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Strategic Planning: Charting the Course

Strategic planning is a process in which you identify your goals and how you're going to get there. Here is a list of the values and the vision that keep Board & Vellum humming, as of 2011.

Jeff Pelletier is the Managing Principal and Founder of Board & Vellum, an architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture firm in Seattle, Washington.
Jeff Pelletier
August 29, 2011

Strategic planning is a process in which you identify your goals and how you're going to get there. It is a smart decision for any remodel or construction process as it helps prioritize what you actually need or want from the frivolous bits and pieces that get added on along the way.

I've been involved in a lot of strategic planning in my career (for better or for worse) so when I started Board and Vellum one of the first things I did was sit down and write a strategic plan. Every month a little reminder pops up on my computer to re-read it to make sure I'm doing the things I set out to do. It's good advice for any project. Plow ahead but swing by a rest stop every now and then to make sure you're headed in the right direction.

The strategic plan for Board and Vellum is pretty simple but it helps identify the kind of work that we want to do, the kinds of clients we want, and the values that we have.

A lot of the content in there is interesting pretty much only to me (what kind of software I'm going to use this year, what hardware I'll be buying, what business strategies I have, etc.) but some of it, I think, is interesting enough to share. One of the things in ANY process, whether it be running a business, remodeling a house, planning a new store or office, is that you have to make sure you dive into it and keep yourself intact. The process can be nasty, quite frankly. If you remind yourself of WHY you got into this in the first place you'll be better prepared to stay the course.

Here is a list of the core values / drivers and my overall vision that I established early on to help keep my head straight. I recommend you do the same for any big project you have. You'll thank me for it.

As I remind myself every month, if I can stick to these reasons to keep working then I'm a damn lucky guy.

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