Strategic planning built with your people and designed to be carried out
We guide leadership teams through a five-phase process that runs from discovery to implementation, draws on qualitative and quantitative data, brings in perspectives from every level of the organization, and ends with an implementation and tracking plan your team can put to work right away.
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
How will we get there?
Our Philosophy
We understand that a strategic plan is not just a document. It's a practical framework for achieving your organization's vision. Our approach combines academic depth with real-world expertise across sectors to ensure that your plan is grounded in evidence and tailored to your unique needs.
We partner with you to create strategies that reflect your organization's culture, values, and goals. From the initial discovery phase to implementation, we focus on actionable steps and measurable outcomes that move your organization forward with clarity and purpose.
What Makes Us Unique?
transform.forward offers more than consulting. We provide a partnership rooted in experience, academic insight, and a deep understanding of organizational dynamics. Here's how we stand out:
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Practical Expertise
Our team has worked across industries, bringing a nuanced perspective to every engagement.
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Data-Driven Strategies
We use rigorous research and analytics to inform recommendations that are both innovative and grounded in reality.
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People-Centered Approach
We engage stakeholders at every level to build consensus and ensure long-term success.
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Proven Results
From aligning priorities to enhancing operational efficiency, we deliver strategies that make a measurable impact.
Our goal is to help create a plan that doesn't just sit on a shelf but becomes a part of your organizational culture.
Our Approach to Planning
Our approach to providing consulting services for organizational strategic planning is deeply rooted in established best practices and comprehensive change management frameworks, and is illustrated through concrete examples. This detailed strategy ensures that the services are relevant, timely, and meaningful.
Our strategic planning approach for organizations is detailed and comprehensive, following a five-phase process. This framework is an end-to-end emergent process that supports your organization in crafting a high-impact strategy informed by clear data from a multitude of stakeholders, successfully implementing the strategies through a series of measurable objectives, and incorporating an agile evaluation plan that allows for continuous improvements. It is focused on amplifying the alignment with your mission, vision, and values, rooted in leveraging your core strengths to maximize resources and capitalize on opportunities that add value and solve complex problems for the future.
We utilize this framework but always customize the process based on further scope refinement with our client organizations to ensure we are not using a cookie-cutter approach to the planning efforts.
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Phase one
Discovery + Design
After executing the contract, we work with clients to better understand the full scope of the project. The heart of this process focuses on a facilitated experience that involves a series of meetings or an intensive deep dive.
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Phase two
Benchmarking + Research
In collaboration with the client, we request and review existing data and documentation that are crucial to the planning process. This includes, but is not limited to, previous strategic plans and initiatives, existing datasets, organizational structures and charts, and meeting agendas and minutes.
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Phase three
Stakeholder Engagement
We engage key stakeholders to ensure comprehensive input and buy-in. This phase involves structured interactions designed to gather diverse perspectives, foster collaboration, and build consensus around the strategic plan language through both quantitative and qualitative methods.
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Phase four
Plan Development
Informed by stakeholder engagement insights and all prior conversations with leadership, we transition to developing the structure and language of the strategic plan. This phase focuses on transforming insights and feedback into a coherent, actionable document plan.
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Phase five
Implementation + Evaluation
Phase five of the process focuses on putting the plan into action, assessing its effectiveness, and making ongoing improvements to ensure sustained success and alignment with the organization's goals.
Our Services
We offer a full suite of services to help you navigate every stage of the strategic planning process. We can do end-to-end engagements or work on just a particular phase of your project.
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Stakeholder Engagement
Build trust and gather insights from all key groups.
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Data Analysis and Benchmarking
Use qualitative and quantitative data to inform your strategy.
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Plan Development
Translate priorities into actionable goals and initiatives.
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Implementation Support
Ensure smooth execution with training and operational planning.
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Continuous Evaluation
Monitor progress with clear metrics and adjust as needed.
Examples of Our Strategic Planning Work
An Unparalleled Student Experience
When the University of Delaware faced challenges in finalizing its strategic vision, we provided decisive intervention to craft a cohesive and impactful plan. By aligning marketing strategies, annual reporting, and decision-making processes with the strategic plan, we ensured consistency across operations. Executive coaching services further equipped the leadership team to drive change effectively, showcasing our ability to deliver tailored solutions with enduring impact.
Thriving Together
We partnered with Oregon State University to develop and launch a five-year strategic plan centered on accessibility, equity, and student success. Through an extensive stakeholder engagement process, including surveys, focus groups, and visioning sessions with over 180 participants, the strategic plan was built on community-driven insights. The result was a practical, actionable framework aligned with university priorities, now supported through ongoing consulting and coaching.
Cultivating Courageous Change
While at SMU, our Founder led the creation of Cultivating Courageous Change, a strategic plan that redefined SMU’s mission, vision, and priorities for student affairs. Using extensive benchmarking and stakeholder engagement, including listening sessions and surveys, the plan introduced six learning domains and staff commitment statements. Annual reviews highlighted the plan’s progress and impact, demonstrating our commitment to actionable, measurable outcomes and a collaborative approach.
Before you reach out
Frequently asked questions
What does your strategic planning process include?
Our process runs in five phases, from initial discovery through implementation. Along the way we help with goal setting, plan development, market analysis, and identifying the metrics you'll use to measure progress, and we use both qualitative and quantitative data so your priorities rest on evidence.
Who is involved in building the plan?
Your leadership team makes the decisions, and we design the process so perspectives from every level of the organization shape those decisions. Plans built only from the top tend to stall when they reach the people expected to carry them out, so broad input is part of how we build ownership from the start.
We already have a strategic plan. Can you still help?
Yes. Some organizations come to us to finalize a plan already in progress, build implementation strategies for a plan that's finished, or refresh their mission, vision, and values so they support the strategy they have. We'll start from where you are.
How do you make sure the plan actually gets implemented?
Implementation is built into the process. Every plan comes with implementation and tracking strategies, and we can support execution with training and operational planning so your team has what it needs once the planning work is done.
Can we plan well when so much is uncertain?
We think uncertainty is a reason to plan, provided the plan is built to adapt. We ground priorities in your organization's purpose and values and build flexibility into the plan, so your team can respond to change without losing its direction.
Do you only work with colleges and universities?
We work with nonprofit, corporate, government, and higher education organizations. Our strategic planning work has ranged from large institutions with established processes to fast-growing organizations building their first plan.
How long does a strategic planning engagement take, and what does it cost?
Both depend on the scope of the work and the size of your organization. We'll talk through your goals and timeline in our first conversation and put together a proposal that fits what you need.
Schedule a conversation
Tell us where your organization is and where it wants to go, and we'll be in touch to find a time to talk.