Does it feel unfair that you wind up having to submit budgets during one of the busiest church production seasons of the year? What if you could get ahead of that?
Starting now to create a Strategic Planning document could be a powerful catalyst in getting you the resources you need. It could also have the side benefit of creating tighter alignment in your team. Want to know a simple method that can help you put one together quickly?
Open a document and get ready to capture your thoughts. Creating a Strategic Plan for your production team doesn't have to be daunting. In fact, it is better if you make it short and concise. (Otherwise no one will read it.)
Here are the four steps that can help you pull it together:
Make the first sentence your specific mission.
If you work for a church, your mission is probably about reaching people. But that is lifelessly generic. What kinds of people? Where do they live? What do they care about? What is your specific way of reaching those people? Why?
Nike's mission statement is often quoted because it is explicit: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete.” Warby Parker's mission statement is to “offer designer eye-wear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for socially-conscious businesses;” and the Life is Good brand's mission is to “spread the power of optimism.”
The goal is to come up with an objective that is targeted for your team while supporting the broader mission of the church. Specific wording makes it real—which affects whether it winds up as an abstract plaque on a wall or if it becomes the objective that your team owns, lives and celebrates.
While there are tons of blog posts on how to craft a mission statement, asking these two questions will give you the right ingredients: 1) Who do we want to help? (Everyone is too broad. Pick your target.) 2) How will we help them?
Yes. It's that simple. Using inspirational or interesting wording can make your mission statement stickier, but you probably don't have days to work on this so just start with the who and the how and leave it at that.
What strategies will be employed to meet that mission?
Once you have a mission in place you can figure out how you are going to meet it. Keep it to your 3-5 most important strategies. In context of a quick strategic plan, you don't have to detail all the tactical steps, but you will need to put a backbone behind each one.
Here are three different ways you might put detail under each of the strategies you list in your document:
Plus-Delta
Pros-Cons or Strengths-Weaknesses can be pejorative when charting strategy. A framework that shifts the lens toward forward motion is the Plus-Delta. Plus is for the positive and Delta is the mathematical symbol for change.
Create two columns under each strategy—The Plus column to list the things your team is already doing well to implement that strategy, and the second—the Delta—lists places where change could make things more effective.
Continue-Build-Discontinue
The aphorisms that “there is no change without change” and that “we can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results,” are true. The Continue-Build-Discontinue framework highlights what is working well and should remain along with what needs to be built and what activities need to be abandoned.
For your strategic plan, you would list each strategy, then add a paragraph under each, like this:
•Continue > Celebrate the things you already have in place that are working well to support the strategy.
•Build > Identify the learning edges that you can grow and build on.
•Discontinue > List the things you are doing that are not clearly aligned at supporting a strategy where resources (time, energy, money) could be re-allocated to better support what you plan to continue or build.
Measurable Outcomes
Another framework you can use is to show how you will measure success. For example, a church production team with a mission to train people in production arts, might introduce an apprenticeship program focused on teens as a strategy to meet that mission. In the strategic plan, measurable outcomes might include how many people participate in the program, how long it takes for participants to acquire skills and how your much your volunteer base expands. You might also outline a way for participants to share what they get out of the program so you have the anecdotal evidence for changed lives.
When you determine which method you will use to outline strategy, consider your upstream audience. Part of the purpose of this document is to ask for resources, so be sure to choose a framework you believe will most resonate with the people you are requesting resources from.
What are the must-win battles?
The thing about missions is that they are hard to achieve. After all, if there wasn't a compelling need, you wouldn't be doing what you are doing. The “must-win battle” section of the strategic plan needs to identify what will stop you from achieving your mission and how you plan to overcome it.
For this section, identify the two to four most important challenges for your team to overcome in the next year, and then identify a champion and a process for figuring out how to overcome them. You don't need hard solutions in this fast strategic plan, you just have to identify how you are going to get to them.
What resources to you need to execute your strategic plan?
Most strategic plans have a page with budgets, but I encourage you to think more broadly on this. What support do you need from leadership? What will the timelines be? Who needs to be recruited? What resources are being employed elsewhere that could be reallocated? What unused assets (like a closet full of gear) could be liquidated and reinvested?
Keep this section simple and to the point including hard numbers where possible, but also covering the non-monetary resources required. Showing creativity in this area can help your leadership team feel more supported and might even make it easier for them to say yes to a budget increase or new staff positions.
Tie everything in this section back to the strategy it supports so that every single resource request is connected back to the mission.
Pulling it all together
Even if you don't get all the resources you request, going through the exercise and involving your team creates clarity and alignment. This isn't a top-down plan that you must find people to execute. This is an outlining of goals and a brainstorming of what it takes to accomplish them.
Then it becomes a road map for when you have to make decisions.
Effective strategic plans clarify your mission and align your resources (staff, money and tasking) to meet that mission. It works downstream by creating a clear goal and it works upstream by letting leadership know you have a framework for requesting resources. Best of all, when it comes time to turn in budget requests, your leadership team will know those requests are based on something. And if you do the heavy lifting now, you will be ready for October through December.
