Strategic Planning Restructure

Background

Orange County's Credit Union needed a cohesive strategic planning process that bridged department tactics to enterprise goals. Due to a nonaligned workforce, the Credit Union was experiencing waves of ad-hoc enterprise projects that made it difficult to get the appropriate value-added projects over the finish line. In addition, feedback from an internal survey highlighted that Associates did not have a clear understanding of how their work supported overall business objectives. There was a need to overhaul the current process with one that advanced organizational alignment of business strategy, objectives, and goals.

The Plan

The Strategic Planning Cycle was implemented in 2020 to allow for a continued process of monitoring and iterating Credit Union tactics to ensure they align with the Strategic Plan. I was tasked with operationalizing the planning cycle and implementing the internal communications plan, which included the following:

• Annual Focus: The Annual Focus Announcement is an internal message that is distributed at the beginning of each year. It comes from the CEO and outlines the top priorities of the Credit Union across projects, goals, and initiatives.

• Year in Review: The Year in Review is a communication piece that is distributed to all Associates at the end of each year. It comes from the CEO and is a recap of the Credit Union's progress in meeting the focus areas as announced in the Annual Focus communication.

• State of the Credit Union: This is a quarterly newsletter from the executive management team that is distributed to all Associates. It covers progress made towards enterprise goals and strategic initiatives that are set at the beginning of each year. The content is categorized by the Credit Union's strategic objectives: Associates, Members, Technology, and Growth. The initial State of the Credit Union was a video format and was changed to a digital newsletter format.

• Roadmap Alignment Sessions: This is an enterprise roadmap planning session that involves all members of the senior leadership team. I manage the entire process, including the creation of roadmap templates, communications calendar, facilitation of sessions, and gathering feedback to measure efficiency and effectiveness.

• Retrospective & Market Analysis: This is an annual meeting that takes place at the beginning of each year among the senior leadership team. It is a look back at the previous year to support the iteration of future roadmap focuses. I created the presentation templates that are utilized by senior leadership.

• Strategic Planning Center: The Strategic Planning Center is a one-stop shop for Associates that houses all things strategic planning. After finalizing and implementing the strategic planning cycle, I took the opportunity to build a communications hub in SharePoint that houses key strategic planning resources, including:

  • Annual Strategic Plan

  • State of the Credit Union Presentations

  • Enterprise Roadmaps

  • Annual Operating Plan

• Strategic Planning Guide: This is a standard operating procedure that outlines the necessary steps, communications calendar, communications templates, and checklist to execute the Strategic Planning Cycle Communications Plan.

Results

By restructuring the strategic planning agenda from an annual process to a cyclical process, the Credit Union was able to:

1. Increase alignment of business strategy, objectives, and goals enterprise-wide

2. Accelerate execution of deliverables

3. Pivot initiatives in an agile manner when needed

4. Build effective cross-functional teams

After two years, the Credit Union achieved the following: