Ever feel like your strategic planning cycle is more of a strategic planning cyclone?
Maybe every three or five years, it blows into town, knocking out your projects, relationships, and everything else your organization is working on. It’s the maelstrom that wipes out creativity and agility.
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Sure, it can be changed. But it’s the 3 – 5 year promise you made to your institution. Too much change can make the leader look or feel like a false prophet. LIke she or he made a silly plan in the first place.
Fixed 3 – 5 year planning cycles also fix monolithic and artificial goals, and imply that you can be “done”. You might say things like, “we’re working year three of the plan, almost done!” Riiiiight.
Great new idea at an EDUCAUSE annual conference session yesterday from Theresa Rowe, CIO at Oakland University (@oucio).
Forget cycles. Theresa Rowe suggests an ongoing strategic plan. She uses a 3 year plan, but is always in “year 1” of the plan. That’s because her team rolls another year onto plan every year, perpetually extending and updating the three year picture.
What do I love about this?
It makes the plan nimble in an intentional way.
You don’t look foolish when the plan changes; change was the plan all along.
The plan connects to the institution continuously, rather than just every few years.
In explaining this, Theresa Rowe pointed out that you still have a plan with commitments. And you need to keep those commitments.