A conversation about strategy with 4-H Ontario’s Executive Director, Christine Oldfield
At Do/able, we’re seeing more teams ask for something different than a traditional strategic plan. They want a plan that keeps up and remains usable as conditions change. That’s why we combine a strategic plan with a practical strategy management framework: light structures that help teams revisit priorities, learn as they go, and adapt without starting over.
In 2023, we worked with 4-H Ontario to develop a refreshed strategic plan and to support implementation through one year of strategy management coaching and facilitation. The goal was straightforward: build a plan grounded in evidence and interest holder insight, align priorities to a significantly changed landscape post COVID, and create a realistic way to manage the plan over time as the environment continued to shift. We’re checking in now to see how that has worked over time.
The context
4-H Ontario is a positive youth development organization serving youth ages 6 to 21. When Executive Director Christine Oldfield joined in 2020, 4-H Ontario was operating with a strategic plan, but the context was already evolving, and soon the pandemic changed everything. Strategy faded into the background as the organization focused on getting through.
Coming out of that period, Christine wanted a plan that reflected the current reality and created focus. A plan with priorities and objectives people could align around, so the organization could invest time and resources in the right places and a plan that wouldn’t fade away as conditions continued to evolve.
What we did together
Our work with 4-H Ontario followed a participatory, people-centred approach designed to surface insights, make meaning of it together, and translate it into a plan that could be activated (not shelved).
“I wanted a live plan. Something we were working with, honing, and revisiting, not something we’d look at three years later and think, ‘We did some of this… and now we have to do it all again.’”
Key ingredients included:
- Grounding the plan in data and interest holder insight, as well as internal perceptions.
- A mixed strategic planning team (made up of board and staff) to support shared ownership and practical buy-in.
- Dedicated sensemaking sessions to interpret what surveys, focus groups, and conversations revealed and translate those learnings into strategic priorities. This ensured the process was grounded in data not just perceptions.
- A strategy management framework (simple dashboards and check-in rhythms and processes) to support implementation over time.
“I truly valued that we worked through how we were actually going to manage the strategy, and that Do/able walked with us through that first year. I loved the dashboard and the strategy management. I’ve never been part of a strategic plan that went that far.”
What changed once the plan was in motion
For 4-H Ontario, the shift wasn’t just having a plan. It was having a plan they could work with and revisit.
- Strategy became a regular leadership team touchpoint, not a document to return to much later.
- The organization adopted a quarterly dashboard review to track progress and discuss what needed to change.
- Board updates became clearer and easier to take in. A green/yellow/red modified dashboard was used to share progress across the plan’s priorities. This kept the focus on what the board needed to see without overwhelming them with operational detail.
- The plan and practice helped make and hold space for strategy again, not just operations, even when things were busy.
- Perhaps most importantly, the team gained permission to adjust. Trying something, learning, and recalibrating when it didn’t work
“What I liked was the flexibility. We revisited not just activities, but priorities and objectives too. In one case, we changed something because it didn’t make sense anymore, and the board discussed and approved it.”
What helped the strategy hold under pressure
A few practical moves stood out in this first year of strategy management:
- A shared understanding that the plan is a guide (that holds the organization’s strategic intent), and that activities and even objectives can be refined when needed (with board awareness and approval when appropriate).
- Regular check-ins that functioned as a pulse check on anticipated milestones. Enough to inform decisions, without getting buried in metrics.
- Easy to use and understand tracking. One system with two views to track operations and governance information and provide clear, high-level views of progress.
This combination helped people move away from “we have to do this because it’s written down” and toward “we can adapt this because it needs to stay relevant. There was a real sense that you’re always recalibrating as you go, in a simple, easy to manage way.”
Takeaways for leaders
If you’re trying to execute strategy in a shifting environment, a few lessons from 4-H Ontario’s experience may help:
- Build strategy as direction and practice, not just a document.
- Use a light rhythm (quarterly is often enough) to revisit progress, trade-offs, and what needs to change.
- Don’t over-collect metrics. Focus on what informs real decisions (e.g. milestones).
- Name what you’re not doing. Strategy is as much about what you’ll drop as what you’ll add.
Closing
If you’re looking for a strategic planning process that builds clarity and a way to hold that clarity over time, we’d be glad to talk. And if you’re exploring lighter ways to keep other organizational strategy usable through the year, our Strategic Pulse tools are designed for exactly that.
Interested in digging into this some more? Check out our strategic planning and strategy management series here:
Technical Approach to Strategic Planning & Strategy Management
