Strategic planning at most companies doesn’t really matter anymore. Sure, the process often consumes an enormous amount of time and produces reams of data, but rarely does it drive top management’s decisions or a company’s overall strategy.

Why? For starters, the model most companies use for strategy development is not well aligned with the way executives make decisions. Ultimately, strategic planning can’t have an impact if it doesn’t drive decision making. And it can’t drive decision making as long as it remains periodic and calendar-based. Thus the key to making strategy development matter—as a few forward-thinking companies are demonstrating—is to focus on continuously identifying and addressing the strategic issues that can most affect the company’s value.

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