Develop and implement your department’s strategic plan

Strategic planning provides both a process and a set of outcomes that help you find the answers to core questions about organizational identity and direction. Discover how to construct your organization’s strategic plan, involve other stakeholders in its development, and ensure successful implementation.

By the end of this class you should be able to:

1. Describe the strategic planning process and its essential components.
2. Describe the role that strategic planning plays in enabling long-term organizational success.
3. Discuss the importance of strategic thinking and its relationship to strategic planning.
4. Identify the levels of thinking/planning/action in organizations − and assess your own effectiveness at using the right mix of levels.
5. Explore the four phases of the strategic planning process.
6. Discuss the value of conducting a SWOT analysis.
7. Identify common obstacles to effectively operationalizing a strategic plan.

Instructor: Jeff Russell (MS, UW-Madison) is codirector of Russell Consulting, where he helps organizations successfully respond to the challenges of continuous change. He focuses on leadership development, strategic thinking, leading change, understanding and dealing with behavioral styles, and performance management.

Testimonials:

“I really appreciated how Jeff ‘set up’ the class- esp. the personal learning objective and AHA sheet/action plan (blue and green sheets). Regular reflection and time to apply what we learned to ourselves/next steps/take aways. I especially appreciated pg. 9- developing strategic thinking mindset in myself and others.”

“I really enjoyed the SWOT activity, I’m going to use this with my district.”