Most people picture "strategic planning" as endless meetings spent doing SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analyses, crafting vision and mission statements, and developing goals and action plans. Few look forward to the experience or reflect back on it with pleasure. In this article, the author describes how he and his colleagues at Penn State University-Berks have developed a five-year Information Technology Services (ITS@Berks) strategic plan in less than five hours of meetings with stakeholders. Their complete strategic planning process was broken down into three stages: (1) Fixing one's sights on the future (brainstorming); (2) Charting the course (how individuals are going to get there); and Checking one's bearings (monitoring progress). (Contains 1 table and 1 endnote.)