My church is implementing a deliberate process for our strategic planning creative process. I’m sure that someone way smarter came up with this originally, but I don’t know who. ( If you do know who please let me know so I can give them some credit.) I thought these steps were really helpful, perhaps they will be useful in your planning process as well.
Dream
In this step we dream as big as we can to think as big as we can just dreaming about how we could communicate the message of the gospel in a message series, or what would be a more effective way to reach the unreached in our city.
Design
During the design stage we narrow the options down the different ideas from initial dreaming stage.
Detail
Here we think through more of the specifics of preparation that will need to be organized in order to make the outreach, program etc. a success.
Deadline
With out any specific timeline of what we want to accomplish the plans might not actually get off the ground so we calendar key deadlines leading up to the event or sermon series that need to be hit.
Dollars
After the deadlines and the plans are in action money needs to be spent towards the project. This can vary greatly from one thing to another depending on the dream.
Execute
This importance of this step is huge. No matter how great the plan everything if the plan isn’t executed, or followed through on with excellence then it’s a wash.
Evaluate
After the event has taken place the process is still not over. It still needs to be evaluated for effectiveness.
Adjust
Based on the evaluation, adjustments can be made and lessons learned can be educational for future planning projects. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake, but by making adjustments hopefully the same exact mistake won’t be made repeatedly.