Traditional Strategic Planning was done by a committee made up of organizational leaders.  In a series of meetings they may do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis or similar, and then develop a plan.  The plan may be great, but then it has to be rolled out and "sold" to the stakeholders, the people who will have to implement it, a process that can take months.  Inevitably, resistance appears and some stakeholders will drag their feet or otherwise block or undermine the plan.  

A more enlightened approach would be for the planning committee to meet with and get input from the stakeholder groups to take into account as the plan is developed.  Each stakeholder group conveys their interests and perspective, but only see their part of the "system," from their "silo."  Only the planning committee sees the whole landscape, and then has to balance competing demands and interests.  The plan they develop is bound to leave some stakeholder groups feeling short-changed, or that their needs were not adequately considered.  And there is still the need to roll the plan out, and sell it to everyone.  The whole process can take many months, with success questionable, as buy-in is not assured.

Many great strategic plans founder, and sit on the shelf, never fully implemented.

There is a better way.

Future Search is an evidence-based methodology of planning based on "getting the whole system in the room."  This means getting all stakeholder groups together - fostering connections between people who usually don't talk with each other.  In this way silos are broken down and all parts of the system see and understand the entire picture.  In a structured process, the stakeholders work together to discover the common ground they share, and plan for a future they all desire.  At the end, you have a common ground agenda that everyone agrees to, plans to implement it, full buy-in from all stakeholder groups because they created the plan!  So there is no need to "sell" the plan!  This is a much faster and efficient process than other more traditional planning methods.

I have been trained in Future Search and can guide you through the process.