Strategic Planning in an Academic Context

Abstract

This paper presents a document driven strategic planning process for academic units. Details are provided on the steps in the process that will lead, with a reasonable investment of time and effort, to a quality strategic plan document that incorporates input from all stakeholders. The resulting plan consists of a mission statement, vision statement, goals, objectives and implementation ideas. The specific organization of the elements of the plan and tables for systematically presenting the details on definitions, relationships between components, evaluation criteria and timelines are presented using a template. The proposal for the template approach is motivated by the success of this approach in software engineering practise. The template facilitates producing a document that is complete, consistent, understandable and maintainable. The process and the final product are illustrated using examples from Engineering 1 at McMaster University.