Strategy Markup Language (StratML) Part 1 is an XML vocabulary and schema for strategic plans. Its purposes include:


• Facilitate the sharing, referencing, indexing, discovery, linking, reuse, and analyses of the elements of strategic plans, including goal and objective statements as well as the names and descriptions of stakeholder groups and any other content commonly included in strategic plans.
• Enable the concept of "strategic alignment" to be realized in literal linkages among goal and objective statements and all other records created by organizations in the routine course of their business processes.
• Facilitate the discovery of potential performance partners who share common goals and objectives and/or either produce inputs needed or require outputs produced by the organization compiling the strategic plan.
• Facilitate stakeholder feedback on strategic goals and objectives.
• Facilitate updating and maintenance of  discrete elements of strategic plans without requiring review and approval of the entire plan through bureaucratic channels, thereby helping to make the strategic planning process more agile and responsive to stakeholder feedback and changing circumstances, thus helping to overcome the tendency of strategic plans to become outdated "shelfware".
• Reduce the needless time, effort, inconsistencies, and delays associated with maintaining data redundantly in myriad "stovepipe" systems rather than referencing the authoritative sources.
• Enable agencies to comply with the provisions of subsections 202(b)(4) & (5) and 207(d) of the eGov Act, which respectively require agencies to:
  • Work together to link their performance goals to key groups, including citizens, businesses, and other governments, as well as internal Federal Government operations; and
  • Adopt open standards (e.g., StratML) enabling the organization and categorization of Government information in a way that is searchable electronically and interoperably across agencies.
Note: On January 4, 2011, President Obama signed H.R. 2142, the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA), into law as P.L. 111-352. Section 2 requires agencies to publish their strategic plans on their websites and section 10 requires them to publish their strategic and performance plans and reports in searchable, machine-readable format. StratML is such a format.

StratML Part 2 extends Part 1 to include the basic, minumum additional elements required for performance plans and reports, including stakeholder roles and performance indicators, in order to:

• Build upon Part 1 to enable the documentation of value chains leading to the realization of strategic goals and objectives, including desired outcomes as well as the inputs, processes, and outputs required to achieve them.
• Facilitate the identification of inputs and processes needed to produce planned outputs and desired outcomes.
• Enable the documentation and reporting of metrics associated with target and actual levels of inputs, processes, outputs, and outcomes.
• Facilitate the sharing, referencing, indexing, discovery, linking, reuse, and analyses of the elements of performance plans and reports.
• Facilitate the tracking of actual results as compared to planned, target results in terms of usage of inputs, performance of processes, production of outputs, and realization of outcomes.
• Facilitate stakeholder feedback on the usages of inputs, production of outputs, and realization of outcomes affecting them.
• Enable value-added intermediaries to provide tools, products, and services supporting each of these purposes for the benefit of myriad communities of interest (stakeholder groups).

StratML Part 3 specifies additional elements addressing the data requirements implicit in GPRAMA as well as additional purposes.

On June 22 Owen Ambur published a 6-page paper on Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard commencement address and referencing his change to the vision statement for Facebook, entitled "Creating a Sense of Purpose: Bringing People Together to Build Community in a Worldwide Web of Intentions, Stakeholders & Results"

StratML Committee Performance Report for 2016 (SMLC2016)

Draft listings of:

• Use Cases for the StratML standard
• Tools, Apps & Services required to support the StratML standard - StratML Part 1 format | StratML Part 2 format
• Training Resources


StratML Glossary compiled by Owen Ambur using this XSD and stylesheet - Note the glossary is for informative purposes only. The authoritative names and defintions of the elements are contained in the schemas themselves and are available in the documentation for Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3.

StratML Part 1, Strategic Plans, was published as an international standard (ISO 17469-1) on February 11, 2015, and is available for purchase from ANSI. It is available for download by AIIM members at http://www.aiim.org/Resources/Standards/AIIM_ISO_17469-1. The schema itself is freely available for usage by anyone who cares to so so:

• ISO version of the Part 1 schema
• Schema documentation/data dictionary -- HTML | PDF

Pending recruitment of enough nations to work on international standardization of Part 2, Perfomance Plans and Reports in the ISO processes, revisions were moved through the ANSI process. On January 19, 2017, ANSI approved revisions harmonizing Part 2 (ANSI/AIIM 22:2017) with the relatively minor changes made in Part 1 in the ISO process. In addition, the following enhancements were approved:

1. Create a new Descriptor element to more clearly accommodate the description of performance indicators of the qualitative type, which may be more appropriately characterized by adjectives, letter grades, or other types of ratings than by numbers
2. Create a new ReferentIdentifier element of the xsd:string type to enable multiple references to the GUIDs of the same referents in a plan/report and to distinguish such identifiers from the identifiers of other elements, which are of the xsd:ID type and must be unique
3. Change the NumberOfUnits element to a union with the empty string type to overcome the XSD rule requiring that elements of the xsd:decimal type must be populated even if their usage is optional and the numbers may not yet be known, e.g., for the ActualResult element or for TargetResults that have not yet been specified in draft plans

• The latest, officially approved version of the schema for Part 2 is available at ../references/PerformancePlanOrReport20160216.xsd | Documentation


• Stylesheet for StratML Part 2 provided by Mario Madunic, Colin MacKenzie & Detlef Heyn (Needs to be updated to deal with the new Descriptor elements.)


• The previous ANSI/AIIM 22:2011 version of the Part 2 schema is available at ../references/PerformancePlanOrReport20101215.xsd.

• Here are some test/use cases for StratML Part 2:


1. StratML Commmittee (SMLC) Performance Plan/Report - 2015 | 2014 | 2012 | 2011 - Plain XML text & with Styling
2. Department of Veterans Affairs FY 2014-2020 Strategic Plan (VA2014) - Plain XML text & with Styling. Note: This file uses the stratml:Relationship element to link VA objectives to the strategic goals they support.
3. The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) FY 2009 Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) in StratML Part 2 format - Plain XML text & with Styling
• ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT ACT: Agencies Have Implemented Most Provisions, but Key Areas of Attention Remain, GAO-12-782 -- Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, in StratML Part 2 format - with Styling
4. The U.S. Merit System Protection Board's (MSPB) FY 2010 Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) in StratML Part 2 format with Styling
5. The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) FY 2010 Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) in StratML Part 2 format - Plain XML text (with InfoPath processing instruction) & with Styling
6. The CIOC/AIC's Emerging Technology Subcommittee's (ETS) charter in StratML Part 2 format - Plain XML text (with InfoPath processing instruction) & with Styling
7. Department of Labor (DOL) FY 2009 Performance Budget Overview in StratML Part 2 format - Plain XML text & with Styling
8. CIOC Architecture and Infrastructure Committee (AIC) Work Plan 2011-2012 - Plain XML text & with Styling
9. Executive Order - Delivering an Efficient, Effective, and Accountable Government (EOEEAG) - Plain XML text & with Styling
10. Cato Reports
• Publication Practices for Transparent Government: Rating the Congress (PPTGRC) - Plain XML text & with Styling
• Government Spending Transparency: "Needs Improvement" Is Understatement (GST) - Plain XML text & with Styling
• Grading the Government's Data Publication Practices (GGDPP) - with Styling
11. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) - Plain XML text & with Styling
12. AIIM Integrated System Development (ISD) Committee - with Styling
    • Previous plan - Plain XML text & with Styling
13. Network of European Stakeholders for Enhance User Centricity in eGovernance (NET-EUCEN), Network Policy White Paper - Plain XML text & with Styling
14. OPM's SES Performance Management System (SESPMS) - Plain XML text & with Styling
15. DRAFT Federal IT Shared Services Strategy (FITSSS) - Plain XML text & with Styling
16. City of Edmonton (CoE) - with Styling
17. Charity Navigator's Effectiveness & Results (CNER) Dashboard - with Styling
18. America's Failing Infrastructure: A Scary Picture (AFIASP), Kiplinger - with Styling
19. THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP: GOVERNMENT SELF-ASSESSMENT REPORT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, March 29, 2013 (OGP-USNAP20130329) - with Styling

StratML Part 3, Additional Elements, was approved and published as an AIIM best practice (AIIM_BP_24-2014).

• Schema for StratML Part 3, August 21, 2014
• Screen shots showing how the Part 3 schema appears in an InfoPath form, November 23, 2012
• Data dictionary for Part 3 compiled on November 4, 2012 - PDF | DOCX (Word)
• HTML rendition compiled on June 25, 2015
• The data requirements implicit in the GPRA Modernization Act (GPRAMA) are a central focus of Part 3.
• Proposed mapping of OMB Circular A-11, Section 210, guidance to the elements of StratML Part 3
• Proposed mapping of the elements of the Performance Data Standard (PDS) for the Performance.gov site to StratML Part 3.
• This rendition of GPRAMA, dated February 7, 2012, contains selected screen shots from an InfoPath form showing how requirements of the Act might be met in the strawman draft schema for Part 3 - HTML | PDF

1. Joe Carmel's XForms Forms
• Form for the ISO 17469-1 version of StratML Part 1, Strategic Plans.
• See also Joe's About StratML XForms page.
• Form for the ISO draft version of StratML Part 2, Performance Plans & Reports, which is on track for publication as a minor revision to ANSI/AIIM 22:2011.
• Alain Couthures, Gannon Dick & Andre Cusson provided assistance in developing Joe's StratML Part 2 form.
• Joe documented his efforts in Hackpad.
2. Andre Cusson of 01 Communications developed an XForms form for StratML Part 2, Performance Plans & Reports.
• Andre's form was derived from but extends Joe's original form. It was disabled by a Java security update.
3. oXygen XML Author supports StratML Parts 1 & 2 and provides templates.
• A form-based user interface for StratML Part 2 is available in oXygen.
4. Alejandro Revuelta and his colleagues on the Ximdex team have developed a forms-based interface enabling users to author and edit StratML files in Ximdex-CMS.
• For instructions on how to try out their demo, see their Guide for Editing StratML.
• See also their Ximdex Platform Demos in the Cloud page.
5. Microsoft InfoPath forms for StratML Part 1, Strategic Plans & Part 2, Performance Plans and Reports
• For those who do not have InfoPath, screen shots of those forms are available in PDF - Part 1 & Part 2 & HTML.
• Owen Ambur has created a prototypical InfoPath form for StratML Part 3, Additional Elements, that can be used as a reference implementation.
• For those who do not have InfoPath, screen shots of the Part 3 form, as of November 16, 2012, are available in PDF.
• Note: Although Microsoft has pledged to maintain support through 2023, further development of InfoPath has been terminated with the 2013 release. For further information, see this discussion thread on LinkedIn.
6. ESRI's StratML catalog also includes a forms-based interface whereby registered users can draft and edit StratML files in Part 1 & 2 format.
7. Business Web Software (now Firmstep) AchieveForms using the form on their demonstration site (Seems to have been taken down.)
8. PDF Fillable form for Part 1 developed by Ed Chase
• In August 2016, Virginia Gavin of Appligent expressed interest in updating Ed's form to conform to the ISO 17469-1 version of the schema.
• When he was with Adobe, Duane Nickull expressed his intent to develop a PDF Fillable form for StratML Part 2.
9. Xopus form for Part 1 (available in Spanish as well as English.)
10. Microsoft Word - See the StratML Quick Start Guide for MS Word Users compiled by Ictect

Since StratML documents are plain text (XML) documents posted on the public Web, they are readily available for indexing by the search engines, like Google, albeit on an uncertain schedule. Thus, the major search engine indices may not contain the most recent submissions.

WWW StratML

1. Chris Fox has enabled his StratNavApp (formerly StrategicLearning Application) to produce valid StratML output. It is free to sign up and Chris invites you to try it out.
   
   
   • Plans that are open to the public in his application are available at https://www.stratnavapp.com/Project/PublicStratMLList
   • He and Owen are exploring prospects for using his application to crowdsource the drafting of a plan entitled Best Practices for Business-Quality Communications: Moving to a Higher Level of Maturity than E-mail. Here is a first draft in StratML Part 1 format: Plain XML Text | Styled. The rendition on Chris' site is available at https://www.strategiclearningapp.com/Project/PublicStratMLList or, more specifically, https://www.strategiclearningapp.com/Report/676bac22-3425-482e-8d44-c8a4c03b54a8?IncludeStylesheet=true If you'd like to participate in editing and improving it, please ask Chris or Owen for an invitation to join us in working on the plan.
   • In an article entitled "Strategy by the Numbers," Chris has documented metrics highlighting the need for improvement in how organizations formulate and implement strategic plans.

2. Andre Cusson of 01Communications developed a StratML portal, including a StratML statistics page and a hyperlinked listings of stakeholders & values
• He also provided a stylesheet that works with both StratML Part 1 and Part 2 files.
• He developed an XForms form for StratML Part 2. Clicking on the button at the top toggled from a StratML Part 1, Strategic Plan, form to a Part 2, Performance Plan or Report, form and vice versa. The Part 2 form displayed the Stakeholder Role and Performance Indicator elements, whereas the Part 1 form did not. See his documentation of his XForms efforts and particularly the documentation for his Part 2 form. However, his form was disabled by a Java security update.
• See also his draft MS Word template for StratML Part 2.
• For information on his StratML-related efforts, see this page on his DNAOS site.
3. Marten Hogeweg set up a publicly accessible catalog based on ESRI's open source Geoportal Server with the StratML Part 1 and Part 2 configured, with a couple plans preloaded. Users can register and publish their own plans &/or the plans of organizations whose missions are of interest to them. Marten plans to maintain it to test ESRI's stratml implementation.
4. Gannon Dick of RUSTPrivacy.org converted the relevant information in the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) database to StratML format. See the home page he has compiled for his related efforts. He is demonstrating:
   • Datatype validation of StratML Part 1 & 2 files.
   • LOC MODS citation based upon the selection of Agency and Committee. View Source to see the XML; uses the MODS HTML stylesheet.
   • A word cloud of declared topical interests for each committee, as well as a listing of "corresponding" agencies and committees with the same interests (LCSH).
   • A browse interface to listings of the members of each committee, ordered by sponsoring agency.
   • An alternative browse interface to the agency stategic goals documented on the Performance.gov site
   • A service that generates performance reporting timelines in StratML Part 2, Performance Plan, format, i.e., a model performance timeline plan for issuance of performance reports.
   See also Gannon's Brief Tour of XML Technology For Emergency Management (EM).

5. Support for the StratML standard was provided in oXygen XML Editor version 14.0.
• StratML framework available as open source project on GitHub
• The framework was made available in a forms-based UI in oXygen 15.1
• In May 2015 oXygen 17 was the first commercially released product supporting the international version of the standard (ISO 17469-1)
6. Alejandro Revuelta and his Ximdex colleagues have imported many of the files in the StratML collection into their StratML query service prototype, which is now available for public access. See also their StratML authoring/editing form. They welcome feedback at feedback@ximdex.com.
7. Joe Carmel's StratML Catalog uses AJAX to index files in the StratML sitemap listing by Internet domain, provide a count of StratML files and identify those lacking sources as well as those whose URLs are incorrect in the listing.


• Joe has retired the following demos:
• Sortable tabular listings of goals, values and stakeholders identified in plans in the StratML collection. Click on the column headings to sort in ascending or descending alphabetical order. Note: Subsections 202(b)(4) & (5) of the eGov Act require agencies to work together to link their performance goals to key groups and use information technology in delivering government information and services to those groups.
• Atom Protocol demos displaying the <Mission> and <Vision> statements and showing how many times each <Stakeholder> and <Value> has been expressed by various kinds of organizations whose plans have been included in the StratML collection. (Best viewed in MSIE 7 or higher. Values are distinguished from Stakeholders by hyphens.) Note: While these demos are no longer available, this screen shot shows how the first one (for Federal agencies) appeared.

U.S. Federal Agencies
Small Agencies
State & Local Agencies
Nonprofit Organizations
International Government Agencies
Educational Institutions
Other Plans


• JXMLDatasets tabular display of StratML documents to which additional documents can be added by using the Submit Query field. Click on the File Name links to see the tabular XML Sets view of each plan
• XForm form for the ISO 17469-1 version of StratML Part 1, Strategic Plans
• Old ANSI/AIIM 21:2009 version of Joe's form for StratML Part 1
• About StratML XForms page.
• Atom-enabled listing of StratML files by Wikipedia topics
• XSL Appliance Tool for the Web using Christopher Maden's style sheet.

8. John Barker of Metaformix Information Systems has demonstrated how StratML files can automatically be rendered in PDF and ePub format, using the Meridian International Center's who we are statement as an example - PDF | ePub
• Unless a browser plug-in is installed, the ePub rendition must be downloaded and openned in an ePub reader. John recommends the following readers and says they all work with ePubs generated in TopLeaf:
• Adobe Digital Editions (excellent):
• FBReader (clunky, but it works)
• EPubReader (Chrome and FireFox plug-ins - makes epubs work in browsers)
• Calibre (also quite good)
9. Stratbase, a new startup company out of the Iowa Startup Accelerator, has developed an online strategic planning and implementation tool for teams. Dave Shafer advises that plans created using Stratbase are compatible with StratML Part 1 and soon it will support XML import/export, hosting public plans, cross-linking between plans, cascading goals, and many other features described in the StratML purposes, as well as support for StratML Parts 2 and 3.
10. Rob Green has worked to configure Drupal's "Export to XML" module to output valid StratML, in support of Cedar Falls, Iowa. His initial XML output is available at http://www.cfstrategicplan.org/stratml. The goals and objectives set forth in the plan are avaiable in HTML format at http://www.cfstrategicplan.org/objectives and in StratML format here.
11. Michael Taylor of SchellingPoint is aiming to enable his Alignment Optimization software to output data in StratML format for editing in Microsoft Word. Here's his blog on the use of StratML for higher-quality strategies.
12. Ari Knausenberger of Strategi Consulting developed a StratML parsing demonstration, which was formerly hosted at http://stratml.strategi-consulting.com/ and produced a tag cloud for the top 50 most frequently used <Goal> <Names>. The strategic plans in which each of those goal names occur could be retrieved by clicking on the tag name and scrolling to the bottom of the page to see the results. The most frequently occurring goal name is Education and it was used in the default query. The second most frequently used goal name was Advocacy, followed by Leadership, Membership, Infrastructure, Collaboration, Partnerships, Representation, Communication, and Research, rounding out the top ten. See the screen shot of Ari's demo.
13. Felix Sasaki, coordinator of the FREME project, added StratML to the types of files that can be enriched with linked data tags at http://fsasaki.github.io/stuff/feisgiltt2016/ and demonstrated semantic enrichment of the content of the Description elements of the U.S. Open Data Action Plan (ODAP).
14. Matt MacKenzie and Duane Nickull of Uberity quickly developed and briefly hosted a JSON/MongoDB-based StratML indexing/browsing/query service at http://uberity.com/.
15. XML Simplicity's editorial portal enabled online editing of StratML documents using Authentic. Here is a brief description provided by Keith Matthew:
    • XML Simplicity's (now Computer Composition of Canada, Inc.) StratML service provides powerful, yet easy-to-use, collection browsing and filtering of StratML documents. Users have complete control over collection display settings, such as sorting, grouping, highlighting, charting, downloading, column selection, etc. Documents are available for fast dynamic download in XML, PDF, RTF, and HTML formats. Editing of the StratML XML documents is available in either an offline or online word-processor like interface, that ensures consistent and correct XML source data.
    Unfortunately, the portal is no longer online but here is an example of a PDF rendition of this StratML file - Plain XML text | Styled.
16. MarkLogic's StratML search service prototype contained all of the plans in the collection as of February 8, 2010. It was developed by Shashi Mudunuri prior to finalization of Part 1 of the StratML standard. Shashi subsequently left MarkLogic and his prototype was not maintained. Jay Fohs and Sara Mazer of MarkLogic started to redevelop it with the latest versions of the files currently in the collection. The new prototype was to have been demonstrated by Jay and Andy Obermayer at the CIO Council's PlanningPlus seminar on November 15, 2012. However, the CIOC was reorganized and the PlanningPlus seminar series was discontinued. Images showing what the previous version of MarkLogic's application looked like are available on slides 40 & 41 of the presentation Owen prepared for the Strategic Planning Innovation Conference. Those screen shots are also available by themselves in HTML format.
17. Pooyan Zamanian's StratML authoring, editing, and transformation portal, which is available in Farsi and English, enables the creation of strategic plans and the conversion of the "raw" (plain text XML) StratML files to XHTML using XSL Transformation. After entering the portal with the "guest" username and password (54321), users who have Microsoft's InfoPath forms application can download the form from the Strategic Plans page, enter the data, and upload the plan. (Plans that have been previously uploaded will also be available for editing and re-uploading.) After uploading, the user is re-directed to result page to view the transformed plan as it appears in XHML format on the Web. Click here to see a screen shot of Pooyan's portal.
18. Pradeep Jain of Ictect is updating his StratML plug-in for MS Word to take into account upgrades to Word and revisions to the StratML schema.
• StratML Tagging with Microsoft Word: Quick Start Guide, Pradeep Jain & Vivian Dey, September 25, 2009 - DOC | PDF
• A Strategic Communications Plan converted to StratML format by Owen Ambur on December 22, 2009, using MS Word with the assistance of the Quick Start Guide. (Note: Since the purpose of this exercise was to test the Guide and not to produce a "pretty" document, it has not been edited for appearance, to include all of the elements of the StratML core, or to remove verbiage that does not fit neatly into the elements of a StratML document.)
• Screen shot of ICTect's StratML plug-in for MS Word demonstrated by Pradeep Jain on the January 15, 2015, StratML Committee tele/video conference
19. Ken Holman of Crane Softwrights has compiled HTML and PDF stylesheets for StratML documents but they are based upon a previous version of the schema that has been supplanted by ANSI/AIIM 21:2009
20. NIST's XML Instance Validation service can be used to remotely validate files against the StratML schema. For additional information, see KC Morris' announcement.
21. NIEM mapping spreadsheet compiled by Allyson Ugarte and Sylvia Webb
22. Liquid Technologies' Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an XML developers toolkit and IDE containing tools for designing and developing XML Schema and applications, with support for StratML and other public standards.
• See especially their documentation of the schema for StratML Part 1
23. The schema for StratML Part 1, Strategic Plans, has been included in Schema Central by Priscilla Walmsley of Datypic.com.
24. Owen Ambur is promoting the notion that political parties and candidates for elective office should be expected (by their constituencies) to post their platforms on the Web in StratML format. To prove the concept, he has begun posting the issue statements of candidates on his personal Web site. The 2012 GOP and Democrat platforms are available there in open, standard, machine-readable StratML format.
25. Alex Rollin's StratML for Production Groups description (formerly Community Intelligence with StratML project wiki).
26. Thomas von der Elbe's free-range voting demo using StratML to enable voting on the elements of a plan to form a non-profit organization.
27. Alex Glaros' Nationwide Citizen General Suggestion Management prototype application project. See also Alex's site for the Center for Government Interoperability (CGI).
28. Ivan Pedruzzi of Progress Software uploaded the StratML schema into the Stylus Studio online catalog for access in Stylus Studio via File -> Document Wizards.. -> XML editor -> User Defined Catalog. A tutorial is available showing how to create PDF forms from schemas using Stylus Studio.
29. William Charlton expressed interest in developing a "test bed for evaluating StratML as a mechanism for coordinating, recording and reporting relief operations"... to "pave the way for similar proofs in other arenas".

• AIIM is transitioning its listservs to its new AIIM Community Portal -- StratML Tech Group | StratML Announcements Group | Query of AIIM's Community Groups on the term "StratML"
• In June 2016 AIIM implemented a new website and broke the links to StratML information. Here are some of the new links:
• ANSI/AIIM/ISO 17469-1, Strategy Markup Language (StratML) - Part 1: StratML Core Elements (Stratgic Plans)
• ANSI/AIIM 22: 2011, Standard Recommended Practice - Strategy Markup Language - Part 2: Performance Plans and Reports
• Now that AIIM is exiting the standards development business and phasing out its listservs, it may be appropriate to start using our StratML group on LinkedIn more actively. AIIM's new community groups, based upon the Higher Logic platform, will only be available for use by members of AIIM.