I came across an interesting acronym called MOST – Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics. Original source - http://www.strategy.nildram.co.uk/most.html
MOST helps to clarify where the business intends to go (Mission), they key goals which will help to achieve this (Objectives), analyses what options there are for proceeding forward (Strategies) and how these strategies are going to be put into action (Tactics).
The key is for this whole process to hang together from top to bottom and in reverse. From the top, clarifying the mission drives the objectives, which creates strategic options, which forces tactical actions. From the bottom, every action at tactical level should help to make the strategies work, all strategies should help to achieve the objectives, and all the objectives should take the business towards the mission.
I like easy to remember heuristic acronyms. My three favorite acronyms are KISS, YAGNI and BYOB.