The Strategic Planning Process is coming to a close, so here’s an update on how it all went.

Overall, the take-home is that we stuck with our original plan and we engaged hundreds of Division staff, faculty, and administrators as well as external stakeholders. THANK YOU, everyone!

Here are some visuals of the process:

Phase 1 – developing the Values & Goals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phase 2 – developing the Strategies to achieve the Goals

When you’re implementing a process as big as this one and you’re being thoughtful about it, adjustments may be necessary along the way… As we’ve progressed through our plan development process, the steering committee has realized that our original plan to conduct regional focus groups across the state to gather ideas about strategies for inclusion in the Division Strategic Plan may have been a bit overly ambitious…

Our original plan for these focus groups in Phase II was for Lena to meet with folks across the state in our 10 regions and conduct at least two meetings on campus in a two-week period – a lot of car time and a lot of prep time in only 10 days! Also in our original plan was for faculty, staff, and external stakeholders to all meet together in these meetings to identify ways the Division might make progress toward our new goals. But we’re realizing now that mixing these two groups may have stifled open conversation and would likely cause unnecessary conflict because external stakeholders probably would not have any desire to discuss strategies for making progress toward some of our internally-focused goals (like improving our workplace culture or better integrating into the university). So, we’ve decided to adjust the process a bit. Instead of regional focus groups we’ll do the following:

1. Hold 5 two-hour webinars, for each of the goal areas, open to all Division faculty and staff. During these webinars the participants will learn about the strategies that have already been identified from the survey and offer suggestions for additional strategies or build on the initial suggestions.
2. Hold 1 two-hour webinar open to members of the public for them to offer suggestions about the strategies the Division could use to achieve the goals that involve the public (these would be goals like providing multiple and varied ways for people to access education, research, and information, but not goals like integrating outreach and engagement throughout OSU).
   • To identify these members of the public I will send out an email to the Division leadership (RAs, Program Leaders, Ecampus directors, Open Campus director, PACE director, Summer Session director, Exec Team, etc.) asking them to nominate 1 or 2 people to participate in this webinar – these people may be members of their Citizens Advisory Networks, members of the public they think are just really good thinkers about these things, or people who represent organizations that are succeeding in any of our goal areas. I will then invite them to participate in the webinar.
3. Then, as planned, the steering committee will meet to discuss all this feedback and then hone the strategies for presentation to the Exec Team and the rest of the Division.

Here’s a visual of the modified process. The only change we’ve made is to the method we’ll use in the second step, when we “identify additional strategies.”

Phase 2 – Development of Broad Strategies for Achieving Strategic Goals

March 2016 to June 2016

 

Phase 2 starts with processes to identify an initial set of promising strategies from Division faculty & staff and from other universities. We’ll be running these processes parallel to each other:

Design Division-wide survey data collection effort that will reveal: Strategies Division faculty and staff have used or are using to reach Strategic Goals. Other strategies Division faculty and staff think might help the Division achieve Strategic Goals Strategies Division faculty and staff have seen other universities use to reach Strategic Goals and the names of those universities	At the same time, design data collection effort that will reveal strategies other “like” universities have used to reach goals similar to our goals, using information from faculty and staff about universities with whom we should follow-up
2. Preliminary quick analysis of survey data to identify other universities with whom to follow-up about relevant strategies 3. Implement survey to solicit information from Division faculty and staff about strategies
4. Full survey data analysis to identify all of the strategies faculty and staff think might support goal areas and could be scaled or maintained across the Division	4. (Again, at the same time) Implement data collection effort to gather information about strategies other universities have used to reach goals similar to ours
	5. Data analysis to identify strategies other universities have used that might support achievement of Division goals
6. Report survey findings and findings from other universities back to steering committee

Then the process continues in a linear fashion:

7. Steering Committee creates a preliminary list of strategies to achieve Division’s strategic goals based on faculty and staff survey as well as information gathered from other universities
8. Reach out to Division faculty and staff as well as external stakeholders in order to solicit their participation in meetings to add strategies to the preliminary list.
9. Hold regional focus groups (meetings) with faculty, staff, and external stakeholders to identify additional effective strategies for achieving goals (share with them the previously identified strategies before they start brainstorming)
10. Analysis of focus group data to identify all of the additional strategies faculty, staff, and external stakeholders think will support achievement of goals and should be implemented across the Division
11. Report findings back to steering committee, and committee selects applicable strategies from the entire list of identified strategies (yielding Draft 1 – Strategies)
12. Share selected strategies with Executive Leadership Team (Reed, King, and TBA) and eliminate unrealistic strategies (yielding Draft 2 – Strategies)
13. Share Draft 2 with Division faculty and staff via webinar, publish to blog, get feedback and revise into Draft 3 – Strategies
14. Share Draft 3 with Executive Leadership Team (Reed, King, and TBA), and revise (yielding Draft 4 – Strategies)
15. Strategic Plan Steering Committee organizes Draft 4 Strategies into final high-level (broad) strategies and final specific action steps. Those are then published on blog as the final list of strategies that will be included in the Strategic Plan (Executive Summary and Full Plan).
16. Final Strategic Goals, Values, Strategies, and Action Steps are sent to graphic designer for publication

What do you think about this process?

Phase 1 – Development of Strategic Goals and Division Values

October 2015 to February 2016

1. Establish an online space for two-way communication between Division faculty and staff and the Strategic Plan Steering Committee about the planning process and drafts of the Strategic Plan.
2. Modify current Division goals based on OSU SP 3.0, strategic plans from across the Division, and strategic plans from external stakeholders, and identify overarching values across those plans
3. Share draft with Division Executive Team leadership (Reed, King, and TBA) to check direction and make necessary modifications, publish to online space.
4. Share draft with unit directors, program leaders, and regional administrators in meeting
5. Modify based on feedback, publish to online space.
6. Share with larger audiences of Division faculty and staff via webinars or in-person seminars. Gather feedback from participants during session and very shortly thereafter.
7. Modify based on feedback, publish to online space.
8. Share with Division Exec Team leadership (Reed, King, and TBA), and make modifications
9. Share penultimate draft of goal areas with the process of development clearly defined, via email and Division-wide recorded webinar
10. Integrate any last-minute minor feedback and send to Division faculty and staff via email, publish to online space.