What strong alignment looks like:

A clear, documented strategic plan that makes sense across your organization
A shared understanding of direction, priorities, and trade-offs
Alignment between leadership decisions and day-to-day execution
Measurable progress on critical initiatives
The ability to adapt without losing strategic focus

Use SME Strategy as your strategic partner to:

Align your teams, lead your strategic planning process, and support follow-through.

Copy of Strategic Planning for Higher Education

Align your team around a clear strategic direction.

Strategic planning facilitation, delivered in person or virtually.

Our structured approach brings leadership teams through a clear sequence of conversations — from current state and future direction to priorities, milestones, and execution. Each step is designed to surface assumptions, clarify trade-offs, and build explicit alignment.

Strategic planning process SME Strategy

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ALL ALIGNMENT PACKAGES
INCLUDE

Participant Pre-survey and Interviews
Strategic planning facilitation (In person or virtually)
Strategic plan recap in Word and one-page infographic.

2 day Alignment Program: $16,500

3-day Alignment Program: $21,500

2 hour alignment sessions available , inquire for availability.

Do you have a strategic planning facilitator near us?

We have strategic planning facilitators available for meetings in USA and Canada.

We can also facilitate strategic planning sessions virtually via Zoom.

Should we do strategic planning virtually or in person?

There are many benefits to doing your strategic planning session online as well as in-person.

We go over the various benefits in the video and infographic below.

virtual-in-person-infographic-sept-2021

Why use a facilitator?

There are 8 main reasons we think you should use a strategic planning facilitator for your strategic planning offsite.

But here are eight reasons you should not use a facilitator.

You feel 100% confident leading the strategic planning process
You don't mind facilitating, and you feel you can participate at the same time
Your team will speak candidly regardless of who facilitates
Your organization is already fully and explicitly aligned with your vision, mission, values and goals.
You don't want an external perspective on your organization
Your goals are to stay exactly where you're at. Status Quo is the way to go.
You're not interested in creating a strategic plan with your group, and you'd prefer doing it alone.
Your organization is too small, and we don't need a full two-day process.

What's the difference between the SME Strategy and other strategic planning facilitators?

Our clients say what they like best about SME Strategy is the process we use to align teams and our ability to drive honest conversations through our facilitation methodology.

We regularly hear:

"We've never gotten this far in the process"
"I've been in many strategic planning sessions before, and this is the best and most engaging one."
"We would have never gotten this aligned without you pushing us"

Many other facilitators are less expensive, but they don't specialize in strategic planning like us, and they don't have as regimented a process as ours.

While that flexibility can be valuable for some, if you're looking to get aligned on a clear future, we think we're the best.

How much time does it take?

For most organizations, we can have a complete strategic planning process completed within 3 months.

A sample timeline

Prework- 4 weeks
Strategic planning in person takes 2 days, virtually takes 5 weeks + post work as needed.
Plan competition and roll out: 3 weeks.

This does not include the time needed to begin the implementation.

Who should we include?

Typically strategic planning for SMEs engages the leadership team and/or the board of directors.

You may want to include staff within parts of the process.

You may also have stakeholders that should be engaged as part of the process.

Learn more about stakeholder engagement as part of the strategic planning process.

Do you provide a discount for non-profits?

We provide a 10% discount for non-profit organizations.

We also subsidize the use of a strategic planning facilitator for qualified organizations as part of our non-profit program.

“SME Strategy was instrumental with helping PageDNA with company strategy definition. I believe they have set us up with a living template to use going forward, so we can continue to refine our strategy as our customer needs and our company evolves. SME Strategy, in a few words, highly recommended!

Everyone - from ownership, to team leads, to individual contributors - now knows better than ever what the company is focusing on, why we are doing so, and also - critically - everyone has specific areas where they are able to contribute to this mission, going forward.

Steve Enstad

CEO - PageDNA

SME Strategy has become an official partner in our work as there can't be another strategic planning specialist who could learn so much about a complicated project, dig into the details, and offer so much support as he has in such a short time. We hired SME Strategy in March to help plan our project's vision, mission and strategic goals, and even with the current worldwide situation of Covid-19, we have developed relationships that he forged to push the work forward in critical ways. We will continue to work with SME Strategy in the coming months and years and view his skills and talents as a necessary component to the success of the project. The team appreciated his thoroughness and insight, but also their energy and attention. During a period where leaders are constantly in web meetings, our members have shared only the highest remarks for their work. Any organization or business will be much improved under their skillful strategic planning partnership.

Jennifer Pyles

Former Director - Director at Early Childhood Education Professional Development Organization at PASSHE.

"We contracted with SME to work with our organization, supporting and facilitating our strategic planning, in spring 2022. We were so fortunate to work with Jenna Sedmak, who so capably, professionally and competently lead the pre-strategic planning surveys and interviews, which set the stage for our online strategy planning sessions.

The SME process, with Jenna's leadership, kept us focused and on task. Strategic planning can be a challenging process, one where ideas (and personalities) and plans can wander, but Jenna so skillfully and patiently guided everyone back to the task at hand and ensured organizational alignment.

SME's ongoing support and check-ins are most certainly a value add and help to reassure staff and the board. She, and SME, are thorough and detail oriented, which is so very necessary and appreciated, which in turn ensure a very good result for our organization."

Don Giesbrecht

CEO - Canadian Child Care Federation

In addition to facilitating your strategic plan creation, we can support:

Cascading Strategic Plans
Helping department leaders translate enterprise priorities into team-level actions.

Leadership Accountability Structures
Designing 90-day review rhythms and ownership frameworks that prevent drift.

Skills Development Workshops
Targeted sessions on goal-setting, tracking, prioritization, communication, and change leadership.

Quarterly Strategy Reviews
Structured check-ins to recalibrate priorities and maintain momentum.

Most teams begin with alignment. Some choose ongoing support as complexity increases.

How long does the strategic planning process take?

Once we agree to collaborate on your strategic planning, we typically have a minimum of three weeks of pre-work, including interviews, a group survey, and a document review.

From there, we'll facilitate your strategic planning process in person (2-3 days) or online (5 weeks).

Once we complete your initial strategic planning process, we'll provide a written recap in 10 business days.

Once your strategic planning process is finished, our Implementation Plans run for 12 months or more.

Do you have a strategic planning facilitator who specializes in our industry?

Our strategic planning facilitators have worked in over 30 different industries so it's very likely that yes.

That said, our process is industry agnostic as has been successful with dozens of different industries and companies big and small.

On the small chance you're in an industry we haven't worked with, we'll focus on making sure we understand important terminology and buzzwords when going through the pre-work phase, so we can quickly get up to speed.

Do you offer stakeholder engagement as a part of the strategic planning process?

Yes we do (at an additional cost). Depending on the needs of your organization, you may need to consult with internal and external stakeholders as part of your strategic planning process.

This conversation would also be led by one of our strategic planning facilitators.

These sessions are typically 2-3 hours long and can vary from 5-150 participants.

What if my team is.. stubborn and loud?

Don't worry, we won't tell them you clicked on this.

All our strategic planning facilitators are trained to deal with conflict and to be able to lead challenging conversations with passionate people.

Our approach to facilitation is by asking questions and having all participants reflect for themselves on the answers.

We make a point of having equal airtime, and making sure everyone feels heard.

That said, your team needs to be coachable, willing and open to participate in such a process, and if they aren't then there's nothing we can help with.

What if my team has never done strategic planning before?

Perfect!

Whether you are a seasoned veteran of strategic planning or this is the first time reflecting on your mission and core values, our process and your facilitatior will make sure everyone on your team participates and gets the learning outcomes and deliverables from the strategic planning process.

How do I get started?

Fill out the form below to schedule a no-obligation introduction call.

We'll learn more about you and your needs, and we'll let you know if we think we're a great fit to support your team alignment and strategic plan implementation.

We'll pick at date, match you up with one of our strategic planning facilitators, and we're ready to go.

That's it! So easy.

Schedule a no-obligation introduction call to get started today.

Assumed Alignment Is Expensive. Make It Explicit.

Facilitated strategic planning sessions that bring leadership teams into real alignment — on direction, priorities, milestones, and execution.

What strong alignment looks like:

Use SME Strategy as your strategic partner to:

Align your teams, lead your strategic planning process, and support follow-through.

Align your team around a clear strategic direction.

Strategic planning facilitation, delivered in person or virtually.

Our structured approach brings leadership teams through a clear sequence of conversations — from current state and future direction to priorities, milestones, and execution. Each step is designed to surface assumptions, clarify trade-offs, and build explicit alignment.

QUESTIONS ABOUT WORKING WITH A STRATEGIC PLANNING FACILITATOR?