Decisions on the direction a group might be heading over the next twelve months and beyond are made at strategic planning sessions. The sessions not only cover the best way to use resources, but what are the endpoints, and how to know when goals have been achieved. It should be noted that these meetings have a scope of all resources in the company, while single business plans focus on individual projects.

There are many ways to do strategic planning. These depend on many factors: the type of leadership in the organization, the culture and environment in which the organization exists, the size of the organization, and how experienced its leaders are, to name a few. All these factors will determine which of the strategic planning methods are used to plan for that organization. Every decision made within the organization can be included in the planning model selected.

Goals-based planning is probably the most common and starts with focus on the organization's mission, goals to work toward the mission, strategies to achieve the goals, and action planning. Issues-based strategic planning often starts by examining issues facing the organization, strategies to address those issues, and action plans. Organic strategic planning might also start by delivering the organization's vision & values and then action plans to realize the vision while adhering to those values at the same time.

Some planners prefer a particular approach to planning, eg, appreciative inquiry. Some plans are scoped to one year, many to three years, and some to five to ten years into the future. Some plans include only top-level information and no action plans. Some plans are five to eight pages long, while others can be considerably longer.

A business's top level of management and ownership needs to review past performance and develop plans covering several years into the future. This requires a certain frame of mind and the ability to recognize and counter biases. Before developing a strategic plan, a company's leaders must recognize the state of their business today, its long-term objectives, and the strategies by which they may be accomplished. These can then from the basis of an appraisal of the company's current Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Some business managers and entrepreneurs can get so preoccupied with issues at hand that they eventually lose sight of their ultimate goal. That is what makes a business review of a strategic plan so important.