These six guides follow the strategic planning cycle in the order a company usually works through it: write the three-year plan, build the year-one budget, set the scorecard and quarterly objectives, run the offsite that makes the decisions, test the plan against other futures, and keep it current with quarterly reviews. Each guide stands on its own, uses a fictional [Company] with numbers you can check, and describes its templates in plain prose so you can rebuild them in a spreadsheet or document of your own.
They are written for owners and leadership teams of companies with roughly 20 to 150 people, and for the boards and advisors who work with them. None of them requires special software.
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Building an annual operating plan and budget from your strategy
An annual operating plan is year one of the strategy expressed as a monthly budget, a hiring calendar and a short list of funded initiatives. This guide builds one step by step for a fictional company, including seasonality and cash.
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A leadership offsite agenda that ends in decisions
A strategy offsite succeeds or fails before anyone arrives. This guide gives you the pre-work, a timed two-day agenda, a one-day version, the ground rules and the decision log that turn two days of talk into a plan.
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Running a quarterly strategy review
A quarterly strategy review is a half-day meeting that checks the plan against reality and decides what changes. This guide covers the review pack and its page limits, a timed agenda, how to treat red measures and how a board receives the results.
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Scenario planning for owner-led companies
Scenario planning means deciding today what you will do if next year goes worse or better than plan. This guide works through three scenarios for a fictional $6 million company, with triggers, pre-agreed responses and the cash runway arithmetic.
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How to write a three-year strategic plan your board will actually use
A useful three-year plan is 12 to 20 pages, built in eight sections, and ends in a one-page version the whole team can read in two minutes. Here is the template, a worked example and the mistakes that make plans gather dust.
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Writing OKRs and a KPI scorecard that serve the plan
KPIs tell you whether the business is healthy; OKRs tell you whether this quarter's changes are happening. This guide shows how to write both, with three sample objectives, a ten-measure scorecard and a simple scoring rule.
The plan and the budget
These two guides cover the documents that hold everything else together: the plan that sets direction and the budget that pays for it.
Writing a three-year strategic plan
How to write a three-year strategic plan sets out the eight sections of a plan document, with a page limit for each, so the result is 12 to 20 pages rather than 60. It works through an example company growing from $8 million to $12 million while shifting its revenue mix, shows how to boil the full document down to a one-page strategy, and lists the mistakes that most often make plans unusable, from eleven priorities to financials that do not tie to the hiring plan.
Building an annual operating plan
Building an annual operating plan and budget starts from the year-three target and works backwards to year one. It builds revenue from its drivers, such as agreements sold and quotes issued, spreads it across the quarters to reflect seasonality, sets overhead line by line, and shows how a hire's start month changes the budget. It ends with a simple cash test and the difference between a fixed budget and a rolling forecast.
Measures and objectives
Once the plan and budget agree, the company needs a way to see, week by week, whether it is working.
Writing OKRs and a KPI scorecard
Writing OKRs and a KPI scorecard explains the difference between the permanent health measures a company watches all year and the temporary quarterly objectives that drive change. It gives three sample objectives with key results, a scoring rule from 0.0 to 1.0, a ten-measure scorecard described as a table with an owner for each number, and the case for balancing leading and lagging measures.
Making the decisions together
Plans are agreed in a room, or on a video call, and the quality of that session decides the quality of the plan.
A leadership offsite agenda
A leadership offsite agenda that ends in decisions covers the three weeks of pre-work (a short survey, one-to-one interviews and an eight-page numbers pack), a timed two-day agenda, a one-day version for teams that already agree on direction, ground rules that keep the owner from closing every debate, and the decision log. It also explains how to adapt the session for online video and what to send in the days afterwards.
Preparing for a different year
Every budget is a single guess about the future. Scenario planning adds two more, with responses agreed in advance.
Scenario planning for owner-led companies
Scenario planning for owner-led companies builds a base, downside and upside case for a fictional $6 million company, shows how a 15% revenue drop and three points of margin pressure turn a profit into a loss, and sets out triggers that appear months before revenue moves. It includes a ladder of pre-agreed responses and the cash runway arithmetic, including the effect of customers paying more slowly.
Keeping the plan current
A plan stays useful only if it is checked against reality on a fixed schedule.
Running a quarterly strategy review
Running a quarterly strategy review describes a review pack of no more than twelve pages, a half-day agenda that skips green measures, a four-question routine for anything off track, and a decision log that later feeds directly into next year's plan. It also explains how boards typically receive the review, and offers a first-year calendar of review dates.
How to use these guides
Read them in order if you are starting from nothing; otherwise, start where your current process breaks down. A company with a plan nobody follows usually needs the review guide before anything else.
A few practical notes:
- The guides describe planning methods, not legal, tax, accounting or governance advice. Confirm those questions with your lawyer or accountant.
- Fiscal years differ. Shift every date in the guides to match yours.
- The figures are illustrations, not industry benchmarks.
If you want a facilitator for one stage or the whole cycle, our services page describes each engagement, pricing explains how work is scoped, and the about page explains who we are. StrategyPlanning.ca is part of the Sedighi.ca and SAZ.ca group, based in Vancouver, and works with companies across Canada, online by video or in person. Call or text (604) 632-4959, or email us.
Frequently asked questions
Can we use these guides without hiring you?
Yes. They are written so a leadership team can run each step on its own. If you want help with one stage, or a facilitator for the whole cycle, you can call, text or email us.
Which guide should we read first?
If you have no written plan, start with the three-year plan guide. If you already have a plan that is not being followed, start with the quarterly review guide.
Are the numbers in the guides benchmarks?
No. They are illustrative figures for a fictional company, chosen so you can follow the arithmetic. Replace them with your own numbers.