This learning guide adresses questions related to good strategy development and helps teams build strategic plans that drive action and decisions making. While good strategy development cannot be mastered in one template, this is meant to be a capacity-building resource specifically designer to guide teams through the strategic planning process.

Teams that seek to develop a sound strategy must address three primary components to move forward successfully and reach desired goals: diagnosing the problem, creating a guiding policy, and establishing coordinated action.

1. Diagnosing the problem comes down to understanding the situation, an informed judgment about the meaning of the facts in front of you. Keep in mind that diagnoses can evolve with the addition of new facts. Make sure key leverage points are identified and communicated to the staff.  
2. A guiding policy is a method of ruling out possible choices to reduce transaction costs and increase coordination and focus on action. It is not a rigid set of rules that must always be followed, but information that should allow your team maximum flexibility to make decisions while at the same time ensuring you are all heading towards a common goal (outcome). 
3. Coordinated action is what keeps your team working to achieve your desired goals instead of blocking each other. The role of your strategy is not to ensure that everything is coordinated but to specify what specific actions should be coordinated to be successful and effective.