I.

STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS BACKGROUND INFORMATION

A. A DEFINITION OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
Strategic planning is a tool for organizing the present on the basis of the
projections of the desired future. That is, a strategic plan is a road map to lead an
organization from where it is now to where it would like to be in five or ten years.
It is necessary to have a strategic plan for your organization. In order to develop a
comprehensive plan for your organization which would include both long- range
and strategic elements, we suggest the methods and mechanisms outlined in this
manual.
The plan must be: simple, written, clear, based on the real current situation, and
have enough time allowed to give it a time to settle. It should not be rushed.
Rushing the plan will cause problems.
B. PURPOSE OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
The purpose of strategic or long-range planning is to assist an organization in
establishing priorities and to better serve the needs of its constituency. A strategic
plan must be flexible and practical and yet serve as a guide to implementing
programs, evaluating how these programs are doing, and making adjustments
when necessary.
A strategic plan must reflect the thoughts, feelings, ideas, and wants of the
developers and mold them along with the organization's purpose, mission, and
regulations into an integrated document. The development of a plan requires
much probing, discussion, and examination of the views of the leaders who are
responsible for the plan's preparation. However, more often than not, the
development of the plan is less complicated than is the implementation.
Implementation, in essence, pulls a plan apart and diffuses it throughout an
organization. Every unit within the organization which is involved must then
accept the plan, agree to its direction, and implement specific actions. In order to
effectively and efficiently implement a plan, all individuals involved in its
implementation must function as a whole or the plan is destined for failure.
C. STEPS IN A STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS (Example I)
Although every strategic planning process is uniquely designed to fit the specific
needs of a particular university, every successful "model" includes most of these
steps.
The university begins by identifying its vision and mission. Once these are
clearly defined, it moves on to a series of analyses, including external, internal,

gap, and benchmarking, which provide a context for developing organization's

strategic issues. Strategic programming follows and the organization develops
specific strategies including strategic goals, action plans, and tactics. Emergent
strategies evolve,

challenging the intended tactics, and altering the realized strategy. Periodically,
the organization evaluates its strategies and reviews its strategic plan, considering
emergent strategies and evolving changes. It usually takes several years before
strategic planning becomes institutionalized and organizations learn to think
strategically.
Note: Here we briefly review steps essential to success of any strategic planning
process.
1. Vision And Mission
Identification of the organization's vision and mission is the first step of any
strategic planning process. The university's vision sets out the reasons for
organization's existence and the "ideal" state that the organization aims to
achieve; the mission identifies major goals and performance objectives. Both
are defined within the framework of the university's philosophy, and are used
as a context for development and evaluation of intended and emergent
strategies. One can not overemphasize the importance of a clear vision and
mission; none of the subsequent steps will matter if the organization is not
certain where it is headed.
2. Environmental Scan
Once the vision and mission are clearly identified, the university must analyze
its external and internal environment. The environmental scan, performed
within the frameworks of the Five Forces Model and SWOT, analyzes
information about organization's external environment (economic, social,
demographic, political, legal, technological, and international factors), the
industry, and internal organizational factors. The labor market projections
provided on this site are most valuable for the environmental scan. Please
refer to the brief description of the Basic Models .
3. Gap Analysis
Organizations evaluate the difference between their current position and
desired future through gap analysis. As a result, a university can develop
specific strategies and allocate resources to close the gap (CSUN strategic
planning leadership retreat, April 1997), and achieve its desired state.

4. Benchmarking
Measuring and comparing the university's operations, practices, and
performance against others is useful for identifying "best" practices. Through
an ongoing systematic benchmarking process campuses find a reference point
for setting their own goals and targets.
5. Strategic Issues
University determines its strategic issues based on (and consistent with) its
vision and mission within the framework of environmental and other analyses.
Strategic

issues are the fundamental issues the organization has to address to achieve its
mission and move towards its desired future.
6. Strategic Programming
To address strategic issues and develop deliberate strategies for achieving
their mission, universities set strategic goals, action plans, and tactics during
the strategic programming stage.
Strategic goals are the milestones the campus aims to achieve that evolve
from the strategic issues. The SMART goals model is essential to setting
meaningful goals. Smart goals are specific, measurable, agreed upon,
realistic, and time/cost bound.
"Action plans ... define how we get to where we want to go," the steps
required to reach our strategic goals.
Tactics are specific actions used to achieve the strategic goals and implement
the strategic plans.
7. Emergent Strategies
Unpredicted and unintended events frequently occur that differ from the
university's intended strategies, and the university must respond. Emergent
strategy is "a pattern, a consistency of behavior over time," "a realized pattern
[that] was not expressly intended" in the original planning of strategy. It
results from a series of actions converging into a consistent pattern
(Mintzberg, 1994, p. 23-25).
8. Evaluation Of Strategy

Periodic evaluations of strategies, tactics, and action programs are essential to

assessing success of the strategic planning process. It is important to measure
performance at least annually (but preferably more often), to evaluate the
effect of specific actions on long-term results and on the organization's vision
and mission (Rowley, Lujan, & Dolence, 1997). The organization should
measure current performance against previously set expectations, and consider
any changes or events that may have impacted the desired course of actions.
9. Review Of The Strategic Plan
After assessing the progress of the strategic planning process, the university
needs to review the strategic plan, make necessary changes, and adjust its
course based on these evaluations. The revised plan must take into
consideration emergent strategies, and changes affecting the organization's
intended course.

10. Strategic Thinking

With time, people in the university routinely make their decisions within the
framework of the organization's strategic vision and mission. Strategic
planning becomes an organizational norm, deeply embedded within the
organization's decision-making process, and participants learn to think
strategically as part of their regular daily activities (Lerner, 1999). Strategic
thinking involves "arraying options through a process of opening up
institutional thinking to a range of alternatives and decisions that identify the
best fit between the institution, its resources, and the environment" (Rowley,
Lujan, & Dolence, 1997, p. 15).
NOTE: A note regarding factors or drivers that may be important to an
organizations master plan process from Caruthers, J. Kent and Daniel T. Layzell.
1999:
Caruthers et al. describes the development of campus master planning beginning
with an overview of what it is, and how it relates to capital budgeting.
Emphasizes the importance of integrating the master plan process within the
overall planning framework of the institution. Describes nine master plan drivers:
1) projected enrollment and staffing levels; 2) current and future academic
programs; 3) support programs and other university activities; 4) current space
use and condition; 5) land availability; 6) health, safety, and accessibility issues;
7) local community considerations; 8) architectural and aesthetic considerations,
and; 9) financial consideration.

D. ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IN THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS

The primary tasks of strategic management are to understand the environment,
define organizational goals, identify options, make and implement decisions, and
evaluate actual performance. Thus, strategic planning aims to exploit the new and
different opportunities of tomorrow, in contrast to long-range planning, which
tries to optimize for tomorrow the trends of today (Drucker 1980, p. 61).
E. STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS SUMMARY (Example II)
1. Strategic Planning
The word "strategy" comes from the Greek strategos, referring to a military
general and combining stratos (the army) and ago (to lead). The primary
tasks of strategic management are to understand the environment, define
organizational goals, identify options, make and implement decisions, and
evaluate actual performance. Thus, strategic planning aims to exploit the new
and different opportunities of tomorrow, in contrast to long-range planning,
which tries to optimize for tomorrow the trends of today (Drucker 1980, p.
61).
Most colleges and universities currently engage in long-range planning, but
they can fruitfully augment that work by using the concepts of strategic
planning and thereby enhance their ability to steer a course in a changing
external environment. This section briefly describes the traditional models for
long-range planning and

environmental scanning and then shows how these two models can be merged
to provide the basis of a strategic planning process.
Traditional long-range planning in its most elementary form is based on the
concept that planning consists of at least four key steps--monitoring,
forecasting, goal setting, and implementing--which are intended to answer
these questions: (1) Where is the organization now? (2) Where is it going? (3)
Where does it want to go? and (4) What does it have to do to change where it
is going to get to where it wants to go? (Renfro 1980b, 1980c; see figure 1).
Performing these activities is a continuing process that, for example, produces
a one-year operating plan and a five- or ten-year long-range plan every year.
The long-range planning cycle begins by monitoring selected trends of
interest to the organization, forecasting the expected future of those trends
(usually based upon extrapolation from historical data using regression
analysis or a similar technique), defining the desired future by setting
organizational goals in the context of the expected future, developing and
implementing specific policies and actions designed to reduce the difference

between the expected future and the desired future, and monitoring the
effects of these actions and policies on the selected trends.
a. Long-Range Planning

FIGURE 1
LONG-RANGE PLANNING

The environmental scanning model (figure 2) begins with scanning the

external environment for emerging issues that pose threats or opportunities to
the organization. As part of this step, trends are specified that describe the
issues and can be used to measure changes in their nature or significance.
Each potential issue or trend is then analyzed (evaluation/ranking) as to the
likelihood that it will emerge and the nature and degree of its impact on the
organization if it should actually materialize. This stage produces a rank
ordering of the issues and trends according to their importance to current or
planned operations. The next stage, forecasting, focuses on developing an
understanding of the expected future for the most important issues and trends.
In this stage, any of the modern forecasting techniques may be used. Once the
forecasts are made, each issue and trend is then monitored to track its
continued relevance and to detect any major departures from the forecasts

made in the preceding stage. Monitoring, in effect, identifies areas for

additional and continued scanning. For example, subsequent monitoring may
begin to suggest that an original forecast of the employee turnover rate is no
longer credible, which would imply the need for more focused scanning,
forecasting, and analysis to develop a more credible projection (see Renfro
and Morrison 1984).
b. Environmental Scanning

Figure 2
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING

As noted earlier, one of the major limitations of the traditional long-range

planning model is that information about the changing external environment is
usually not taken into account systematically or comprehensively. When this
omission occurs because of an assumption that "we cannot predict external
changes," long-range planning destines itself to surprise and failure, if only
because it locks itself to the information known from direct experience in the
past and immediate present.

Information from the external environment adds important components to

long-range planning, however. First, it identifies new and potentially crucial
subjects that should be added to those identified and tracked during
monitoring. Second, it identifies possible developments that must be used to
adjust the forecasts of the internal issues derived from forecasting-specifically, the surprise events that are used in policy impact analysis or
techniques like probabilistic systems dynamics and in other rigorous
forecasting methods used in traditional long-range planning.
These two models of planning-long-range planning and environmental
scanning-may be merged. The interrelated model, the strategic planning
process, consists of six identifiable stages: environmental scanning, evaluation
of issues, forecasting, goal setting, implementation, and monitoring (see figure
3). The merged model, then, allows information from the external
environment in the form of emerging developments to enter the traditionally
inwardly focused planning system, thereby enhancing the overall
effectiveness of an institution's planning. More specifically, it allows the
identification of issues and trends that must be used to modify the internal
issues derived during monitoring.
c. The Strategic Planning Process

Figure 3
THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS

Source: Renfro and Morrison 1984.

The argument for combining these two models becomes apparent when the
future that happens to the institution and the future that happens for the
institution are contrasted. In the future that happens to the institution (the
typical "planned" future), new developments are not anticipated before they
force their way to the top of the agenda, demanding crisis management and
the latest fire-fighting techniques. In this future, issues are usually defined by
others whose interests do not necessarily include those of the institution or its
purpose. Not only are threats from the external environment not anticipated as
early as possible; key opportunities will be missed or diminished in value.
In the future that happens for the institution, in contrast (the "strategic"
future), administrative leadership is focused more on fire prevention and less
on fire fighting. Hence, it is able to exercise more careful judgment in the
orderly and efficient allocation of resources. Certainly management will still
have to deal with unforeseen developments, but they will probably be fewer
and less traumatic. Thus, institutions will be able to pursue their mission with
greater confidence and consistency because they will be interrupted by fewer
and smaller fire-fighting exercises.
F. STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS SUMMARY (Example III)
1. Strategic Planning Model
The strategic plan needs to include a Mission Statement, Objectives, Goals,
and an Action (or Implementation) Plan.
a. Mission Statement
This is the agreed-upon statement by the organization and explains the
reason for its existence. It is necessarily broad to encompass the diversity
within the organization. The statement is not precise in its measurements
nor does it need to be, but it does need to be periodically reviewed by the
organization to see whether it still encompasses all of the relevant
activities of the organization.
b. Objectives
The objectives are the areas of emphasis within the organization. Rather
than specific statements with a specific goal, objectives state that the
organization plans to continue to do quality work in the following areas.
These objectives or areas of emphasis need to be attained by discussion
and review of the organization's current activities as well as activities in
which it would like to participate.
c. Goals

These need to be both long-term and short-term goals; six months, oneyear, three-years, and ten-year goals need to be set so that the strategy for
reaching these goals can be outlined in the plan. Most organizations
recommend setting the long-term goals first and then setting short-term
goals: those goals which can be reached as steps to attaining the long-term
goal.
d. Action Plan
The Action Plan should be designed after the main goals and objectives
have been set in order to attain the mission in a straightforward and
measurable way. With an Action Plan, the goals themselves can be
obtained. Without the Action Plan, and the measures it entails, it would be
impossible to implement the plan and measure its success.
2. Strategic Planning Processes And Mechanisms
a. Gathering of Background Information
Background information is used by your Strategic Planning Committee for
its review. By shifting through that information, the Committee would be
able to develop a sound basis to continue their work. After existing
information has been gathered, another information gathering activity
should take place. Develop a survey questionnaire to poll all members for
their viewpoints on the directions your organization should take. After the
information has been synthesized from the questionnaires as well as from
information already gathered, move to the second step.
b. A Planning Workshop
Suggestions are recommended as put forth in an article by John N. Bailey
in Leadership magazine, Spring 1981, pp. 26-29. The title of the article is
"Strategic Planning: Lead Your Association With a Plan for Tomorrow".
Based on this article, your organization needs to gather information on
five basic questions:
(1) Where are we now? (The Situation)
(2) How did we get there? (Our Momentum)
(3) Where are we going? (The Direction)
(4) Where should we be going? (Desired Direction)
(5) How will we get there? (The Strategic Plan)
Bailey recommends that after gathering the background information, the
planning workshop should take place. The first session would assess the
current situation and how you arrived at that present situation. The second
activity of this first workshop is to try to figure out where you are going

and where you want to be. This is a very hard-hitting and difficult time for
any organization given the economic conditions and the change within
higher education.
c. Designing a Planning Workbook
The planning Workbook will bring together all of the information gathered
during the Planning Workshop, sift through the ideas put forward, and
organize them into

a meaningful body for review by the Planning Workshop attendees and

other interested parties in the organization.
d. Second Planning Workshop
After the Planning Workshop information has been gathered into a
workbook, another workshop should be planned. At this workshop (which
should not be held too long after the first one), several things need to be
accomplished. In the first half-day a Mission Statement should be
adopted/reviewed for the organization. The Mission Statement will
include what the organization intends to stand for; what it hopes to
contribute to the world-at-large. It should set goals for the organization
and then, having set the goals, fulfill the Mission Statement by translating
each goal into a specific objective. This means that the Mission Statement
will be carried forth into a strategic plan.
e. The Committee Structure
The Strategic Planning Committee should be composed of people who
understand the organization, but also who have a constant feel for the
organization and where it is moving. The Strategic Planning Committee
should be made a permanent standing committee within the organization
with a rotating membership. This will encourage constant review and
updating by the organizations members.