I’m a big fan of strategic planning. In today’s world of constantly competing priorities, your strategic plan is the roadmap to guide smart growth investments. The good ones have a clear vision and a clear set of strategies and tactics to achieve that vision. Our research here at PSMJ shows that one of the most common ways that strategic plans fail to deliver results ties back to accountability. Without specific by who/by when accountability and consistent ownership of the plan, it will most likely fizzle out. But, there are also a whole bunch of secret strategic plan killers that you might not see coming.

Here are five strategic planning mistakes that are likely to set your plan up for failure before you’ve even left the meeting room:

Mistake No. 1. Plans that are focused on adding expense instead of revenue. So many strategic plans have an overarching goal of increasing (maybe even doubling) headcount. Of course, there is a pretty tight correlation between revenue and headcount in AEC firms, but the long-term goal of a plan shouldn’t be to add to what is already your firm’s largest expense. Start with revenue. In fact, as we enter a more tech-enabled world, my dream is to live long enough to see the day that revenue and headcount are no longer correlated in the AEC industry!

Mistake No. 2. Plans that treat all revenue equally. It is not all equal. High profit revenue should always be the top priority. I’ll give a pass on revenue that may not be high profit but that has some other strategic value (e.g. site assessment work that is the lead-in for higher profit remediation work). But, the all-too-common mistake is failing to consider profitability when selecting growth pathways.

Mistake No. 3. Plans that don’t act on data. If you are going to survey clients and employees (which you absolutely should), you need to be prepared to act on that data and maybe even make some hard decisions. If the data shows that you’ve got an employee engagement or client satisfaction problem, do something about it. Asking and not acting is worse than not asking at all.

Mistake No. 4: Plans that don’t have a set of tight KPI targets. As I mentioned above, accountability is key in a good plan. We need the accountability related to specific action items, but your strategic plan is much more powerful if you establish your annual goals for key performance indicators like revenue factor, profit per employee, etc. right in the plan. Outputs (not inputs) are what drive value.

Mistake No. 5: Plans with a weak rollout. In the end, it isn’t the plan, per se, that gets results, it is the act of planning and the degree of alignment and energy it creates amongst the leadership team. One of the best rollout tactics that I’ve seen was a high-energy video that the leadership team created on the CEO’s phone right after the retreat on Friday afternoon. It contained quick highlights of the plan and conveyed the team’s excitement to get started. She pushed it out to all employees before they even left the hotel meeting room!

Any others that I’m missing here? If a strategic plan (new or update) is in your firm’s near future, make sure you steer clear of these mistakes. Your future firm will thank you for it!