As part of the Consortium for Community College Development's mission to help community colleges develop strategies, structures, systems and cultures to prepare for a very different future, a series of modules is being developed to assist in organizational transformation.

These modules will form a Tool Kit for Transformation that will provide step-by-step guides for colleges to systematically assess the emerging needs of their service regions, identify performance gaps, and develop new organizational designs.

The first in this series - the Strategic Planning Module (produced with assistance from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation) - is now available.

Community colleges, like all organizations, face difficult challenges in the years ahead. Upheaval and change surround them. Consider, for example, several trends buffeting our institutions: demographic changes, intensifying student and customer expectations, increasing competition, changing accountability mandates, advancing technology, and the increased importance of workforce development. Colleges that want to survive and prosper must respond to these changes. They will need to think strategically and plan as never before, translate their plans into action to cope with changed circumstances, and develop a capability for continuous change.

Strategic planning can help leaders and staff in community colleges think and act strategically. Here are some reasons why when viewed through the lens of frequently asked questions about planning:

For several reasons:

• institutions perform better in periods of turbulence when pursuing a strategic path,
• resources are used more effectively when departments and staff are pulling in the same direction,
• stakeholder trust and confidence are more likely to develop in institutions following a planned approach to change,
• institutions with plans are more likely to attract resources than those without plans, and
• accrediting associations and funding sources require carefully constructed strategic plans from institutions as a condition for awarding benefits.

How is a strategic plan different from our annual plan?

In two important ways: 1) it focuses on the future by working with a longer planning horizon and 2) it concentrates on strategic aspects of the organization in contrast to operations.

Can we really plan 3-5 years into the future in a turbulent environment?

Yes, there really isn't a choice. Institutions that do not plan lose their capacity to shape their own destiny. They react to change and play catch-up in contrast to anticipating change and building a strategic advantage.

What do we get from our investment in planning?

Beyond the obvious, institutions receive four important benefits from an investment in planning: 1) raised awareness on the part of stakeholders, 2) greater visibility in enrollment and resource markets, 3) improved use of resources in the pursuit of goals and priorities, and 4) access to new partners and sources of support.

Strategic planning not only helps institutions; it also directly benefits leaders and staff. People better fulfill their roles when they know where the institution is going, and teamwork and performance are strengthened when staff come together around shared priorities.

About This Module

How can community college leaders and staff address the challenges that confront them? How can they respond to the increasingly turbulent environment in which their institutions operate? How can they get in front of change? What kinds of information should they gather to guide the process of change? Who can they get this information from and how should they use it? How can they build on institutional strengths and take advantage of opportunities while addressing weaknesses and overcoming obstacles? How can they formulate priorities for the future and implement them effectively? These are the questions that are addressed by this module.

The strategic planning module presented in this portfolio has been created out of experience with more than fifty colleges involved in planned change over the last decade. The module is intended to be a comprehensive guide to conducting and getting results from strategic planning. It provides a step-by-step outline of the strategic planning process. Leaders and staff are provided with a model to guide planning and process descriptions for using the model.

The strategic planning model includes all of the steps for information gathering, analysis and reporting necessary to build and carry out a strategic plan. Although the model is similar to existing models, it differs from the others in important ways. One difference is the systematic way in which the external and internal environments are scanned using multiple techniques to identify gaps between institutional capability and external forces. This approach requires a greater focus on the "inner feelings" of campus and community constituencies to uncover what they are really thinking and what it means for the institution.

A second difference is the provision for on-going communication between those doing the planning and the college community to make planning a "no surprises" process. Although other models of strategic planning encourage periodic communication between planners and the college community, this model places communication at the center, even to the point of engaging faculty and staff in information gathering and analysis. Finally, this model is more results oriented than many of the others used in postsecondary education; it gives more attention to identifying concrete outcomes and actions that move a college forward and less attention to the plan itself. It is also clearly sequenced, with each component of planning building on the preceding component.

Strategic planning involves a shift in focus from operations and firefighting to an aggressive consideration of the future. This kind of planning is very different from long-range planning because it is not simply an extension of the present. The envisioning that takes place allows an institution to take charge of its destiny and to create its own future rather than wait for the future to arrive.

This has utility for a wide variety of staff in community colleges. It can be used to develop a plan for the whole institution or for any of its parts including academic departments, service units, or administrative operations. Thus, the module is intended for use by senior administrators, planning committees, academic division and department heads, service unit managers, and by those managing resources.

Others who will find the module useful are boards of trustees, state coordinating boards, and policy makers interested in improving their understanding of the forces and trends that will shape the future of community colleges and the internal dynamics through which institutions work. To a lesser extent, this module will be useful to public and private organizations in the community interested in improving productivity and performance.

Overview of Contents This booklet presents an overview of the basic components of strategic planning. Altogether, eight components are described beginning with "Organizing to Plan," moving through processes to gather information, and ending with "Action Plans." The closing section provides tips on how to get started.

Components of Planning

Planning can be difficult or easy depending on what institutions and staff want to get out of it and how they approach it. The comprehensive planning model below is organized around eight components that help institutions plan by doing four things: 1) Preparing to Plan, 2) Gathering Information, 3) Making Choices and 4) Taking Action.

Organizing to Plan

Whether your college has been deeply involved in strategic planning or is just getting started, there are steps it must take to organize for planning. These steps include setting clear objectives, determining the approach and information gathering methods that will be used, and getting key constituencies involved. A successful plan begins with clear answers to important questions: Why are we planning? Who are the audiences for planning? What do we expect to accomplish through planning? What should the final product be? It employs a model to guide the process. And, it establishes accountability for the process through staff appointments, a workplan and timetable.

The Organizing to Plan component involves five steps:

1. Setting Planning Objectives
2. Organizing Staff and Establishing Accountability
3. Adopting a Model for Planning
4. Building a Workplan and Timetable
5. Getting into Motion

Actions that need to be taken to complete each step are described and process guides are provided to chart your college's organization for planning.

Collecting Information about the Environment

Effective planning is based on strategically useful information. There are steps that any institution must take to gather useful information. Before they do this, however, they must determine what they need to know and why.

This component of the strategic planning model focuses on important Questions about the External Environment that institutions need to consider in gathering information. What trends and forces are at work outside of your college? What are external stakeholders thinking and feeling? What are competitors and collaborators doing, or intending to do? Where can you get timely information about these and other forces in the external environment? How do you gather, organize and use this information? A matrix identifying the types and sources of information that are useful for examining the external environment is provided to get planners started on the right foot in this area.

Profiling the Institution

Institutions generally know a lot about themselves or, at least, think they do. They have volumes of information about enrollment, programs and services, staff and students, but, unfortunately, they have little in the way of concrete information about their core values, distinctive competencies and culture - a critical set of inputs in any planning model. They also know surprisingly little about their outputs, let alone the effect of those outputs on students, stakeholders and funding sources.

The third component of the strategic planning model, Profiling the Institution, is designed to help planners draw together and organize information about the college that can be used to assess internal strengths and weaknesses. A matrix identifying different types and sources of internal information is provided and different techniques for gathering and analyzing information are described. Sample formats are provided for reporting information which can be used by planners to identify strengths and weaknesses.

External Scan

To respond effectively to changes in their environments, community colleges must understand their external environment. The organized effort to gather information about the external environment is called External Scanning. This is the fourth component of the planning model. Its purpose is to explore trends and forces in the environment outside the institution that must be addressed if the institution is to thrive.

Forces and trends are broken down into several categories in the planning model: Population, Economy, Labor Market, Technology, Schools and Colleges, Political, and Social Trends. Institutions may choose to gather information in additional categories. For example, analysis of what competitors are doing, or intend to do, has become increasingly important in the fast-paced markets our colleges operate in today and institutions involved in special purpose education often monitor unique trends. The information gathered through the external scan has many uses, the most important of which is to pinpoint opportunities for growth and development that will advantage the institution in the future.

Internal Review

The fifth component of the strategic planning model is designed to assess strengths and weaknesses in the institution's internal environment. It is called Internal Review and it elicits important information about the college's core values, its competencies and those aspects of the organization that hinder accomplishment of its mission and response to external needs. The major categories of information that are assessed are resources (inputs); programs, services and systems (process); and performance (outputs). The planning model further divides the input and process categories into multiple dimensions including enrollment, programs and curricula, support services, finance, facilities, faculty and staff, technology and delivery systems.

Most institutions have plenty of quantifiable information - salaries, budget, full-time and part-time staff, enrollment, student outcomes, and so on - readily available. They typically have much less of a command over qualitative information, such as the nature of their culture, the attitudes and perceptions of staff, and barriers to effective performance. Also, colleges generally cannot succinctly say what their present strategy is or their outputs. This absence of information about qualitative aspects of the institution, strategy, and performance outcomes presents problems in creating a strategic plan unless special efforts are made to gather information directly from staff. This can be done through methods such as focus groups, interviews, and meeting observation conducted with internal staff using process guides provided in this component of the model.

Gap Analysis

In order to develop a meaningful plan, institutions need to identify gaps between trends and forces in the external environment and their capacity to respond. Gap Analysis is the sixth component of the strategic planning model. It is used to identify areas in which there is a mismatch between college capacity - what it is doing or capable of doing - and forces in the external environment. Five categories of gaps are identified in this component that planners are asked to use as a framework for examining information gathered through external and internal scanning:

• Gaps caused by insufficient resources
• Gaps caused by excess capacity
• Gaps caused by inadequate response
• Gaps due to competitive disadvantage
• Gaps due to a lack of response

A gap can be as simple as the need to change a process or procedure or as complex as a total overhaul of the organizational structure to enable the institution to move faster and perform better. Simple or complex, large or small - gaps that are unknown or unaddressed are trouble spots for institutions and require action to head off permanent damage.

Identification of Priorities

Identifying Priorities is the heart of the strategic planning process. A priority is a fundamental issue or challenge affecting the institution's mission and values, programs and services, customers, resources or management, that is identified as meriting attention among competing alternatives. This component of the model is designed to help staff identify priorities the institution must pursue based on gaps culled from scanning data. The manner in which priorities are framed can have a profound effect on decisions that define what the institution is, where it is going, and how it is going to get there.

Identifying priorities is a riveting activity for most participants in planning. Almost every priority involves conflicts: How important is this priority in comparison to other priorities? Who is advantaged or disadvantaged by it? What resources are required? How will it be implemented? Who will be responsible? These conflicts may draw staff together or pull them apart. No matter what the outcome, participants will feel a heightened sense of responsibility in this phase of planning.

Action Plans

The final component of the strategic planning model involves the creation of Action Plans for implementing priorities. An action plan may be thought of as a program involving activities, resources and time required to achieve a specific priority. Action plans are typically developed for each priority as an outline of the institution's response to the challenges it faces. Actions that will be taken are described, resources are identified, accountability and a timetable for action are established, and indicators for assessment of performance are formulated.

Getting Started

The strategic planning module provides most of the guidance that leaders, planners and staff need to carry out an effective strategic planning process. Institutions are different, however, and planning is not an altogether linear process. Unforeseen difficulties and challenges are part of any planning process that must be overcome if planning is to fulfill its promise. Here is some advice about how to get started with strategic planning.

Start where you currently are. This is one of the most important principles of effective planning. Leaders can mandate involvement in planning by virtue of their knowledge about challenges facing the institution. Others may not have the same knowledge or interest, however, and will need to be brought along. Wherever an institution starts, it must keep firmly in mind the attitudes and perspectives of those who will participate in planning.

You need a compelling reason to undertake strategic planning. Otherwise, the process is not likely to be worth the effort or to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Whatever the reason, key staff - especially decision makers - must see important benefits to be derived from strategic planning or they will not be active supporters and participants. And, if they do not support and participate, the process is bound to fail.

Champions are essential. Broad-based leadership spread throughout an institution is essential for success in planning. A planning process cannot succeed if it is isolated in one part of the institution. It needs to be championed by staff throughout the organization, and certainly by leaders at the top of the organization.

Tailor the process to the culture of your institution. Strategic planning must clearly fit the situation at hand in the institution. A viable process needs to be politically acceptable, technically workable, and organizationally justifiable. In all too many institutions, models borrowed from outside are forced on staff with the result that planning is something done "to" the staff, not "by" them.

Outside consultation and facilitation may help. Often, institutions need consultation, facilitation and assistance from outsiders to help with the design and management of the strategic planning process. Expertise is lacking, institutions don't have adequate resources, or staff do not have time. Don't try to bootleg the process using deficient resources. If help is needed, reach out and get it.

If the going gets tough, keep in mind the potential benefits of the process. Recall that strategic planning can help institutions and staff in a number of ways - raising the awareness of stakeholders, improving visibility in enrollment and resource markets, gaining access to new resources, entering cooperative relationships with new partners, and so on. But, it may not be easy to achieve these benefits. Payoffs take time to achieve and small wins and hard work are often all that staff have to show for their efforts. Be realistic, but do not lose focus on the compelling reason underlying the need to plan.

Strategic planning can help community colleges to fulfill their missions and to respond more meaningfully to the constituencies they serve. But it will only work if leaders and staff want it to work. This module of Transformation Tools has been developed to help those who want to make a difference for their institutions in a measured and sustained way that is best achieved through planning.