The Right Plan and How to Build, Test, and Adapt a Plan That Works
- 11 hours ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
Dr. Garner is a Program & Systems Architect, researcher, strategist, with 3+ decades of experience helping leaders and organizations transform vision into strategy, systems, and execution. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership specializes in leadership development, organizational strategy, and innovative program design.
Your organization has a plan. The meetings are scheduled. The spreadsheets are updated. The task forces are working. Everyone is busy. But are you actually making progress? Having a plan is not the same as having the right plan. Keep reading to discover how to build, test, and adapt a plan that turns organizational activity into intentional progress without losing sight of the destination.
What's the right plan?
Organizations spend a lot of time and money creating plans. Strategic plans. Operating plans. Standing plans. Single-use plans.
Each serves a different purpose. A strategic plan establishes long-term direction. An operating plan translates strategy into specific actions and responsibilities. Standing plans create consistency for recurring situations. Single-use plans address a particular initiative, project, or need.
The question is not whether organizations need plans. The question is whether they have the right plan for what they are trying to accomplish.
Perhaps more importantly: Does the plan provide enough structure to guide the work without becoming so rigid that it prevents the organization from responding to what it learns along the way?
The strongest plans create certainty about where an organization is going while allowing flexibility in how it gets there. Building that kind of plan begins with knowing exactly where you are trying to go.
Start with the end in mind
Before determining activities, timelines, resources, or responsibilities, leaders need clarity about the desired outcome. What are we trying to accomplish? What will be different when we succeed? How will we know we have arrived?
Without that clarity, organizations can become extremely busy without necessarily making meaningful progress. Meetings happen. Initiatives launch. Teams complete tasks. Resources are allocated. But activity is not necessarily progress.
Another meeting. A longer meeting. Another spreadsheet. A new task force. Another campaign. Each can create the appearance of movement without actually moving the organization closer to its intended outcome.
When activity is not clearly connected to the destination, it can create confusion, consume premium organizational time, and pull talented people into work that produces little strategic or revenue-generating value.
Busyness is easy to create. Progress must be intentional. That requires leaders to ask a simple but important question, "How does this move us closer to where we said we were going?"
If the answer is unclear, the activity itself deserves examination. A well-designed plan creates that discipline. It aligns the destination with the decisions, investments, and actions required to reach it.
The timeframe may change. The level of detail may change. The people involved may change. But the need for clarity about the desired outcome does not.
Three things every plan needs
Regardless of the type or duration of the plan, three things should anchor the planning process, "Destination. Evidence. Execution."
Define the destination: Where are we going?
Organizations frequently begin planning with activities. We need to launch a new initiative. Improve performance. Develop a program. Increase engagement. Expand into a new market.
Those may all be important activities, but they are not destinations. A strong plan begins with a clearly defined outcome. What does success look like? What will be different when we get there?
The clearer the destination, the easier it becomes to determine whether the strategies, resources, investments, and activities in the plan actually move the organization toward it.
Clarity also provides an anchor when circumstances change. The route may need to change. The destination should remain clear.
Examine the evidence: What do we know?
Planning should not be built solely on what we believe. It should also be informed by what we know. That requires evidence. Data. Research. Stakeholder perspectives. Market conditions. Organizational performance. Customer or community needs. Previous results. Lessons learned.
Evidence helps leaders understand both the current state and the conditions surrounding the desired future state. But leaders also need to ask, "Does the data support the conclusion that what we are trying to accomplish is possible?"
Simply desiring more growth, more revenue, greater impact, stronger performance, or better outcomes does not create a viable strategy. Ambition can set the aspiration, but evidence helps determine whether it's achievable and what it will take to achieve it.
Sometimes the evidence confirms what leaders already believe. Sometimes it tells a very different story.
Good planning does not use evidence to justify a predetermined direction. It uses evidence to determine, challenge, and strengthen the right direction. An outside perspective also adds value.
The people closest to an organization possess invaluable institutional knowledge. But proximity can also create blind spots. Over time, assumptions can become accepted as facts, processes become familiar, and certain questions stop being asked.
An independent perspective can examine the evidence differently and help distinguish between what the organization knows and what it has simply come to believe.
Build for execution: How will we get there?
A plan without execution is simply intention documented. Once the destination is clear and evidence has informed the strategy, the organization needs a deliberate path forward.
Who owns the work? What actions are required? What resources are needed? What are the milestones? How will progress be measured? When will the plan be reviewed? What conditions might require adjustment?
This is where strategy becomes operational. Execution connects what we intend to accomplish with what people actually do.
The discipline is straightforward, "Destination establishes direction. Evidence informs decisions. Execution creates movement."
Miss the destination, and people may move in different directions. Ignore the evidence, and the strategy may be built on assumptions. Neglect execution, and even the strongest strategy remains a document.
Choose the right plan for the work
Not every organizational challenge needs a strategic plan, and not every strategic priority should be managed through a standing process. The plan should fit the work.
Strategic plans establish longer-term direction. Operating plans translate that direction into actions, ownership, timelines, and measures. Standing plans create consistency for recurring situations. Single-use plans address a specific initiative, objective, or timeframe.
Often, organizations need several working together. The problem occurs when organizations select a planning structure because it is familiar rather than because it fits the work.
A five-year strategic plan should not attempt to prescribe every action for five years. Don't preserve a standing process simply because it is how we have always done it. We should not create permanent structures to address temporary needs.
The plan should fit the work, not force the work to fit the plan.
Build in flexibility
We often talk about planning as though leaders have to choose between structure and flexibility. We do not.
The strongest plans contain both. They are structured around what must remain true and flexible around what may need to change. The desired outcome may remain constant while the tactics change.
The destination may remain constant while the route changes. Without enough structure, a plan becomes a collection of ideas. Without enough flexibility, a plan can become obsolete while people continue executing it simply because it is the plan.
That is why a good plan is more than a document. It is a decision-making framework. When conditions change, the plan should help leaders determine what to protect, what to reconsider, and what to change.
The destination provides certainty. The strategy provides direction. The execution model provides structure. Ongoing evidence tells us when something needs to change.
Leaders should keep asking, "Are our assumptions still valid? Are we seeing the outcomes we expected? What is the evidence telling us? What have we learned? What needs to change?"
Most importantly, "Are we still moving toward the intended outcome?"
Changing the route is not necessarily evidence that the plan failed. Sometimes changing the route is exactly what successful execution requires. Structured enough to guide. Flexible enough to adapt.
Don’t just create the plan. Test it. There is one more question organizations should ask:
Who is testing the plan?
In a typical planning process, leaders establish the vision, teams provide input, data is reviewed, priorities are identified, and strategies are developed. Then, in many cases, the same people who created the plan decide whether it's sound.
That approach has an inherent limitation. The people closest to the work may also be closest to the assumptions that shaped it. Even strong internal teams can benefit from an impartial perspective that is not influenced by organizational history, internal dynamics, or previous decisions.
There is also an operational consideration. Asking key staff to build, execute, and independently test the plan places another demand on one of the organization's most valuable resources: their time and attention.
Engaging a qualified third party to test a significant plan can therefore be both strategically valuable and operationally sound.
It can preserve key staff time, minimize distractions from core responsibilities, and provide a dedicated, impartial examination before the organization commits significant resources to execution.
The objective is not to turn decision-making over to an outsider. It is to test the plan. Think of it as a strategic stress test.
Does the strategy align with the intended outcomes? Are the assumptions supported by evidence? Is there a clear path to execution? Are ownership, accountability, and measures of success clear? Where are the risks and dependencies? Ultimately, "Will this plan work beyond the room in which it was created?"
The organization retains ownership of its vision, strategy, and decisions. The independent perspective helps determine whether the plan is aligned, feasible, executable, and responsive to the conditions in which it will operate.
It also allows the people responsible for running the organization to remain focused on running the organization. That matters.
Every hour senior leaders and key staff spend reexamining work they have already helped create is time they are not spending on customers, revenue, implementation, people, or other organizational priorities.
Organizational time is a strategic resource. Independent review creates dedicated capacity for testing the plan without unnecessarily redirecting internal capacity away from executing the work.
The purpose is not to prove that the plan is wrong. The purpose is to make sure it is strong enough to do the work it was designed to do.
Agreement does not automatically equal alignment. A beautifully written plan does not automatically equal an executable plan. Internal confidence does not automatically mean the assumptions have been sufficiently challenged.
Create the plan. Test the plan. Challenge the assumptions. Strengthen the strategy.
The right plan
The right plan is not necessarily the longest, most detailed, or most sophisticated. It is the one that helps the organization move.
It should be clear enough to create alignment, structured enough to guide execution, dynamic enough to respond to new information, flexible enough to change when circumstances demand it, and tested enough to withstand perspectives beyond those of the people who created it.
Through all of that movement, something must remain certain, "The destination."
The right plan does not require leaders to predict every turn in the road. It requires them to know where they are trying to go, why getting there matters, and how they will recognize success when they arrive.
Then it requires the discipline to examine the evidence, build for execution, challenge assumptions, learn continuously, and adjust the route when necessary.
Define the destination. Examine the evidence. Build for execution. Choose the right structure. Build in flexibility. Test the plan. Then move.
Because ultimately, a plan's value isn't determined by how impressive it looks on paper.
It is determined by whether it moves the organization from where it is to where it intends to go. Sometimes, the most important next step is bringing in the right partner to help you determine whether your plan can actually get you there.
At Learning Impact Partners, we help organizations move from vision to strategy and from strategy to execution. We work with leaders to examine the evidence, challenge assumptions, test plans, strengthen organizational alignment, and build strategies that are designed to work in practice, not simply look good on paper.
If your organization knows where it wants to go but needs greater clarity about the plan to get there, it may be time to put the plan to the test.
Let’s build the right plan. Then let’s make it move.
Read more from Dr. Iris Garner
Dr. Iris Garner, Programs & Systems Architect
Dr. Iris Garner is an international Programs & Systems Architect, researcher, strategist, author, public speaker, and thought leader with more than 30 years of experience helping leaders and organizations transform vision into strategy and execution. She is the CEO of Learning Impact Partners, where she designs innovative programs, strengthens leadership, and builds systems that create measurable impact. Through her articles, published books, research, consulting, and public speaking, she equips leaders with practical strategies that turn ideas into action. Her mission is to curate personalized pathways that uniquely position individuals to discover, develop, and serve in their purpose.
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McKinsey & Company. (2019). Planning in an agile organization. McKinsey & Company.
Olson, A. B. (2022). 4 common reasons strategies fail. Harvard Business Review.
Project Management Institute. (2013). A framework for aligning strategy and execution. Project Management Institute.
