Current Project - University of the Pacific (2011-forward)

Previous Projects - University of Texas San Antonio, George Mason University,
Eastern Michigan University, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities,
University of Wisconsin System, and Wilkes University (1995 - forward)

Problems Solved: Visioning the Future of Learning, Work and Professional Practice; Fresh Vision and Leadership, Changing Culture and Behaviors, Developing Organizational Capacity		Strategic Focus: Leading and Navigating Change, Crafting and Executing Strategy, Developing Organizational Capacity; Tapping the Capacity of Personal Responsibility for Perpetual Learning
Project Team: Donald Norris, Anya Kamenetz, Phyllis Grummon  Advisors: Samuel Kirkpatrick, Paul Lefrere, Bassem Khafagy, Phil Taylor, Martha Hesse, Richard Katz, Richard Byyny, Wade Gilley, Linda Baer

For more than 15 years Strategic Initiatives has been crafting new planning approaches to meet the 21st century world of work and learning described in its Transformation Trilogy – Transforming Higher Education, Revolutionary Strategy for the Knowledge Age and Unleashing the Power of Perpetual Learning.  Our latest versions of these approaches, new for 2011-12, involve combinations of first-to-market methods and insights; proven industry-strength tools and technologies; and our admired approach to “Planning from the Future Backwards.” We begin with visioning the future and its impact on education and learning, pulling that vision back to the present, and developing “expeditionary” strategies.  These can be executed flexibly to develop the new organizational capacities and offerings that can succeed in the dramatically changing environments that are looming. Such techniques can be optimized when leaders understand the imperative for dramatic change that extrapolation of old models will now longer suffice.

Early Examples of Planning from the Future Backwards. 
Strategic Initiatives has honed elements of these techniques in “planning from the future backwards” projects for the University of Texas San Antonio, George Mason University, Eastern Michigan University, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, University of Wisconsin System, and Wilkes University.  It has also used elements of these approaches with planning engagements for technology companies serving higher education, such as PeopleSoft, Oracle, and National Computer Systems and in planning for over 20 professional societies and trade associations.   It became clear in those assignments that clients could increase their resilience substantially, and do more for their customers, if they adopted our broader, regularly-adjusting and transformative approach to strategic planning. 

The Game Changes in Favor of Transformative Strategic Planning. 
Traditional strategic planning approaches assume that a high proportion of future challenges will be extrapolations or derivatives of the past.  They cannot address new challenges of the magnitude facing higher education today and in future.  Traditional planning lacks key elements of foresight and resilience that are associated with “Planning from the Future Backwards” and with our transformative approach to strategic planning.  The combined impact of the Great Recession, the family affordability crisis, growing levels of student debt, and reduced public funding make it imperative for educational leaders to seek strategic solutions that can attain the financial sustainability that is otherwise in doubt.  Moreover, historically-high unemployment of young graduates in the Great Recession has called into question the value of higher education investments.  This is exacerbated by the corrosive impact of globalization-enabled outsourcing, the technology-driven productivity gains that are hollowing out the U.S. workforce, and widely-publicized mismatches between the needs of the upper echelons of the workforce and what graduates have learned.

Anya Kamenetz’s 2010 book, DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education captured the angst of Millennial learners and the range of personalized, perpetual learning options that will both create free-range alternatives to traditional higher education and enable traditional institutions to leverage personalized professional learning to transform their existing offerings and experiences.

Strategic Initiatives has adapted its “Planning from the Future Backwards” strategic planning techniques to incorporate these new conditions, DIY perpetual learning practices, changing perspectives on the future of jobs and work, and new tools and practices made possible through technological advances (like in Analytics and Horizon Scanning).  We are showcasing these in an ongoing strategic planning engagement at the University of the Pacific.

Case Study: The University of the Pacific. 
The University of the Pacific was the first university founded in the State of California.  It is known for its professional programs in Dentistry, Law, Pharmacy, Business Administration, Engineering, Education, Conservatory, and International Studies plus a strong Liberal Arts and Sciences offering through the College of the Pacific.   Its main campus is in Stockton and it has campuses in San Francisco (Dentistry) and Sacramento (Law), and it offers online, continuing professional education learning and international programming.

The University has launched a 16-month strategic planning process consisting of four Phases which are described in the document, Launching Strategic Planning at the University of the Pacific.  The participants and main events in each phase are:

• Defining and Scanning (June – August 2011)
• Participants: President and Cabinet (Oversee and responsible for all phases of project), Staff and Consultants
• Main Event: Academic Leadership Retreat
  
• Divergent Thinking (September – December 2011)
• Participants: Strategic Working Groups – Cross-Cutting Issues, Discipline Working Groups, Strategic Planning Committee, Staff and Consultants
• Main Events: September Symposium on “Launching the Strategic Planning Process at University of the Pacific” and “The Future of Learning, Work and Professional Practice” and Strategic Working Groups on Cross-Cutting Issues and Disciplines
  
• Convergent Planning (January- April 2012) – Participants: Strategic Planning
• Participants: Strategic Planning Committee, Opportunity/Solution Working Groups, Staff and Consultants
• Main Events: January Symposium on Opportunities, Strategic Opportunities Working Groups, synthesizing Activities of strategic Planning Committee, Prepare and Present Draft Plan to Board in April
  
• Refining (May –October 2012 and beyond)
• Participants: Strategic Planning Committee, Strategic Financial Planning Committee, College/School-level planning efforts, Staff and Consultants
• Main Events: Strategic Financial Planning linked to Campus Strategies, Provost Leads School-Level Planning Aligned to University Strategies

The Planning from the Future flavor of this process is reflected in all phases.  It is especially strong in the Divergent Thinking and Convergent Planning phases which utilize participatory symposia and future-oriented divergent thinking to describe the world of learning, work and professional practice in the 10-year future and how that affects the educational and experiences that University of the Pacific must provide to provides high value to its students and to prepare them for living a life of meaning and for making a good and sustained living in the 21st Century workspace of the future.  This orientation was facilitated by the fusion of Strategic Initiatives’ Planning from the Future Backward methodology, Anya Kamenetz’s DIY Personal Learning perspective, and a critical focus on the future of Work, Jobs, and Professional Practice.  This fusion is presented in Launching Strategic Planning at the University of the Pacific.  The Society for College and University Planning is working with the University to create Web-based programming highlighting this project.