Setting Strategic Priorities: A Framework for Q1 Planning
By Fox and Rain Consulting | January 2025
It's January. Your inbox is overflowing with "strategic priorities" from every corner of the organization. Someone wants to overhaul the tech stack. Marketing needs a budget for a rebrand. Operations is pitching automation. And leadership? They want it all done yesterday.
Sound familiar? Here's the truth: you can't do everything. And trying will leave you scattered, depleted, and wondering why nothing meaningful got accomplished by Q2.
The difference between organizations that thrive and those that merely survive often comes down to one critical skill: the ability to set strategic priorities that actually stick. Not the ones that look good in a PowerPoint deck, but the priorities that drive real transformation.
Why Most Q1 Planning Fails
I've seen it dozens of times. Smart, capable teams spend December or January in planning sessions, create beautiful roadmaps, and by March, they're already off track. Why?
1. Too many priorities. If everything is a priority, nothing is. Most teams try to tackle 10-15 major initiatives. Reality check: you can execute on 3-5 well.
2. Strategy without operations. Beautiful vision, zero execution plan. Strategy and operations aren't separate workstreams; they're two sides of the same coin. If you can't operationalize it, it's not a strategy.
3. No truth-telling. Everyone nods in the planning meeting, but no one says what everyone's thinking: we don't have the capacity, budget, or buy-in to make this happen.
A Framework That Actually Works
Over years of working with teams across industries, I've developed a framework that cuts through the noise. It's not complicated, but it does require discipline and honesty. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Assess Your Current State
Before you plan forward, you need to understand where you actually are today, not where you wish you were.
Ask yourself:
• What did we commit to last quarter/year that we didn't deliver?
• Where are we bleeding time, money, or resources?
• What's working that we should double down on?
• What's the honest assessment of our team's capacity?
This is about creating a realistic versus aspirational baseline.
Step 2: Clarify Your North Star
Every strategic decision should ladder up to a singular goal, or North Star. It is the one thing that, if accomplished, would make this year a success.
Examples:
• Increase customer retention by 20%
• Launch our MVP in a new market
• Reduce operational costs while maintaining quality
Notice what these have in common? They're specific, measurable, and meaningful. "Grow the business" is not a North Star. It's a platitude.
Your North Star becomes your filter. Every priority you're considering gets measured against it: does this move us closer to our North Star, or is it a distraction?
Step 3: The Rule of Three
Once you've defined your North Star, identify the three strategic priorities that will get you there. Not five. Not seven. Three.
Each priority should have:
Clear ownership. One person (not a committee) who wakes up thinking about this.
Defined outcomes. What does “done” look like? By when?
Resource allocation. Budget, headcount, time: named and committed.
This is where most teams falter. They assign priorities without assigning resources. It's like asking someone to build a house without lumber.
Step 4: Build Your 'Not Now' List
Here's the hard part: for every priority you say yes to, you need to explicitly say no, or more accurately, "not now," to everything else.
I recommend creating a formal "Not Now" list. This isn't where good ideas go to die; it's where they go to wait their turn. Documenting what you're deferring does two things:
1. It gives stakeholders clarity (and helps manage their expectations)
2. It prevents those deprioritized ideas from sneaking back into the quarterly plan
Step 5: Create an Operational Rhythm
Strategy without execution is just expensive talk. You need a rhythm to keep priorities alive and accountable.
Weekly: Priority owners share progress updates. What moved forward? What's blocked?
Monthly: Leadership reviews progress against outcomes. Are we on track? Do we need to adjust?
Quarterly: Reflect, recalibrate, and reset if needed. Did this priority still align with our North Star? What did we learn?
A Real Example: How One Client Got It Right
On a prior project, I worked with a mid-sized company drowning in initiatives. They had 24 "top priorities" and were making progress on none of them.
We ran the framework above. Their North Star? Improve customer satisfaction scores by 25%.
Their three priorities:
1. Redesign onboarding to reduce time-to-value
2. Launch a proactive support program for at-risk accounts
3. Automate the top three processes eating up leadership’s time
Notice what's not on the list? The website rebrand. The new product feature. The org restructure. Those went on the "Not Now" list.
By Q3, they'd hit their 25% target. And here's the kicker: because they had bandwidth, they actually pulled one item from the "Not Now" list ahead of schedule.
Your Turn: Questions to Ask Yourself
If you're staring down Q1 and feeling overwhelmed, start here:
• Can you articulate your North Star in one sentence?
• If you could only accomplish three things this quarter, what would they be?
• What are you currently working on that doesn't ladder up to your North Star?
• Do your priority owners have what they need to succeed?
Strategic planning doesn't have to be a bureaucratic exercise that lives in a slide deck and dies in February. With the right framework, and the courage to say no, Q1 can be the quarter that sets you up for a transformational year.
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Need help cutting through the noise and setting priorities that stick? Fox and Rain specializes in strategy and operations that drive real results. Let's talk.