Steve Bailey from JISC Infonet up to discuss strategy.
Steve defines strategy as basically – working out your goals, making plans to achieve those goals and then assessing whether those goals have been reached via those plans.
Framework focuses on Mission, Vision and Values and using those to form 3-5 year strategic plan with KPIs, and various information sources and channels supporting that.
Common Problems
Do staff have any idea what Mission Statement etc are for the institution? I’m pretty sure I was on our steering group for mission statement and I can’t remember it for the life of me…
An interesting game – grab a dozen mission statements from different institutions and see if people can match them to the institution… Sounds like a laugh 
Steve also notes dissonance between high-level strategy and general practice as well as staff disengagement due to the silo effect – with only IT folk being interested in IT strategy etc… Again – not something that is unfamiliar to us.
KPIs seem to be designed around easy data rather than meaningful data. Phew.. there’s one we’ve not fallen afoul of but mainly through a lack of KPIs rather than having really good ones…
The main headlines for issues:
- Lack of Responsiveness.
- Words Not Deeds.
- Lack of Staff Engagement
- er… missed this one
New JISC Strategy infoKit launched today! http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits/strategy
A very snazzy interconnected cogs metaphor used.. I’m not going to blog details – it’s all up there at the above link…
The Strategic Conversation
One aspect valued by the infoKit is the idea of open discussion of the strategic thinking – finding out whether the rest of the institution thinks the same about strategic direction as senior management team. Also noted that blogs from senior management would help frame context. I’m trying to imagine our senior management team blogging… can’t quite fit the concept in my head.
Fancy Strategy-Bashing With JISC?
If so they have a pilot for the infoKit running next year (from January onwards).