Definition
Strategic thinking is the ability to align day-to-day decisions with medium- and long-term goals, while continuously reflecting on the National Society’s changing context, future direction, sustainability, and humanitarian impact. The guideline describes it as the mindset and capacity that underpins effective strategic planning.
Why it matters
Strategic thinking helps National Society leaders, staff, volunteers, and branches stay focused on the mission while adapting to changing humanitarian needs, risks, opportunities, resources, and operating conditions. It is especially important during unexpected events, such as disasters, political change, or sudden funding opportunities, when fast decisions must still support long-term direction. Without it, National Societies risk making short-term choices that weaken future relevance, sustainability, credibility, and impact.
Strategic thinking also strengthens the quality of strategic planning by helping the National Society ask critical questions about what it does, how it works, what needs to change, and what priorities should guide future action.
Observable behaviours
A person demonstrating strategic thinking:
- Connects daily decisions, operational choices, and resource use to the National Society’s mission, mandate, and strategic priorities.
- Regularly asks critical questions about current and future services, organisational development, partnerships, positioning, sustainability, and impact.
- Looks beyond internal Movement priorities to understand changes in communities, public authorities, technology, social trends, risks, and opportunities.
- Uses data, consultation, experience, and reflection to understand patterns, progress, gaps, and future implications.
- Thinks through possible future scenarios and what the National Society should do to remain relevant and adaptable.
- Balances ambition with realism, including available resources, capacities, risks, and trade-offs.
- Helps others understand that strategy is about focus and choices, including what the National Society will not do.
- Encourages open dialogue across governance, management, branches, staff, volunteers, members, communities, and partners.
- Supports learning, review, and adaptation when implementation experience shows that plans need to change.
Proficiency levels
| Level 1: Foundational | Level 2: Practising | Level 3: Skilled | Level 4: Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Understands the National Society’s strategic direction and can explain how their own work contributes to it. Recognises that short-term decisions can affect long-term sustainability, but usually needs support to analyse wider implications or future risks. | Applies strategic thinking to their own team, branch, programme, or function. Uses available data, stakeholder feedback, and operational experience to identify issues, options, and implications. Can contribute meaningfully to strategic planning discussions and help translate priorities into practical choices. | Leads strategic conversations across teams or levels of the National Society. Frames key strategic questions, analyses internal and external trends, identifies trade-offs, and helps decision-makers compare options. Balances humanitarian ambition with resource realism and supports alignment between strategy, operational planning, budgets, and monitoring. | Builds a culture of strategic thinking across the National Society. Creates systems and habits for ongoing data use, foresight, learning, risk management, and adaptive planning. Coaches others to think strategically, supports difficult choices, and helps the organisation stay relevant, coherent, and resilient in a changing environment. |
Evidence of proficiency
Evidence may include:
- A strategic analysis, briefing note, or options paper that connects context, needs, risks, resources, and possible choices.
- Contributions to strategic planning consultations, analysis workshops, scenario discussions, or priority-setting sessions.
- Examples of decisions where short-term actions were adjusted to protect long-term sustainability, relevance, or impact.
- Use of data, consultation findings, community insight, or operational learning to inform planning and decision-making.
- Clear articulation of trade-offs, including what the National Society should stop, reduce, change, or prioritise.
- Operational plans, budgets, or workplans that show alignment with strategic priorities.
- Documented learning from mid-term reviews, final reviews, after-action reviews, or implementation monitoring.
- Evidence of supporting others to understand strategic objectives, especially at branch or volunteer level.
- Examples of adapting plans when context, resources, or priorities changed.
Learning opportunities
- Mastering the skills of strategic thinking
- Participate in a National Society strategic planning process, especially consultation, analysis, prioritisation, and implementation review stages.
- Practise developing strategic questions such as: Where are we now? Where do we need to go? How will we get there? Is it realistic?
- Join analysis workshops that synthesise data from assessments, evaluations, consultations, community feedback, and operational experience.
- Take part in mid-term or final reviews of a strategic plan to understand what changed, what was learned, and what should be adapted.
- Use regular monitoring data to identify trends, implementation gaps, and emerging risks.
- Engage in peer learning with other branches, departments, or National Societies to compare approaches and learn from different planning cycles.
- Build technical planning capacity through relevant courses such as Project/Programme Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Planning, and Contingency Planning, which the guideline identifies as useful learning resources.
- Practise strategic foresight or scenario exercises to explore how future changes may affect the National Society.
- Work with mentors, IFRC support structures, or experienced peers to review strategic choices and strengthen judgement.
- Create safe spaces for learning and innovation, including testing new approaches, sharing lessons, and learning from failure.