Strategic Planning Process
The structured sequence organizations use to define, validate, and commit to a strategy — typically moving from situation analysis to strategic choice to execution planning.
A strategic planning process is the structured sequence an organization follows to arrive at, validate, and commit resources to a strategy. It typically includes: situation analysis (market, competitive, and internal capability review), strategic choice (deciding on arenas, vehicles, differentiators, staging, and economic logic), and execution planning (translating those choices into budgets, structure, and initiatives).
A frequent failure mode is treating the situation-analysis stage as the entire process — producing detailed market research and competitive reviews without ever converting them into a specific, coherent set of strategic choices.
Structured tools that force explicit choices at the 'strategic choice' stage — such as the Strategy Diamond — help planning processes avoid ending in a list of options rather than a decision. Validating that those choices are internally coherent before committing resources is a distinct and often-skipped step in the process.
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