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Your Strategic Plan as a “Living Document”

Your plan is organic and highlights your organization’s interconnectedness. Teams have been crafting Goals, Objectives, and Strategies that involve every element of your organization in some form. As a result, everyone in the organization should “see themselves” in the work you have set out to accomplish.

Because of this interconnectedness, your plan is adaptable to changing conditions. The Goals you created and the timelines of supporting Objectives and Strategies may need adjustments as you embark on your plan. Specific measures or targets may not be as attainable as you initially thought. However, even if an initial goal may not be entirely achievable, the vision behind the goal still stands, and you will find other ways to achieve that vision.

For instance, during times of uncertainty, some necessary adjustments to Tactics or even a few of your Strategies may be necessary. However, the core of your plan—your Mission, Vision, Goals, and Objectives—should be based on your organization’s strengths and the meaningful changes you have envisioned for your team over the next planning cycle. These should exist and persist beyond the necessary work in response to these situations.

Most importantly, however, the living nature of your plan offers immense opportunities for learning and collaboration beyond the plan itself. You may discover new synergies among members or areas of your organization. For instance, in one college’s brainstorming session around writing their Vision, two faculty members realized they were working on parallel research and exchanged contact information for future collaboration. Another organization identified a need for a “shared language” to improve communication.

Similarly, mapping your plan’s Objectives around focus areas of goals contained within the University strategic plan offers a glimpse into how your work propels the university forward while illustrating and helping identify potential cross-organizational and University-wide partnerships.

Unit Leadership is Critical

One of the most critical pieces to the implementation puzzle is the vocal support for the strategic plan from the organization’s leadership. With strong, active support, buy-in across the unit will increase, improving the likelihood of success. Here are some suggestions for leaders:

  • Communicate expectations clearly. What support, resources, and tools can the organization expect from leadership? (Ideas for constructing a communication plan are in the following pages.) Consider initially sharing:
    • The organization process for implementing and executing the plan
    • Expected participation points from leadership
    • Expected benchmarks drawn from the plan deadlines
    • Frequency and sources of progress reporting across the organization
    • Aspirations for demonstrated successes and positive changes
  • Designate an “implementation czar.” Designate a person in the organization who will provide guidance on managing the various Strategies and Tactics during the planning cycle. This person should be a central resource for members of the organization to approach with questions, provide clarifications on task assignments, monitor progress, and offer any troubleshooting that does not require a change to the plan itself.
  • Create an organization planning oversight team. This team should be cross-functional, representing most, if not all, aspects of your organization. The core planning team initially designated to create the plan might be a good place to draw membership. This oversight team should have streamlined authority to make decisions about plan assignments, assign responsibilities, and handle any necessary changes to the plan. This team should report regularly to leadership. Additionally, you should consider this team as the basis for monitoring progress and learning during implementation (see the section on 30/30 meetings below).
  • Create organization buy-in. In addition to presenting the plan’s tangible benefits to the organization, try to create a framing where members can see personal benefit in achieving the defined goals and objectives. Do your best to help everyone “find themselves” in the plan. Design a link between the plan objectives and performance reviews and create incentives and reward structures around plan success.

Creating a Communications Plan before Implementation

The multi-year length of a strategic planning cycle opens opportunities for your organization to create and build upon the strength of your internal communication processes. In considering how best to keep your organization well-informed during the execution of your plan, here are some considerations for keeping the information flowing:

1) Before you begin, lay the groundwork for collecting organizational feedback.

While completing the working plan document, you likely collected feedback from your organization. This process should continue throughout the implementation cycle. Consider:

    • What do you want to know about your plan during implementation? Do the Goals, Objectives, and Strategies continue to reflect the needs of the organization? Do all the constituent groups in your organization feel like they are playing a role in the process?
    • Are the KPIs and metrics you designed to track progress working as planned? Were your targets accurate? Are the timelines still reasonable?
    • Are any issues or questions recurring? How were they addressed the first time they arose? How are they being addressed when they arise again?
    • How will you collect this ongoing feedback? One-on-one conversations? Surveys? Town halls?
    • How can you leverage this feedback to make any necessary changes to the plan?

2) Determine who needs to receive communications.

While “everyone, all the time” is undoubtedly an egalitarian perspective, targeted communications will support your plan’s progress more effectively.

    • Who are the broad groups who need information? Students? Department heads? Staff? Community members? Advisory boards? Identify some initial categories.
    • For each category, consider their awareness, understanding, support, involvement, and actions associated with the plan. This can be used to create a dissemination timeline for each group (i.e., communication will look different for groups that are heavily involved with a deeper understanding than groups that are just gaining awareness).
    • Identify issues that your plan’s outcomes will address and which target audiences or groups these will impact. The plan’s work will more easily appeal to these various audiences.
    • When considering your communications, lay out the strategic plan’s fundamental principles and any definitions for any jargon you might identify. The more each group understands, the more buy-in there will likely be.
    • Also, make sure that you have a plan to celebrate successes and achievements, especially early in the plan’s implementation. Be very explicit about not only what was done and the people who did it but also what the organization (including leadership) learned through that success.

3) Create a communications timeline.

    • Create a timeline for communication dissemination for each of the stakeholder groups you have determined. Consider how involved each group has been in creating the plan. Some groups may already be much more aware of the work in the plan, while others may only have a general sense of the workings—these differences may help determine the frequency and depth of communications.
    • Create a method for tracking where each group is in the dissemination process. This will assist in monitoring a timeline.

4) Determine the most effective communication methods.

    • Different communication venues to consider:
      • Mailing list: Create a mailing list of key people from each group.
      • Email: Email is obviously a primary form of communication.
      • Newsletters: A brief quarterly newsletter can inform the group of progress to maintain interest.
      • Organization Websites: Including strategic planning information on the main organization website aids in transparency.
      • Reports: Reports can be disseminated to leadership as hard or e-copies.
      • Staff meetings/Workshops: Active stakeholder engagement to discuss progress regularly.
      • Governing Bodies: Regular updates in venues such as staff assembly, Faculty Senate, President’s cabinet, union meetings, organization leadership meetings, student government, etc.
      • One-on-one interactions: Key champions for the group can build on the plan in their individual capacities.

Consider creating a table with a column for stakeholder groups, including the communication strategy you plan to use and why this strategy is best for that group. Multiple communication strategies may be available for each group.

An example of a row might be:

Stakeholder Group Strategy Rationale
Students Newsletter Students may only barely be aware of a strategic plan and its purpose. Sending a quarterly newsletter keeps them informed without overwhelming them.
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