In fast-moving organisations, it’s increasingly difficult to answer a deceptively simple question:

What strategic priorities matter most, right now?

If you’ve found yourself in meetings where every initiative is labelled “critical,” every team has its own interpretation of the strategy, and no one feels confident about where to focus strategic planning, you’re not alone.

We refer to this condition as goal-fog: when leaders are overwhelmed by options and underwhelmed by clarity. And in these moments, traditional approaches to strategic prioritisation–long workshops, weighted scoring models, endless decks–can often make things worse.

So, how do you set strategic priorities when everything feels important, and uncertainty is the norm?

This article introduces a field-tested approach for strategic planning and strategic prioritisation. We look at how to move from assumption to evidence and from ambiguity to alignment. (Reach out at [email protected] if you’d like with with strategic priorities and strategic planning for your organization.)

Why strategic prioritisation often fails

At first glance, strategic prioritisation seems straightforward: list your options, weigh the pros and cons, and choose what to focus on. But in reality–especially in complex, fast-moving organisations–it’s rarely that simple.

Even with the best intentions, strategic prioritisation efforts often stall or fall flat. That’s usually because of one or more of the following:

  1. Consensus overrides clarity.
     Teams spend time trying to agree on wording, not direction.
  2. Assumptions go unchallenged.
     Big bets get made without truly testing whether the underlying beliefs hold up.
  3. Prioritisation happens in isolation.
     Leaders make calls without enough real-world input from customers, front-line staff, or operational realities.
  4. There’s no fast feedback loop.
     Once a direction is set, there’s no mechanism for validating whether it’s working–until it’s too late.

If we want clearer strategic priorities, we need a better process. We need a strategic planning process that’s faster, more grounded in evidence, and more collaborative from the start. We need a process that strengthens the underlying skills for strategic thinking that enable leaders to navigate complexity with greater confidence.

A field-tested alternative to traditional strategic planning workshops

One of the methods we’ve seen work consistently is what we call the Strategy Field Test — a structured, five-step approach that helps leadership teams move from speculation to shared strategic direction.

It’s not a strategic framework, and it’s not a strategy canvas. It’s a sequence of facilitated steps that help teams align around what matters through learning, not guessing.

(If you’re looking for a one-off strategy session that builds shared ownership and clarity, check out this guide to strategy workshops for techniques and facilitation tips.)

Here’s a high-level view:

1. Map the Gap

Start by naming the strategic “valley” you’re crossing. What change are you hoping to create, and what assumptions are you making to get there? This creates the starting point for targeted exploration.

2. Surface the Truth

Rather than debating ideas in a vacuum, engage your ecosystem. Run a short, focused research project. Listen to internal and external stakeholders to uncover what’s really going on and where the friction lies.

3. Model the Moves

Create a set of possible plays: some conservative, some bold, some unexpected. The aim here is not to pick a winner immediately, but to build a menu of options worth exploring.

4. Test and Adapt

Run small experiments. What messaging resonates? What behaviour changes? What evidence emerges? Crucially, this step isn’t about validating ideas, it’s about learning fast.

5. Make the Call

Only now, once you have real signals from your internal teams and the market (not just opinions from the leadership team), do you set your strategic priorities. The decision is grounded in what was learned, not just what was assumed to be true.

From assumption → to evidence → to decision.

This approach reduces the risk of taking big, uninformed bets; concentrates attention where it counts; and gives teams confidence that they’re not just guessing smarter, they’re acting smarter.

A field-tested example of strategic prioritisation

A UK-based organisation facing extreme staff turnover needed a clear plan to improve retention. The challenge wasn’t a lack of ideas — it was knowing which ideas would actually work.

Using the five-step Strategy Field Test approach, they began by mapping the gap. They identified their core strategic assumption: that improving employee experience would lead to reduced employee churn.

Next, they surfaced the truth through a video diary study with a range of employees and by having senior leaders shadow frontline roles. This work uncovered unseen friction points and challenged long-held assumptions about the employee journey. These insights reshaped the conversation entirely.

With this insight in hand, they modelled a set of possible interventions. From there, the team designed small-scale experiments to test targeted changes to onboarding, feedback, and peer learning. Within weeks, early signals showed what was making a difference. Those results became the foundation for a clear, focused strategy that ultimately cut turnover by more than half.

Strategic Prioritisation is a practice, not a workshop

In high-uncertainty environments, trying to front-load all the thinking before taking action is increasingly unrealistic. The most effective strategy planning processes reflect an agile mindset that embraces iteration, learning, and course correction over static planning. You can explore more about developing this mindset in this agile mindset training guide.

The next time your team feels stuck in a swirl of priorities, ask:

  1. What assumptions are we making?
  2. What evidence would change our minds?
  3. What’s the smallest thing we could test to learn more?

The answers might just bring the clarity you’ve been looking for.

For more resources on strategic facilitation and innovation workshops, visit our innovation resources hub.

This article was prepared by Ann Padley of Sprint Valley for innovationtraining.org. Get in touch to find out more about effective strategic planning. Contact us at [email protected].