Is Your Strategy Being Well Executed? A Checklist to Stay on Course

Before every takeoff, pilots go through a checklist: route confirmed, systems verified, issues identified, problems avoided. Checklists reduce the risk of missed steps, keep focus on what matters most, and improve performance. They’re useful under routine conditions but quickly become critical when conditions grow turbulent.

Strategy execution is much the same.

Strategy provides the flight plan. Execution determines how the company reaches its destination—or whether it arrives at all. With shifting markets, operational challenges, and competing priorities all demanding attention, even the best strategy can lose momentum. Like a pilot in flight, leaders must continually assess progress, identify obstacles, and make adjustments to stay on course. 

A strategy execution checklist helps leadership stay focused on the right priorities, make effective decisions, and adapt when circumstances change.

Why Use a Strategy Execution Checklist?

A structured checklist helps leadership teams evaluate execution consistently, identify gaps, and focus improvement efforts where they’ll have the greatest impact.

According to a report from the National Center for the Middle Market, “No matter how inclusive or buttoned up the strategy development process is, or how sound or well-defined the strategy itself, even the best laid plans can go wrong if they are not executed properly.” Strategy execution remains a significant challenge for many organizations.

“Even the best laid plans can go wrong if they are not executed properly.” 

Effective strategy execution begins with a sound strategy. Before evaluating execution, leaders should be confident their strategy is clear, focused, aligned, and ready to guide decision-making. If you haven’t already, begin with our Right Strategy Checklist, then use the Strategy Well-Executed Checklist to assess how effectively that strategy is being put into action.

Start with these 5 essential strategy execution checks.

Shepherd’s Strategy Well-Executed Checklist includes 18 best practices that help leaders determine whether strategy execution is staying on track by evaluating:

• Right Direction

• Right Focus

• Right Path to Win

• Right Alignment

• Right Actions

  
  

Each category includes several assessment statements. Below is one example from each to illustrate the areas leadership teams should regularly evaluate.

Right Direction: The things we’re working on reflect our shared definition of success.	Confirms that priorities, decisions, and day-to-day activities are truly connected to the outcomes the firm is committed to achieve
Right Focus: We work our highest-priority strategic initiatives and allocate resources accordingly.	Identifies whether the firm is concentrating resources on the initiatives most likely to drive desired results—or not
Right Path to Win: We understand where, when, and why we are winning or losing.	Confirms that the firm is actively learning, adapting, and improving its ability to win
Right Alignment: Leadership is united behind a shared strategic vision and plan.	Holds leaders accountable to a common vision, priorities, and plan over time and throughout the firm
Right Actions: We are agile in adjusting our plans, resources, and assumptions as conditions change.	Assesses whether the firm is adapting to shifting circumstances, with its eye still on the prize

Working through the complete checklist provides a clearer assessment of how effectively your strategy is being executed—and where leadership attention will have the greatest impact. Used consistently, the checklist helps leaders make the adjustments needed to keep strategy execution on course.

Assess strategy execution with greater confidence.

Traditional performance measures often don’t provide a complete picture of how effectively a firm is executing its strategy. Typical metrics can tell a firm how well they’re performing on their current path. By giving leadership teams a structured way to assess alignment, identify execution gaps, and determine where improvements will have the greatest impact, our Strategy Well-Executed Checklist helps companies understand if they’re on the right path.

Download the full Strategy Well-Executed Checklist to assess whether your firm’s strategy execution is aligned, focused, and on course—and identify where leadership attention will have the greatest impact. Use it to create a shared language for discussing what’s working, identifying what's getting in the way, and deciding which actions will move the organization forward. 

Want to maximize the benefits of this checklist?  Every day, we help leadership teams identify execution challenges and build practical pathways forward.  Let us know.