When is it time to refresh a strategic plan?

Richard, good answer above. I think a lot of the suggestions are quite valid. I've also seen some Balanced Scorecard organizations realize that their scorecard is no longer valid. Let me give you two examples:

• Measures are not changing: In this case, they have achieved the performance they are looking for, and they are just monitoring information, and not measuring change. A simple example is when performance of a particular process starts to meet the tolerance requested (99% or six sigma in defects).
• Objectives are accomplished: I've been in a strategy review meeting where the leadership team realized that they had accomplished three of the 10 objectives on their strategy map--customer service as a core competency, leadership succession plans, and manufacturing excellence.
  

In both cases, there is a natural time when you realize that you need to update your strategy and strategy map. Maybe this is just a longer explanation of bullet 2 above, but when this happens, it is not always on an annual or 3-5 year schedule.

Keep a look out if you are struggling with your strategy review meetings. Read more about review meetings at Ascendant's blog

Ted