Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) produce inspiring vision and mission statements, strategic plans, academic master plans, strategic enrollment plans, campus master plans, and many others; but if these plans do not align with how resources are actually allocated, they are merely “plans on a shelf” and not the living documents that IHE’s need to satisfy regional accreditors and stakeholders.
If an IHE’s Strategic Plan and its budget are not integrated, then the budget, by default, is the institution’s real plan.
At many institutions, planning and budgeting are large, separate, manual cumbersome processes with different key stakeholders, often supported by different administrative offices and not necessarily with the same cycles and timelines. In every case, to successfully implement Integrated Strategic Planning depends upon critical leadership guidance, discipline, and facilitation. The primary outcome is to transform institutional vision into concrete goals and outcomes that directly connect to financial decision making. Listen to a short clip of Nicholas Santilli, Senior Director for Learning Strategy at the Society for College and University Planning discussing this topic during a recent webinar on the Future of IE: Software to Inform your Integrated Strategic Planning Process.
The consequences of failing to implement Integrated Strategic Planning during this environment of severe reductions in state funding, rapidly increasing student tuition and fees, and a call for greater accountability are catastrophic.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss how SPOL’s Diamond software can assist your institution in achieving true Integrated Strategic Planning as well as providing solutions to your institutional challenges with Planning, Assessment, Budgeting, Faculty, and Accreditation practices.
