How we developed this plan

Work began on the Strategic Plan in late 2021 and involved extensive consultation and planning sessions with various groups across the university, following the five stages outlined below.  

1. Prepare

  • Complete campus readiness assessment to determine support, resources and potential barriers and risk to progress
  • Select participants to sit on steering, working and oversight committees to conduct process
  • Establish timeline

2. Discover

  • Conduct environment scan to identify external, internal and institutional factors affecting the overall strategy
  • Cascade the university’s strategic goals into all departments’ components and strategic themes
  • Undertake SWOT analysis and diagnostic tests to determine current state

3. Distill

  • Synthesize findings from Discover phase to identify university’s strategic goals
  • Identify actionable and measurable objectives for each strategic goal

4. Finalize

  • Example reference plans from peer institutions for best practises in content/design
  • Draft the plan, expressing the visions, goals and objectives in plain, jargon-free language
  • Iterate on content and design with steering committee and other reviewers to finalize plan

5. Implement

  • Roll out the strategic plan across the university
  • Develop yearly action plans with delineated costs and checkpoints to track and accelerate progress
  • Measure actual vs. planned performance and adjust plans to manage change, identify risk and ensure documents are kept up-to-date.