How long does your organization’s strategic planning process take to complete?

Our reader poll today asks: How long does your organization’s strategic planning process take to complete?

• Less than a month 9.82%
• 1-3 months 25.77%
• 3-6 months 23.93%
• 6-9 months 9.81%
• More than 9 months 30.67%

Moving from Strategy to Execution. While 60% of you reported your strategic planning process takes less than six months, an alarming 40% report that it takes longer with 30% stating it’s more than nine months. This can be problematic because the world and markets change rapidly. By the time a plan you started writing nine months ago is ready for implementation, your market conditions may have changed so much that the plan is now irrelevant. Consider accelerating your base planning process and then updating the plan more frequently as market conditions change. The faster you start deploying your strategic plan and executing the initiatives it contains, the more likely it is you’ll be successful and get ahead of your competitors who have longer planning and execution cycles.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.