoint shows which elements still need an active owner.

The sectors that execute best (Utilities, Financial Services, Government) tend to have tighter ownership structures.

What Each Industry Does Distinctively Well (and Poorly)

Energy & Utilities

Best at execution (25.81% completion). Highest milestone counts. Most owners per initiative. Regulatory discipline creates planning discipline.

The risk: Plans are complex, and complexity is always a threat.

Financial Services

Strong completion rate (17.48%). Lean goal counts and fewer measures suggest a focused, intentional approach to what gets tracked.

The risk: Small teams mean execution depends heavily on individual owners staying active.

Government

Solid completion (17.38%) relative to sector complexity. Government plans tend to be lean on goals (median of five) but heavy on milestones.

The risk: Wide variation in team size across jurisdictions creates inconsistent execution culture.

Manufacturing

Middle-of-the-pack completion (16.95%), with the most goals of any sector (median of 10).

The risk: High goal counts combined with complex project portfolios create overloaded plans that drag execution down.

Education

Below-average completion (14.29%) despite running the most projects of any sector (median 13.9).

The risk: Education organizations are doing a lot, and the data suggests they may be doing too much. High activity with low completion marks a plan that has become an activity log rather than a strategic filter.

Nonprofits

Completion rate of 5.29%. Leanest teams.

The root cause is structure, not effort. Missions are broad, teams are thin, and plans tend to grow to match the ambition rather than the capacity.

Professional Services

Completion of 9.05%, surprising given the sector’s analytical sophistication. The data shows large teams but low completion, which suggests coordination complexity may be working against execution.

The One Finding That Cuts Across Every Industry

Every industry struggles with the same fundamental problem: Plans are built to impress, not to run.

High performers in every sector share three habits:

  • Plans are small enough to govern without heroics (5–9 goals, 9–11 measures, 5–8 projects).
  • Every element has one named owner, not a department or committee.
  • Progress is reviewed quarterly, not annually.

The industry changes the pressures. The execution fundamentals stay the same.

Data sourced from ClearPoint Strategy’s 2026 Strategic Planning Report, which analyzed 31.2 million rows of activity data from over 20,000 strategic plans spanning 2017 to 2024.

Download the full 2026 Strategic Planning Report for complete benchmarks, methodology, and industry comparisons.

Common questions

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Co-Founder & Alabama Native

Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ClearPoint. Former VP at Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard Collaborative.

Ted Jackson is the co-founder of ClearPoint Strategy, a B2B SaaS platform that empowers organizations to execute strategic plans with precision. Before ClearPoint, he was Vice President at the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative — later the Palladium Group — the firm Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton founded to put their framework into practice, where he led global sales and support for its strategy management software and wrote three articles for the Balanced Scorecard Report. A Duke and Harvard Business School alumnus, he brings over 30 years' experience in strategy execution, including 15 years implementing the Balanced Scorecard in the field. Ted works closely with customers to ensure the software meets unique challenges, continually refining the platform with his global expertise.