What Strategic Planning Is . . . and Is Not

What we mean by strategic planning at the University of Georgia is crucial to understanding what our plan says and does not say.

Strategic planning in higher education is a process of collaborative thinking and decision-making about the actions and initiatives necessary to respond to new external conditions (demographic, intellectual, economic, technological, political), in order to provide greater competitive distinctiveness to a school or university and to increase the institution's quality, service, stature and financial health in the coming decade. It is strategic because it responds to external conditions in order to achieve internal goals.

The purpose of UGA's strategic planning effort is to identify and prioritize strategic actions the University can take to help it best accomplish its goal, fulfill its mission and realize its vision -- in short, to become, and be recognized as, one of the nation's top public research universities.

In order to be strategic, an action (or program or initiative) must do three things:

1. It must build on institutional strength.
2. It must respond to external opportunity for new or significantly enhanced achievement.
3. It must be supported by a feasible plan to take the action.

A strategic plan is not about business as usual. Our planning assumption is that business as usual at UGA is the incremental effort to become an increasingly excellent public research university. The myriad ways in which we do this and try to do this and plan to do this make up our operational plans.

A strategic plan, though, is an identification of a relatively small number of actions/initiatives/programs which respond to an external opportunity (or critical challenge) to make a major difference in the institution's work and/or the apperception of its work. The external opportunity is usually the result of a change in the external environment.

"Operational effectiveness," as Harvard's Michael Porter puts it, "means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them.... In contrast, strategic positioning means performing different activities from rivals', or performing similar activities in different ways." *

So, for example, a college may have as part of its operational plan a program to increase its research contracts in the field of genomics, increase its enrollment of black students, reduce its average class size from 30 to 20, and improve its teaching of undergraduates - and have none of these important initiatives appear in its strategic plan. Then a major foundation with ties to the college announces its intention to make scholarship grants to colleges to help attract minority students to study biochemistry: Now the college has an opportunity to create a strategic initiative building on its strength in genomics and its interest in recruiting black students.

The University of Georgia, like most institutions of higher education, has an almost limitless appetite for doing good things. What we tried to do in this strategic planning process is determine which of those good things have - because of the opportunities made evident - the best chance of major success. As Porter puts it, "the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do."

The strongest and most sustainable strategic position, however, is one that builds on combining and synergizing functions. This is called "fit," and the competitive advantages of UGA are in the areas where our activities fit and reinforce each other (e.g., focusing our computer science research in the area of bio-sciences informatics).

The planning cycle for strategic planning should be annual, in the sense that plans should be reviewed, and revised if necessary, as budgetary plans are made. Plans that are not embodied in the institution's fiscal plans and allocations are not likely to be realized. However, the establishment of strategic positions "should have a horizon of a decade or more" (Porter, 74) in order to build continuity and "fit."

The planning cycle must integrate strategic planning, resource allocation and assessment. An annual report on the progress of the strategic plan and its linkages with resource development, allocation and assessment will be published.

As a written document, the strategic plan helps to expand the knowledge of the broader context within which the University shapes its future. Just as the unit plans help shape the priorities of the institutional plan, the institutional plan serves as a framework to encourage departments, colleges, and other campus units to work toward institutional goals, recognizing, however, that many of the important University decisions are made in departments and colleges. The plan will help limit ad hoc decision making, thereby making budgetary decisions more consistent across time.

Above all, the strategic plan is being viewed as a living document, not a static blueprint. The University of Georgia must continue to be alert for and responsive to changing internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as to emerging external opportunities and challenges.

* "What is Strategy," Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, November-December 1966, pp. 61-78.

Updated 12/09/2000