I have been asked about strategy review meetings on a more frequent basis. The most recent one was "Tell me about the best strategy review meeting you have seen. Why was it so good?" It got me thinking that there are multiple ways to conduct a strategy review meeting: Review objectives that are off track, review everything, review by theme, and review just one objective. In this blog, I'll focus on reviewing items that are off track.

Reviewing items that are off track is one of the more common ways to conduct a strategy review meeting. By way of context, let's assume that the organization uses a strategy map and has color status indicators for each objective. So, maybe that is a big assumption. A strategy map is a one page picture of an organization's objectives arranged in cause and effect relationships. Typical color status indicators are Green, Amber, and Red. Green means things are on track, Amber means that they are slightly off track--usually they can be brought back on track without a tremendous amount of resources, and Red means that it is off track and needs management attention. Sometimes organizations use more color status indicators and sometimes they have slightly different definitions.

When an organization reviews "off track" items, this is also known as managing by exception. Start with the strategy map and then review each of the items that is Red or Amber starting from the top of the scorecard. It still works if you have a dashboard rather than a strategy map, just start at the top and work your way down. Ideally there will be an owner of the objective and that person can talk through the measures and explain why they are off track and what they are doing about it.

Now the key to make this work is the reaction of the rest of the leadership team. If the CEO/President or Executive Director reacts in a negative way "why is this bad?" or "I can't believe you are having such trouble" then some funny behavior happens. Owners of objectives and measures will magically make them Amber or Green. They might be changing the definition or causing grade inflation, but no one likes to be put under the microscope in a negative way. But, if the leadership team reacts "How can we help?" or volunteers resources or expertise, then you start to have a productive meeting. This latter reaction takes practice, and sometimes you need a facilitator just to moderate the discussion in this way.

There are two keys to make this successful. Key #1: It helps to have all of the other information. You need it to understand if an objective or measure is Green, but also you might find something that is working or can contribute to solving other problems. One example is learning about a best practice that can be shared, and a more simple example is finding out that you have excess cash flow that you can contribute to funding an initiative (it does happen, I promise). Key #2: You need the entire management team to pay attention during these meetings. They have to show up, and if they pay attention, they are actually able to make connections from Amber and Red objectives to things that they are responsible for. This allows an organization to actually start operating in a cross-functional manner.

Good luck with your meetings and let me know how they are coming along.

• Preparing for a Successful Strategy Review Meeting (January 30, 2011)