Foundation 19 of 20 · Execute
How to Review Your Business Strategy
Doing Everything on the Plan Is Not the Same as Hitting It. Read the Plan Again Before You Write a Bigger One.
"My plan from last spring is still on the wall. What more am I supposed to do?" Take it down and read it against what actually happened. Plans go stale quietly while you are busy carrying them out. Here is how to review your business strategy on a set date, line by line, and decide what to keep, what to change, and what to drop.
Last Updated: 11/02/2026 · Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
The Short Answer
What Is a Strategy Review?
Textbook Definition
A strategy review is a scheduled evaluation of a business's strategic plan in which actual results are compared with intended outcomes, and each goal and initiative is retained, revised, or discontinued.
In Plain English
It is a planned sit-down where you compare the plan with the real numbers. To review your business strategy well, you start at the top with the big picture, work down, and mark every item keep, change, or drop.
Why It Matters
Why Do Plans Go Stale on the Wall?
Once a plan is pinned up, all your attention goes to doing the work. After a few weeks the page becomes part of the furniture. A year later you may have finished every item on it and still be short of the target, with no idea why, because nobody ever checked whether the items were the right ones.
A strategy review puts a date on that check. You decide keep, change, or drop for every line, and you do it by walking the ladder from the vision down, because a wrong goal near the top makes everything under it wrong too.
Signs you have this problem:
- Your plan has not been read since the day it was pinned up.
- You finished everything on last year's list and still missed the target.
- Next year's plan is this year's plan with bigger numbers.
- You keep doing something because it was in the plan, not because it works.
- Something is working well that nobody planned and nobody has written down.
- There is no date anywhere on the plan for the next review.
What It Looks Like
What It Looks Like When a Plan Finally Gets a Second Look
From the Fabled Forest · Chapter 19
Otto runs a parcel and errand counter by the ferry landing. Last spring he pinned up a three-line plan: open a second counter up the hill, open on Sundays, and reach eight hundred parcels a month by winter. He did the first two. Now it is winter, he is pinning up next year's plan with even bigger goals, and his assistant Tobias quietly shows him the real count: six hundred and fifty.
Doctor Owl has him review from the top. The vision and the long-range targets still hold, so they stay. The second counter only drew about three parcels a day from customers who already walked down to the landing, costing ninety coins over thirty weeks, so it goes. Sundays lost a hundred and eighty coins, and the ferry never runs on Sunday anyway, so that goes too. The eight-hundred target was most of a three-year climb crammed into one year, so it is moved out to next winter, with seven hundred by midsummer.
Then Tobias points to a column nobody planned: repeat customers rose from thirty to forty-five in every hundred parcels after Otto started tucking a thank-you card into each one. That one is kept on purpose and written into the plan. Otto writes the next review date at the bottom, the first Tuesday of every season, and folds next year's bigger plan into a drawer.
Otto's story is Chapter 19 of Strategy for Small Businesses, Book 6 of Dr. Paul's Fabled Forest Business School Series.
The Fix
How to Review Your Business Strategy in 4 Steps
One slow morning, the plan, and the real numbers. That is all a review needs.
Put the next review date on the plan itself.
Seasonal or quarterly works for many small businesses. Write it at the bottom of the page so the next look is decided before you leave this one.
Gather what actually happened.
Sales, costs, customer counts, anything you tracked. A simple monthly habit makes this easy; see how to run a monthly business review.
Start at the top and work down.
Check that the vision and long-range goals still hold. Then step down one level at a time and give every item a verdict: keep, change, or drop. Look at each action from your action plan against the goal it was meant to serve.
Look for the surprise that worked.
Ask what went right that nobody planned. If it is helping, write it into the plan so it continues by choice, not by luck. Then rewrite the page; a one-page strategic plan makes the next review faster.
Dr. Paul's Insight
The most common mistake Dr. Paul sees is using the review to pile on more goals. Most reviews are more useful when they take things away: the extra location that only moved customers around, the extra hours nobody needed. Dropping what does not work frees the time and money for what does.
Sample: Otto's Keep, Change, or Drop Sheet
Here is the review Otto and Tobias worked through, set out as a template. List every line of the plan, the real result, and one decision.
| Vision: get parcels between coast and forest whole and on time | Still true. Keep. |
| Five-year and three-year parcel targets (1,000 and 900 a month) | Nothing changed them. Keep. |
| Second counter up the hill | About 3 parcels a day, all from existing customers. Lost 90 coins in 30 weeks. Drop. |
| Open Sundays | No ferry on Sundays, so parcels waited anyway. Lost 180 coins. Drop. |
| 800 parcels a month by this winter | Reached 650, up from 520. Target was too steep. Change to 700 by midsummer, 800 by next winter. |
| Thank-you card in every parcel (never on the plan) | Repeat customers rose from 30 to 45 per 100. Keep, on purpose. |
Illustration from the book, in coins. Use your own plan lines and your own numbers.
Watch
Watch: Revising Your Plan and Setting Benchmarks
Two videos from Dr. Paul: a longer walk through what a business plan revision involves, and a short tip on benchmarks, the markers that tell you whether the plan is on track.
What is a business plan revision?
Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA. (16:51)
Business Plan Writer's Tip #30 for Las Vegas, NV.: Benchmarks… Useful Graffiti
Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA. (1:50)
From the Book
Read a Passage From Chapter 19
Chapter 19 · Strategy Review
Pinned in Spring, Read in Winter: An Octopus’s Second Look
“Since the card,” said Tobias. “The one in every parcel. Asking whether it arrived whole.” He closed the ledger. “It was not on the plan.”
Otto looked at the faded spring sheet, which had three lines on it, none of which was the card. Then he looked at the vision, at the top of the ladder: whole and on time.
“That’s the one that worked,” he said. “The one I didn’t plan.”
“Keep,” said Doctor Owl. “And write it down, so you keep it on purpose.”
Read how Otto's review ends with a date at the bottom of the ladder in Strategy for Small Businesses, Book 6 of Dr. Paul's Fabled Forest Business School Series.
Get the Book on Amazon →FAQ
Strategy Review Questions Owners Ask
How often should you review your business strategy?
What should I do with goals I did not reach?
Should a strategy review add new goals?
Where do I start when I review my plan?
Keep Going
Related Foundations
A strategy review is the nineteenth of twenty strategy foundations. These pages build on it. New to a term on this page? Every one is in the strategy glossary.
Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA, business consultant and author of Dr. Paul's Fabled Forest Business School Series. Want a second set of eyes on your plan and your numbers? See growth plan and consulting options.
This page is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal, financial, or other professional advice. Dollar figures are illustrations. The Fabled Forest and its characters are fictional. For decisions about your own business, consult a qualified professional.