Abstract
Strategic planning is a routine activity for institutions of higher education. However, these processes do not always result in strategy that reflects the complexity of these organizations or the challenges that they face. By applying design thinking to the challenge of creating robust strategy, the authors put forward a method they called “Four Dimensional Design” that can be readily applied to helping these institutions create strategy with strong buy-in from internal and external stakeholders, innovative solutions, clear expectations for scope and scale, as well as a sense of how new initiatives can be systematized to approach challenges across time.
TopStrategic Planning
Strategic planning is common in most industries, particularly in higher education where accrediting processes require institutions to demonstrate their pursuit of institutional goals and objectives. Sanaghan (2009) defines a strategic plan as, “The narrative map that communicates where an organization wants to go and identifies how it intends to get there” (p. 9). Beyond compliance, these processes intend to help organizations improve.
A typical strategic plan contains elements such as a vision statement, mission statement, strategic themes and goals (Kenny, 2018). A challenge present in many strategic plans is ensuring that each of these terms is clearly defined. Sanaghan (2009) offers the following definitions in his book, “Collaborative Strategic Planning in Higher Education.”
Vision: “A description of a desired future state. The best visions are vivid, compelling, and well-understood and build on the institution’s strengths and values” (Sanaghan, 2009, p. 9).
Mission: “Articulates the institution’s purpose and the major activities in which it is engaged” (Sanaghan, 2009, p. 9).
Strategy: “A particular approach in pursuit of an organization’s vision, usually in support of one or more specific goals” (Sanaghan, 2009, p. 9).
Goals: “Large-scale efforts that, when accomplished, move the organization closer to its vision. Effective goals are subject to assessment” (Sanaghan, 2009, p. 9).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Goal: A short statement of a desired outcome that can be accomplished within the next 3-5 years.
Design Thinking: The human-centered process of solving problems by empathizing with the needs of stakeholders, defining problems, creating solutions, prototyping, and testing solutions.
Driver: Within a system, the elements which influence other aspects of the systems the most and which are responsible for initiating conditions within that system.
Strategic Plan: A statement of the vision an organization hopes to pursue, the goals which support that vision and the objectives which lead to the accomplishment of those goals.
Objective: A step which can be taken within the next year to make progress toward a goal.
System: A collection of elements which interact together within a given environment. These can range from simple to complex, and from deterministic to random.