Finalize Plan and Prepare for Execution
“Yesterday was about strategic planning. Today is about strategy.”
-Terina Allen, Chief Executive, ARVis Institute
With stakeholders’ feedback incorporated in our plan, by April we’ll be ready to begin to take the first steps toward our new vision. In the implementation phase of strategic planning, we’ll begin translating goals and objectives into action.
The strategic plan, of course, outlines strategies to align and define our mission. But essential components of the plan were analyzing and restructuring the way we manage resources needed to perform our new mission. How will we pay for the things we need to do our work? The plan will lay out the role of funding by source, including the University budget, departmental charges, grants, and state and federal funding. Also, the plan will describe the right mix of fund sources, and which should pay for which services. The financial plan will streamline our approach to recharges and refine the way we allocate costs.
“We have an opportunity to mature UW-IT into an organization that knows how to administer and optimize the system to get the benefit of the investment.”
-Office of the President
It’s a lot to absorb. That’s why communication is essential. We need to make sure we all move forward together, as One UW-IT. We want employees and stakeholders to understand their role in the plan and advance with it as it develops.
This website will be a valuable repository of background, resources and updates, including a dashboard to track and report progress on success measures. Please visit often! There’s no substitute for human-to-human interaction, so ELT and SLT (Senior Leadership Team) will commit to transparent and ongoing communication about our plan.
Many strategic planning projects fail because the plan is thought to be the end-product, the goal itself. The truth is strategy is a way of working. Thinking and working in a strategic way is continuous. Analyze. Plan. Act. Measure. Repeat. It’s a formula for continuous improvement, relevance, and innovation for all of us.