I received a strategy plan by e-mail today from a colleague who I met last year. The plan is for the next 12 months. I like what I see. The reasons that I like what I see in this plan are:

• It all starts with the Vision of what we are trying to achieve as an organization.
• It has one objective for the team of 5 people – to make a clearly defined amount of progress directly towards the Vision in the time-frame of the plan.
• The objective looks achievable, but focused on stretching the team to the next level of implementation.
• They appear to have abandoned doing what they were doing for the last 10 years that did not lead towards the Vision. Yippee!!
• The plan seems realistic as to what resources it will have available. There are not wild assumptions about availability of people or money to execute the plan.
• The plan has specific actions by specific people during the year to do specific things that seem simple but important. Again, no wild “faith” assumptions.
• The whole thing was three pages – and that includes lots of white space. I think that each of the 5 team members who are due to execute the plan could read this and remember what they are supposed to do by when.

All in all, I think that this plan is not a barrier to its completion in its own right. This is good in my opinion.

I will meet the authors of the plan next month. I think that the key question that I will ask them is: What could stop this plan from being implemented as the next 12 months unfold?