How long will it take to create a strategy?

Several meetings over a 2–3 month window should be sufficient.

If you are missing a piece of information, give people responsibility to locate them and bring them to the next meeting. It is important to keep up the momentum and move toward conclusion and decisions.

Too many companies fall into the trap of “Discussing and discussing and discussing.” In itself that could be virtue, but strategy is about choices. Reaching closure is important.

It’s important to remember that, in the end, it’s a plan of actions.

It’s a document with a set of choices that shows you and your team’s best estimate and hypotheses on how to achieve your winning aspirations as a business.

The only way you’ll know if your strategy is working is by putting it to work and test it in the real world. Challenge it in real situations and gain more insights and build more confidence on your next decisions.

Strategy is agile and fluid. You can make changes to it whenever it is needed. You can change it as you run your business and as situations change.

Strategy will be periodically reviewed and updated. Frequency is depending on the business type.

A rule of thumb, one time a year.

And you, how long you take to create your strategy?