0. Assess the external context, in terms of opportunities and threats (e.g. from environmental scan, institutiogramme, coverage matrix and/or stakeholder analysis)

1. Prioritise and cluster opportunities and threats

• If you have more than 15 of each, prioritise (e.g. through voting)
• Brainstorm which opportunities and threats can be related to each other

Who should participate in the following step? It is often hard to take step 2 with a group of 15 or more people, although that is ideal. Alternatively a core team of 1-5 people can do step 2. However, a process facilitator should not do it alone in a break.

2. Develop strategic options. Formulate strategic options that:

• Respond to one or more opportunities and/or threats
• Are actions (or results) related to output, input, mission, vision and/or relations
• Are straightforward (clearly relate to opportunities and/or threats), but
• Are also creative (there may be more than the most obvious response. And you may consider new solutions that respond to new trends, opportunities, and threats)
• You may develop several options relating to the same opportunity or threat
• For each threat or opportunity try to formulate at least one strategic option

3. Rate the options in terms of relevance to (note that this is only a preliminary selection) in the SOP matrix

• The criteria in your BQ, and/or
• The mission and aspiration of the organisation

Note: Rating should not be done using the criterion of feasibility, as matching external strategic options with internal possibilities happens only during SOR

Rating can be done individually (give each person around 5 votes) or jointly. Each SO may be given 0-3 'votes'. Select the 3-6 most relevant options to be further considered during strategic orientation

4. Follow-up

• Implement internal organisational analysis of critical elements
• Strategic orientation (SOR), the final selection of a (set of) strategic options