Design your strategy
Document your strategy
By now, you should have:
Checklist
To create a good strategy:
- know where you’re going
- keep the community involved
- use a creative mix of methods
- be flexible – give the strategy room to change
- keep asking, ‘how will I measure it?’.
- a clear strategic direction and timeframe
- a list of management methods from within council to achieve that strategic direction
- project teams within council where appropriate
- a list of possible community, business, and other agency activities
- ideas on how you will measure the success of your strategy.
Now you need to document all these things, to create a clear and accountable record. Include your strategic direction, the methods you’ve chosen, the person or people responsible for each one, reporting mechanisms, community, business, and other agency activities, contact people from within the community, and (broadly) how you’ll measure your success.
Whatever you include in your strategy, remember to keep asking: ‘how will we measure it? How will we know that the strategy has succeeded, or that we need to change it?’
Reference material
Template
six: Strategy document [Word doc 12kb]
Strategy review
- Is your strategy diverse enough to meet the community’s expectations? Is it well coordinated?
- Have you kept the community involved? Have you included community activities, and based the strategy on the community’s values?
- Have you included work being done by other agencies?
- Have you clearly documented the ‘what’ and the ‘who’ of each activity?
- Have you got clear ideas about how you’ll measure the success of your strategy?
