Identifying priorities to guide strategic planning

This guidance is for courts interested in future ready planning and is adapted from "Building future ready courts." Refer to the complete guide to learn about and work through our future ready courts framework. 

The strategic planning process uses insights gained from strategic foresight activities to define/refine your vision, mission and values; set strategic priorities; craft goals and objectives; and develop an action plan.

Establishing a foundation

Strategic foresight plays a vital role in shaping an organization's vision, mission, and values statements by ensuring these foundational elements are future-oriented, relevant, and aligned with emerging realities. 

It is important to understand the different purposes for each of the statements. The vision statement defines the court's long-term aspirations and the future it seeks to help create. The mission statement describes the court's core purpose and how it intends to achieve its vision. The values statement identifies the core principles and beliefs that guide the court's actions and decision making.

Review tips for vision, mission & values

Setting priorities

Identify a set of strategic priority areas or broad areas of focus considered critical to achieving the court's vision and mission. Strategic priority areas help an organization determine where to focus its attention, resources, and efforts. They provide the big picture themes the court will concentrate on over the next several years and guide the development of strategic goals and action plans. 

Strategic priority areas are selected based on their alignment with the court's vision, mission, and values; their focus on the most critical challenges and opportunities facing the court; and the feasibility to effectively address each area. Understanding and addressing key areas of vulnerability will help ensure the court's long-term viability.

Identify vulnerabilities

Crafting goals & strategies

Define goals you want to accomplish within each area and strategies for achieving each goal. Because priority areas can be broad, this step identifies a few goals, among many possible goals in each priority area, that the court will work on for the next several years. The strategies provide more specific approaches for achieving each goal. 

Together, the goals and strategies create a roadmap for success and provide a basis for measuring progress, evaluating performance, and holding leaders and staff accountable for achieving results.

Benefits of goals and strategies:

• Provide a guide in decision making.
• Ensure actions and policies align with the organization's overarching vision and mission.
• Allocate resources effectively to enhance the court's future-readiness. 

When crafting goals, it is important to include key stakeholders such as staff, leadership, and community members in the process to ensure buy-in and diverse perspectives. The purpose of the goal-setting process is to identify a limited number of high-impact goals to avoid overextension and ensure sufficient resources are allocated to achieve success. 

Once you determine the goals for each area, the next step is to identify a set of strategies to achieve the goals - breaking down the goals into more specific and actionable components. 

Develop goals & strategies

Developing an action plan

Now it's time to translate the strategic goals and strategies into detailed, actionable activities and tasks. The action plan serves as a bridge between long- term strategic goals and the day-to-day activities necessary to achieve them. The action plan typically covers a shorter time frame, such as a year, and focuses on specific activities/projects, resources, and responsibilities.

Creating the action plan involves representatives from across the organization to ensure efforts build on and do not duplicate current projects and initiatives and to enlist expertise to generate new approaches to address each strategy. It is important to consider the number of new projects the court can effectively implement and the budget required for implementation and/or repurposing existing resources. Once a list of projects/activities is created for each strategy, the future ready courts team and court leadership determine priorities and the overall timeline for implementing them. The timeline provides an indication of which activities need to occur before others.

Review action plan examples