How to Develop a Strategic Plan for Government Organizations

Hi, I’m Ted Jackson, founder of ClearPoint Strategy. Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of organizations—especially in government—navigate the challenges of strategic planning and reporting. I’ve seen what works and, just as importantly, what doesn’t.

Government organizations have unique challenges: limited resources, complex stakeholder demands, and the constant pressure to deliver results. But with the right approach, you can turn these challenges into opportunities. Let me share how I’ve guided organizations like yours to build strategic plans that actually deliver results.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its direction and long-term goals, creating specific plans to achieve them, implementing those plans, and evaluating the results. Developing a strategic plan is essential for any government organization aiming to achieve its long-term goals and sustain growth.

But too often, plans fail. Most government organizations flounder when it comes to developing and executing their strategy.

But don’t worry—you can be in the small percentage of those that actually achieve the goals in their strategic plans. Based on our experience, we know that following this four-phase approach will significantly increase your odds of getting high-quality results. It lays out—step-by-step—how you’re going to reach a particular set of goals. Without this foundation, you’ll either continue on a path to nowhere, or get caught up in a tornado of urgent activities that may not actually benefit your government organization in the long term.

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Strategic Planning: It’s Simpler Than You Think

Let’s break it down. Strategic planning really comes down to four core steps:

1. Getting Organized
2. Developing the Strategic Plan
3. Executing the Plan
4. Reporting on Progress

If you get these steps right, you’ll be ahead of the curve. Too often, I see organizations stumble because they skip critical preparation or overcomplicate execution. Let me walk you through how I’d approach this process based on decades of experience.

Step 1: Getting Organized Before You Develop a Strategic Plan

Here’s the truth: If you don’t start with a solid foundation, you’re setting yourself up for frustration. Before jumping into writing a plan, focus on these essentials:

• Assemble the Right People
  You need buy-in across your organization and leadership involvement is non-negotiable. Decision-makers must be at the table from day one. Beyond leadership, bring in department heads and a few subject-matter experts to ensure diverse perspectives.

Another major player needed for this initial stage is the strategic planner. The strategic planner’s job is to align thoughts from the leadership team with a process the organization can use to execute on their strategy.

• Clarify Your Purpose
  Why are you creating this plan? Is it to communicate progress to citizens? Align internal teams? Justify a budget request? Knowing your purpose will shape every decision you make.
• Choose a Framework
  I’ve worked with all the big ones—Balanced Scorecard, OKRs, Theory of Change. They’re all great tools, but don’t get hung up on finding the “perfect” one. Pick what feels intuitive to your team and fits your needs. Again, this doesn’t have to be a painfully slow, manual process—ClearPoint can instantly arrange your data into a planning framework for you.

• Gather Your Inputs
  I can’t stress this enough: your plan should be rooted in data. Look at what’s working and what’s not—internally and externally.some text
  • Internal inputs: Do you know if one branch of your government agency is performing better than another? If so, does this mean you’ll focus more energy on the better performing area, or shift to help the underperforming areas? These are key questions you’ll have to assess.
  • External inputs: You may find that outside factors are playing a role in the efficiency of your organization. For example, if your city just elected new officials who want to enact different policies, this could impact your strategy.

The good news is that with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), what used to be a process akin to pulling teeth is now much easier. ClearPoint has made this step much easier by using AI to collect and organize data quickly.

Once you’ve gathered up the quantitative data (ideally with the help of AI), you’ll also want to get feedback from several different sources.

• Talk to your leadership team and staff to gather their thoughts about the future of the organization.
• Meet with policy makers, citizens, and community leaders to see what they think your organization is doing well and what needs improvement. These suggestions could deal with anything from service offerings to organizational culture.

• Set a Realistic Timeline
  You need to work out a timeline in which you can complete your strategic plan and move through the process. I’ve seen plans come together in a few weeks, and I’ve seen them take months.
  The timeline depends on your organization’s experience with strategic planning and realistic is the key word here.
• If you refresh your strategic plan every year, you might be able to work through this process in 4-5 weeks.
• If you’ve never done strategic planning before, 6 months could be more realistic.

Just don’t rush it. A rushed plan is a bad plan.

Step 2: Developing a Strategic Plan

This is the fun part. Once you’ve done your prep work, it’s time to get creative and build a plan that inspires action.

• Revisit Your Mission and Vision
  If your mission and vision don’t make people sit up and pay attention, rewrite them.some text
  • Your mission statement explains what you do and why.
  • Your vision statement describes a future state of what your organization wants to achieve over time. This is the North Star guiding your organization. I like to ask leadership teams, “If you’re wildly successful in five years, what does that look like?” That’s your vision.

Where the mission is timeless, your vision is time-bound and more tangible. Two tools that will help build your mission and vision statements:

• OAS statement: OAS stands for Objective, Advantage, Scope. Talking through these concepts as they apply to your organization will help formulate a vision that is tangible and interactive. Note that while this exercise may be helpful to you, it is optional. You can read more about creating your OAS statement here.
• Strategic shifts: A second tool some people find helpful is called Strategic Shifts. These are exercises for the leadership team to help them definetoday’s strategic priorities vs. tomorrow’s. For example, your leadership team may say, “We want to shift from central control to autonomy when it comes to our decision-making capability.” If the whole team can get on the same page with these shifts, it can help tremendously once you define your objectives, measures, and projects.

If you’ve already created mission and vision statements, confirm that both are aligned with your current strategy before proceeding to the next step.

• Set Goals, KPIs, and Projects

Your strategic plan must be built upon a foundation of clear goals and tangible ways to reach those goals.

Here’s the formula I swear by:

• Goals are your big-picture objectives.
• KPIs tell you if you’re hitting those goals.
• Projects are the actions that move the needle toward your goals.

For example:

• Goal: Improve public safety.
• KPI: Reduce crime rates by 10% in two years.
• Project: Launch a community policing program.

KPIs should be directly linked to your strategic goals, ensuring they accurately measure progress towards the desired outcomes. Good strategic plans use 5-7 KPIs to manage and track progress against goals. Don’t confuse KPIs with other traditional metrics—read more about that here.

• Visualize Your Plan

People need to see how everything connects. A strategy map (shown in the example below) works wonders for this. You could also use icons or a color-coding system to visually understand how the elements of your strategy work together.

With ClearPoint, you can build these maps in minutes, showing how your goals, KPIs, and projects align.

“I learned the importance of aligning your processes and system, and being systematic across the board [in relation to strategic planning].”
De'Kisha Fondon
Senior Budget & Performance Analyst
The City of Germantown, Tennessee

Step 3: Executing the Plan

This phase is where a lot of organizations falter. A plan isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if you don’t execute it properly. You likely need someone from the Office of Strategy Management to ensure the plan is properly “loaded” in these ways:

• Assign Clear Responsibilities
  Every goal, KPI, and project needs an owner. Period. When accountability is vague, execution falls apart.
• Communicate Relentlessly
  Your team can’t support a plan they don’t understand. Make it your mission to over-communicate.some text
  • Internal: Be sure all elements of your strategy—like strategy maps or logic models—are contained within a larger strategic plan document. (If you use strategy software, the strategic plan document will likely be contained there.) A great way to be sure your leadership team has a firm grasp on your strategy is to ensure they each have a copy of this document, and they can describe the strategy easily to someone who wasn’t involved in the creation process.More broadly, the strategy must be communicated throughout your organization. I always recommend an internal “roadshow” to explain the plan to staff at every level. People won’t give it a passing thought unless you engage them—so every department head should be charged with explaining how their team fits into the strategy and why it matters.
  • External: You also need to be sure you have a plan for communicating your strategy outside the organization—with local policy makers, community partners, and constituents. Think through how it will be shared, and which parts of it are relevant to outside parties.
• Align Resources
  Budgets should reflect your priorities. In the short term—which would be your next budgeting cycle or something similar—work to structure the budget around the key components of your strategy. You need to create direct linkages between how your resources are allocated and how those efforts support your strategy. If your spending isn’t aligned with your strategy, it’s time to make tough choices.Over time, the areas that contribute less directly to strategic goals will become clear, and you can work on gradually aligning everything you fund.
• Empower Your Teams
  Give your people the tools they need to succeed. I’ve seen organizations make incredible progress simply by holding quarterly check-ins and providing clear expectations.

“[Since implementing the strategic plan], there's been more of a collaborative effort. We've seen better communication between departments, a stronger partnership with the county, and more opportunities to engage with our residents."
Jay Reinstein
Strategic Plan Project Manager
The City of Durham, North Carolina

Step 4: Reporting on Progress

This is the step where organizations either soar or stumble. Reporting isn’t just about accountability—it’s about learning and adapting.

• Set a Reporting Cadence
  Start simple. If you’re new to strategic planning, go quarterly. More experienced? Try monthly. The key is consistency.At a minimum, you should be reporting on your entire strategy on a quarterly basis or breaking down your strategy into pieces and reporting on one of those pieces each month.
• Structure Your Reports
  Your reports should answer three questions:
  1. What’s working?
  2. What’s not?
  3. What’s next?
  The report you use should highlight progress on your measures and projects, and how those link to your objectives. The point is to show how all these elements fit together and relate to the strategic plan as a whole. ClearPoint automates much of this, so you’re not buried in spreadsheets and manual updates.
• Engage Stakeholders
  Share your progress with leadership, staff, and even residents. Transparency builds trust and accountability.Your reporting meetings should revolve around three key issues:some text
  • What is your government organization trying to accomplish? This may include reiterating your mission and vision to add context around the conversation.
  • Are you making progress toward these goals? You might review key metrics and the status of initiatives and milestones.
  • What actions need to be taken to continue making progress? If metrics are off-track, for example, what can be done to get back on course.

Encourage candid dialogue and make sure the discussion stays focused.

Pro tip:
You may want a facilitator for the first few meetings, and you may want to script a few open discussions where a goal owner explains why they are behind schedule (red) on their goal, and the manager offers support, not criticism. This will generate the atmosphere you need for everyone to start reporting honestly and working together to achieve the organization’s goals.

"Aligning a preliminary strategic plan with developing the vision plan has to be iterative. We update as we go, but we're also being very systematic about it, making sure that community priorities are reflected."
Amy Knowles
Assistant to the City Manager for Structural Innovation
The City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Modern Strategic Planning with ClearPoint

Here’s my honest take: Technology has revolutionized strategic planning. What used to consume months can now be done in days.

At ClearPoint, we’ve built tools that tackle the toughest parts of how to develop a strategic plan:

• AI-Powered Drafts: Upload your inputs, and our AI Assistant creates a plan draft in minutes.
• Automated Reporting: Workflows, calculations, and templates make reporting seamless.
• Integrated Execution Tools: Align projects, KPIs, and budgets in one place.

The result? You save time—89 hours per report, on average—and focus on what really matters: driving impact.

Let’s Make Your Strategy Work

I’ve spent my career helping organizations like yours turn strategic plans into reality. If you’re tired of the same old frustrations, let’s talk. ClearPoint can help you take the pain out of planning, execution, and reporting.

Let’s transform the way you approach strategy—together.

Book a Demo Today

FAQ:

What are strategic planning tools?

Strategic planning tools are methodologies and frameworks that help organizations formulate, implement, and monitor their strategic plans. Common strategic planning tools include:

- SWOT Analysis: Identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- PESTEL Analysis: Examines political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors.
- Balanced Scorecard: Links strategic objectives to performance metrics across financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth perspectives.
- Porter’s Five Forces: Analyzes competitive forces within an industry to understand its attractiveness.
- Scenario Planning: Envisions different future scenarios to plan for uncertainties.
- Gap Analysis: Identifies the gap between current performance and desired goals.

What are strategic planning techniques?

Strategic planning techniques are methods used to develop and implement strategies effectively. These include:

- Visioning: Creating a clear, compelling vision of the future state.
- Benchmarking: Comparing performance against industry leaders or best practices.
- Stakeholder Analysis: Identifying and understanding the needs and influences of stakeholders.
- Environmental Scanning: Systematically analyzing external and internal environments.
- Strategy Mapping: Visualizing the relationships between different strategic objectives and actions.
- Resource Allocation: Determining the best use of resources to achieve strategic goals.

How can strategic planning improve the performance of an organization?

Strategic planning can improve the performance of an organization by:

- Providing Direction: Clarifies the long-term vision and mission, guiding all organizational activities.
- Aligning Resources: Ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and effectively to priority areas.
- Enhancing Coordination: Fosters better communication and collaboration across departments.
- Facilitating Decision-Making: Supports informed, data-driven decisions aligned with strategic goals.
- Tracking Progress: Establishes benchmarks and performance metrics to monitor progress and make necessary adjustments.
- Encouraging Innovation: Promotes creative thinking and innovation to achieve competitive advantage.

What is strategic planning in healthcare?

Strategic planning in healthcare involves developing long-term goals and strategies to improve healthcare delivery, patient outcomes, and operational efficiency. It includes:

- Assessing Needs: Evaluating patient demographics, healthcare trends, and community needs.
- Setting Objectives: Defining specific goals related to patient care, quality, and efficiency.
- Resource Management: Allocating resources such as staff, technology, and funding to meet healthcare goals.
- Implementing Policies: Developing and implementing policies and procedures to enhance healthcare services.
- Monitoring Outcomes: Continuously tracking performance metrics to ensure goals are being met and to identify areas for improvement.

Why is strategic planning important in business?

Strategic planning is important in business because it:

- Provides Clarity and Focus: Establishes clear goals and priorities, aligning efforts toward achieving them.
- Enhances Competitiveness: Helps businesses identify opportunities and threats, enabling them to stay competitive.
- Improves Resource Allocation: Ensures that resources are used efficiently to achieve the most significant impact.
- Fosters Long-Term Thinking: Encourages a forward-looking approach, preparing the organization for future challenges and opportunities.
- Increases Accountability: Sets clear expectations and performance metrics, holding individuals and teams accountable for results.
- Drives Growth and Innovation: Supports the development of new products, services, and processes to drive growth and innovation.