Strategic issues are fundamental policy questions or critical challenges that affect:

1. an organization's mandates, mission and values

2. product or service level and mix

3. clients, users, or payers, or

4. cost, financing, organization or management.

John M. Bryson, Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations:  A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement, rev. ed. (San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass, 1995), 30.
 

Evaluation Criteria:

A statement of a strategic issue should contain three elements:

1.  The issue should be described succinctly, preferably in a single paragraph, and it should be framed as a question the organization can do something about.

2.  The factors that make the issue a fundamental challenge should be listed.  In particular, what in terms of the organization's mandates, mission, values, internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats, make this a strategic issue?

3.  The consequences of failing to address the issue should be identified, so that the organization will know what kind of issues it faces.  There are three kinds:

a.  those for which no action is required at present, but which must be monitored
b.  those that are coming up on the horizon and are likely to require some action in the future and perhaps some action now
c.  those that require an immediate response