Strategic plan vs. work plan: What's the difference?

If you’re a planner, you know that not all plans are the same. 

When it comes to making an effective plan, there are often different routes you can take. Each route will differ depending on your desired outcomes and initiatives. But to figure out if you need a strategic plan vs. a work or operational plan, it takes some big-picture thinking. 

To reach your organizational goals, you want to ensure you have the right plan in place to set you up for success. In this post, we’ll talk about the difference between a strategic and a work plan. We’ll also outline some examples to help you in your strategic planning process. 

What’s a strategic plan and what needs to be included in it? 

First, let’s start with the strategic plan. According to Gartner, a strategic plan helps bridge the gap between executing its business strategy and reaching its organizational goals. 

Every organization has strategic goals: it’s the long-term direction of an organization. Sometimes, those goals help reach certain milestones. Other times, those long-term goals help to execute a specific business plan. When we look at the elements of strategic planning, there are a few key components to look out for: 

• An organization’s mission, vision, or mission statement 
• An executive summary outlining key objectives and desired outcomes 
• Any measurable business goals, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other metrics for success
• Key stakeholders or team members involved 
• A decision-making framework or process 
• A breakdown of an action plan with key milestones, timeline, and deliverables 

What’s a work plan (or operational plan)? 

There are plenty of types of plans, so distinguishing a strategic plan from a work plan can be confusing. Let’s break down what we know about a work or operational plan. 

A work plan is a planning guide or document that helps keep all team members aligned on a specific project. It’s more transactional and logistical than it is strategic. For example, a work or operational plan might ladder up to strategic priorities. But it isn’t setting a wider strategy to help meet the organization’s vision. Instead, it’s generally outlined by action items. 

Some key components of a work plan include: 

• Goals and project objectives
• Project tasks
• Task assignments (if working with a team) 
• Milestones
• Key deliverables
• Required resources
• Timelines, including due dates
• Budgets

Work plans are more common in the day-to-day duties of work. For example, your daily work plan might include things like conducting data analysis or working in a customer support role. While these shorter-term plans might ladder up to a larger company mission, they are more tactical. 

For example, providing superb customer service might ladder up to a larger strategic plan of reaching a 95% customer satisfaction rating. 

What’s the difference between a strategic plan and a work plan? 

Let’s break down the key differences between a strategic plan and a work plan. 

Essentially, it boils down to strategy versus tactics. Let’s do a side-by-side comparison of some of the key elements of both. 

As Harvard Business Review states, strategic planning isn’t just strategic thinking. It’s also the analysis and synthesis that are required along the way. 

For example, strategic plans are often malleable. It’s likely that your organization’s strategic plans change, especially in this market.

After all, plenty of external and internal factors are at play when it comes to business strategy. Our economic situation was very different just six months ago, so many businesses have pivoted their strategies in recent months in response to a volatile market. 

On the other hand, once the strategy is set, an operational plan is often pretty cut and dry. There are only so many ways to execute key action items, which means the type of operational plan might change — but only if the strategy does, too. 

That’s why analysis and synthesis are incredibly important in strategic planning. Conducting things like SWOT analyses can help to shape how you think about your strategy. And your strategy informs what types of work or operational plans your workforce puts together. 

Example strategic and work plans 

We’ve put together some plan templates to help lay a foundation for your plan’s success. 

Example strategic plan 

At the beginning of the year, your learning management software company set a goal to increase its workforce by 20% by the end of the fiscal year. 

But because of a fast-changing economy, your organization decides to press a pause on hiring. Now, your leadership team decides to re-examine its talent strategy. Instead of hiring, your human resources leaders suggest investing in ways to unlock employee development. This is an example of what that strategic plan could look like. 

Company vision: To unlock learning opportunities for all to help build a brighter future. 

Executive summary: To develop and retain top talent while increasing internal career mobility. 

Key stakeholders: HR, people managers, and top-level management or leadership team 

Example work plan 

In order to bring some of the strategic plans above to life, we’ll take an example of one of the operational aspects and break it down. 

Project plan: Roll out company-wide employee coaching 

Start to use the right work or strategic plan for your initiatives 

No matter where you are in your business strategy, it’s important to use the right plan. There are 30-60-90-day plans. There are contingency plans. There are strategic plans and work plans. And there’s also leadership transition planning, succession planning, and more. 

If you’re not sure how to best approach your plans, a coach can help. BetterUp provides personalized support to help your employees solve tough problems. By providing access to virtual coaching, you can help unlock the full potential of your workforce.