Strategic Planning in Education – 3 Keys to Success

In the corporate world, strategic planning has become a bit of a buzzword. Don’t
get us wrong, having a plan in place will almost always get you better results than
throwing caution to the wind. The problem is, many of us are too familiar with
strategic planning gone awry—the descent into endless meetings, the countless
rounds of edits to goals and tactics, and ultimately, a plan that is never fully
realized.

The numbers back this up, with researchers concluding that more than 70% of
strategic plans are never implemented in the business world.

The rules of the game are a little different in education. Results aren’t based on
winning new customers, gaining market share, or exceeding quarterly targets.
Instead, strategic planning in education has evolved to become a way to align
the broader community around better student outcomes. 

Let’s look at the benefits of strategic planning for key education stakeholders and
three best practices to make it successful in your school district, college, or
university.

What is Strategic Planning in Education?

In essence, strategic planning is the process of setting goals, deciding on actions to
achieve those goals, and mobilizing the resources needed to take those actions.

A strategic plan describes how goals will be achieved using available

resources.

Fun fact: Strategic planning, as we know it today, evolved out of military

strategy. Strategus literally means “a general of the army” in Greek. And when you
think about it, we’ve retained the language of military strategy in the way we talk
about our work life today: “front line workers,” being “in the trenches,” and “war
rooms,” to name just three examples.

Thankfully, strategic planning in education has taken its own path to become a far
less confrontational discipline. While it initially flowed from business practices
due to people moving from the private sector into educational leadership positions,
many of those planning tools and paradigms have adapted to focus on engagement
and consensus.

This is because strategic planning requires community support at the school district
level, both functionally and legislatively. School districts of all sizes use strategic
planning to achieve the broad goals of improving student outcomes and responding
to changing demographics while staying within the given funding box.

In top-performing schools, leaders have proactively shifted their strategic

planning process to genuinely include and involve parents and other key
constituent groups. They know that without community support and the
insight that comes with community engagement, their strategic plans are
likely to fail.

executing their plans as usual, suggesting that a more resilient planning approach
might be needed.

What that looks like is up for debate—a strategic plan that is both more effective
and can better weather the storms of unexpected crises like COVID-19. One
former university president, David P. Haney has suggested that a renewed look at
the private sector provides the answers.

He explained that universities could benefit from adopting a designer’s mindset,

more akin to a Silicon Valley researcher than a school administrator. Reflecting on
the process of developing transformative technologies like the smartphone, he said:
“One of the lessons learned in those practices is that we no longer simply design
products but rather human experiences with products.” Only time will tell if
human-centered strategic planning makes traction in higher education.

Strategic Planning Models in Education

There are several different ways to approach strategic planning in education,
depending on the priorities of the school and the needs of the community it
serves. Defined models provide a good springboard, but we recommend
adopting an iterative process to find what works best for your school.

Sometimes, less really is more. This Plan on a Page is just that—one page. It works
by identifying four areas of strategic planning, with goals, measures, and an action
plan to achieve each one. The four areas are broadly applicable to all schools:
student performance, human resources, partnerships, and equity.

Alternatively, the VMOSA model stands for Vision, Mission, Objectives,

Strategies, and Action Plans. It’s designed to help education leaders define a vision
and develop practical ways to bring about the necessary change. 

Or, the Five-Step Model is another straightforward approach that begins by asking

“How well are we doing?” before defining improvements and a path to achieve
them.

3 Keys to Strategic Planning Success

As we’ve mentioned, engagement and collaboration are both central to strategic
planning in education. The good news is that involving the community is easier
now than ever before. Technology reduces the time it takes to engage a disparate
group of people and improves the quality of their discussions. Our extensive work
within the education sector has revealed three best practices that consistently result
in better, more effective, and supported plans.

1. Get Everyone on the Same Page

Different understandings of what strategy involves can hinder even the best
plans. So, the first step in creating a successful strategic plan is getting
everyone involved to agree on one strategic planning model. 
Explore the models we outlined above to create your own, then develop a “terms of
reference” document to help align all your key stakeholders. Pro tip: Go a step
beyond simply sharing the strategic approach and terms of reference by engaging
stakeholders in real-time, anonymized discussions to ensure everyone understands
the plan and is on board with it.

2. Be a Collaborative Leader
Much like early reading programs, every minute and every dime invested in
gaining community support pays off exponentially. So it’s concerning that
in research from 2020, less than 40% of the teachers surveyed said that strategic
planning was a collaborative project in their school.

Collaboration is critical, both for ideation and developing an actionable plan.

It’s also becoming more urgent. Experts have used the experience of past crises
in Japan and New Zealand to advocate for more student involvement in shaping
school culture and decision-making in the post-pandemic era. They make the case
that collaborative decision-making particularly helps disadvantaged groups and, as
home-schooling has widened the opportunity gap, this will be an increasing focus
for many educational leaders.

Commit to becoming a collaborative leader and put a plan in place to ensure

you can achieve that goal. That may include implementing technology that
can support scaled, real-time discussion safely and inclusively for students,
teachers, and other stakeholder groups.

3. Engage Your Community Early and Often

Understanding your community’s preferences is invaluable. School districts
that engage early in the planning process have a much greater chance of
building a successful and community-supported plan. 

Enterprise Discussion Management (EDM) software has been proven to contribute

to more effective strategic planning in education. EDM empowers leaders to run
and scale confidential, unbiased Exchanges where they can learn what the people
that matter really think—explore ThoughtExchange success stories to learn more.

The Future of Strategic Planning in Education? Just Ask

The aftermath of the pandemic has left many of us uncertain about what the future
holds. In education, hybrid or blended learning that reduces the time students
spend on-site looks set to remain in place for some time. However, it might change
education forever. 

Whatever happens, you don’t have to figure out the next normal on your own.
Strategic planning in education is at its best when it is inclusive and collaborative.
Engage your wider community of stakeholders and start asking the questions that
will shape the next decade in your school. 

Not sure where to begin? We gathered a selection of the Exchanges that education

leaders have used in the past year (along with learnings from previous times of
crisis and uncertainty) to help give your next strategic planning cycle the strongest
start possible.

https://thoughtexchange.com/blog/strategic-planning-in-education-3-keys-to-
success/

VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans) is a practical

planning process used to help community groups define a vision and develop
practical ways to enact change. VMOSA helps your organization set and achieve
short term goals while keeping sight of your long term vision. Implementing this
planning process into your group's efforts supports developing a clear mission,
building consensus, and grounding your group's dreams. This section explores how
and when to implement VMOSA into your organization's planning process.

WHAT IS VMOSA?
One way to make that journey is through strategic planning, the process by which a
group defines its own "VMOSA;" that is,
its Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans. VMOSA is a
practical planning process that can be used by any community organization or
initiative. This comprehensive planning tool can help your organization by
providing a blueprint for moving from dreams to actions to positive outcomes for
your community.
In this section, we will give a general overview of the process, and touch briefly on
each of the individual parts. In Examples, we'll show you how an initiative to
prevent adolescent pregnancy used the VMOSA process effectively. Then, in
Tools, we offer you a possible agenda for a planning retreat, should your
organization decide to use this process. Finally, the remaining sections in this
chapter will walk you through the steps needed to fully develop each portion of the
process.
WHY SHOULD YOUR ORGANIZATION USE VMOSA?
Why should your organization use this planning process? There are many good
reasons, including all the following:

 The VMOSA process grounds your dreams. It makes good ideas

possible by laying out what needs to happen to achieve your vision.
 By creating this process in a group effort (taking care to involve both
people affected by the problem and those with the abilities to change it),
it allows your organization to build consensus around your focus and
the necessary steps your organization should take.
 The process gives you an opportunity to develop your vision and mission
together with those in the community who will be affected by what you do. 
That means that your work is much more likely to address the community’s
real needs and desires, rather than what you think they might be.  It also
means community ownership of the vision and mission, putting everyone on
the same page and greatly increasing the chances that any effort will be
successful.
 VMOSA allows your organization to focus on your short-term goals while
keeping sight of your long-term vision and mission.

WHEN SHOULD YOU USE VMOSA?

So, when should you use this strategic planning process? Of course, it always
makes sense for your organization to have the direction and order it gives you, but
there are sometimes it makes particularly good sense to use this process. These
times include:

 When you are starting a new organization.

 When your organization is starting a new initiative or large project or is
going to begin work in a new direction.
 When your group is moving into a new phase of an ongoing effort.
 When you are trying to invigorate an older initiative that has lost its focus or
momentum.
 When you’re applying for new funding or to a new funder.  It’s important
under these circumstances to clarify your vision and mission so that any
funding you seek supports what your organization stands for.  Otherwise,
you can wind up with strings attached to the money that require you to take a
direction not in keeping with your organization’s real purpose or philosophy.

Let's look briefly at each of the individual ingredients important in this process.
Then, in the next few sections we'll look at each of these in a more in-depth
manner and explain how to go about developing each step of the planning process.
VISION (THE DREAM)
Your vision communicates what your organization believes are the ideal
conditions for your community – how things would look if the issue important
to you were perfectly addressed.
This utopian dream is generally described by one or more phrases or vision
statements, which are brief proclamations that convey the community's dreams for
the future.
By developing a vision statement, your organization makes the beliefs and
governing principles of your organization clear to the greater community (as
well as to your own staff, participants, and volunteers).
There are certain characteristics that most vision statements have in common. In
general, vision statements should be:

 Understood and shared by members of the community

 Broad enough to encompass a variety of local perspectives
 Inspiring and uplifting to everyone involved in your effort
 Easy to communicate - for example, they should be short enough to fit on a
T-shirt

Here are a few vision statements which meet the above criteria:

 Healthy children
 Safe streets, safe neighborhoods
 Every house a home
 Education for all
 Peace on earth

MISSION (THE WHAT AND WHY)

Developing mission statements are the next step in the action planning process.
An organization's mission statement describes what the group is going to do,
and why it's going to do that.
Mission statements are like vision statements, but they're more concrete, and they
are more "action-oriented" than vision statements.
The mission might refer to a problem, such as an inadequate housing, or a goal,
such as providing access to health care for everyone. And, while they don't go into
a lot of detail, they start to hint - very broadly - at how your organization might go
about fixing the problems it has noted. Some general guiding principles about
mission statements are that they are:

 Concise. Although not as short a phrase as a vision statement, a mission

statement should still get its point across in one sentence.
 Outcome-oriented. Mission statements explain the overarching outcomes
your organization is working to achieve.
 Inclusive. While mission statements do make statements about your group's
overarching goals, it's very important that they do so very broadly. Good
mission statements are not limiting in the strategies or sectors of the
community that may become involved in the project.

The following mission statements are examples that meet the above criteria.
  "To promote child health and development through a comprehensive family
and community initiative."
 "To create a thriving African American community through development of
jobs, education, housing, and cultural pride.
 "To develop a safe and healthy neighborhood through collaborative
planning, community action, and policy advocacy."

While vision and mission statements themselves should be short, it often makes
sense for an organization to include its deeply held beliefs or philosophy, which
may in fact define both its work and the organization itself. One way to do this
without sacrificing the directness of the vision and mission statements is to include
guiding principles as an addition to the statements. These can lay out the beliefs of
the organization while keeping its vision and mission statements short and to the
point.
OBJECTIVES (HOW MUCH OF WHAT WILL BE
ACCOMPLISHED BY WHEN)
Once an organization has developed its mission statement, its next step is to
develop the specific objectives that are focused on achieving that mission.
Objectives refer to specific measurable results for the initiative's broad goals. An
organization's objectives generally lay out how much of what will be accomplished
by when. For example, one of several objectives for a community initiative to
promote care and caring for older adults might be: "By 2015 (by when), to increase
by 20% (how much) those elders reporting that they are in daily contact with
someone who cares about them (of what)."
There are three basic types of objectives. They are:

 Behavioral objectives. These objectives look at changing the behaviors of

people (what they are doing and saying) and the products (or results) of their
behaviors. For example, a neighborhood improvement group might develop
an objective around having an increased amount of home repair taking place
(the behavior) or of improved housing (the result).
 Community-level outcome objectives. These are related to behavioral
outcome objectives but are more focused more on a community level instead
of an individual level. For example, the same group might suggest
increasing the percentage of decent affordable housing in the community as
a community-level outcome objective.
 Process objectives. These are the objectives that refer to the implementation
of activities necessary to achieve other objectives. For example, the group
might adopt a comprehensive plan for improving neighborhood housing.

It's important to understand that these different types of objectives aren't mutually
exclusive. Most groups will develop objectives in all three categories. Examples of
objectives include:

 By December 2010, to increase by 30% parent engagement (i.e., talking,

playing, reading) with children under 2 years of age. (Behavioral objective)
 By 2012, to have made a 40% increase in youth graduating from high
school. (Community -level outcome objective)
  By the year 2006, increase by 30% the percentage of families that own their
home. (Community-level outcome objective)
 By December of this year, implement the volunteer training program for all
volunteers. (Process objective)

STRATEGIES (THE HOW)

The next step in the process of VMOSA is developing your strategies. Strategies
explain how the initiative will reach its objectives. Generally, organizations will
have a wide variety of strategies that include people from all the different parts, or
sectors, of the community. These strategies range from the very broad, which
encompass people and resources from many different parts of the community, to
the very specific, which aim at carefully defined areas.
Examples of broad strategies include:

 A child health program might use social marketing to promote adult

involvement with children
 An adolescent pregnancy initiative might decide to increase access to
contraceptives in the community
 An urban revitalization project might enhance the artistic life of the
community by encouraging artists to perform in the area

Five types of specific strategies can help guide most interventions. They are:

 Providing information and enhancing skills (e.g., offer skills training in

conflict management)
 Enhancing services and support (e.g., start a mentoring programs for high-
risk youth)
 Modify access, barriers, and opportunities (such as offering scholarships to
students who would be otherwise unable to attend college)
 Change the consequences of efforts (e.g., provide incentives for community
members to volunteer)
 Modify policies (e.g., change business policies to allow parents and
guardians and volunteers to spend more time with young children)

ACTION PLAN (WHAT CHANGE WILL HAPPEN, WHO

W I L L D O W H A T B Y WH E N T O M A K E I T H AP P E N )
Finally, an organization's action plan describes in detail exactly how strategies will
be implemented to accomplish the objectives developed earlier in this process. The
plan refers to: a) specific (community and systems) changes to be sought, and b)
the specific action steps necessary to bring about changes in all the relevant
sectors, or parts, of the community.
The key aspects of the intervention or (community and systems) changes to be
sought are outlined in the action plan. For example, in a program whose mission is
to increase youth interest in politics, one of the strategies might be to teach
students about the electoral system. Some of the action steps, then, might be to
develop age-appropriate materials for students, to hold mock elections for
candidates in local schools, and to include some teaching time in the curriculum.
 Action steps are developed for each component of the intervention or (community
and systems) changes to be sought. These include:

 Action step(s): What will happen

 Person(s) responsible: Who will do what

Potential
Person(s) Date to be Resources
Action Step Barriers or Collaborators
Responsible Completed Required
Resistance

 Draft a social Terry McNeil April 2006 $15,000 None Members of the
marketing (from (remaining anticipated business action
plan marketing donated) group
firm)

Maria Suarez September 5 hours; 2 hour Corporation: Members of the

(from 2008 proposal prep; 3 may see this business action
 Ask local business hours for as expensive; group and the
corporations action group) meeting and must convince school action
to introduce transportation them of group
flex-time for benefit of the
parents and plan for the
mentors corporation

 Date to be completed: Timing of each action step

 Resources required: Resources and support (both what is needed and what's
available )
 Barriers or resistance, and a plan to overcome them!
 Collaborators: Who else should know about this action

Of course, once you have finished designing the strategic plan or "VMOSA"
for your organization, you are just beginning in this work. Your action plan
will need to be tried and tested and revised, then tried and tested and revised
again. You'll need to obtain feedback from community members and add
and subtract elements of your plan based on that feedback.

IN SUMMARY
Everyone has a dream. But the most successful individuals - and community
organizations - take that dream and find a way to make it happen. VMOSA helps
groups do just that. This strategic planning process helps community groups define
their dream, set their goals, define ways to meet those goals, and finally, develop
practical ways bring about needed changes.