Stakeholder-driven strategic planning in education : a practical guide for developing and deploying successful long-range plans

136 Pages·2009·3.355 MB·English

by  Robert W. Ewy

Stakeholder-Driven
Strategic Planning
in Education
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Stakeholder-Driven
Strategic Planning
in Education
A Practical Guide for
Developing and Deploying
Successful Long-Range Plans
Robert W. Ewy
ASQ Quality Press
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203
© 2009 by ASQ
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ewy, Robert, 1940–
Stakeholder-driven strategic planning in education : a practical guide for developing
and deploying successful long-range plans / Robert W. Ewy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87389-753-2 (hard cover : alk. paper)
1. School districts—United States—Administration. 2. Strategic planning—
United States. I. Title.

LB2817.3E98 2009
371.2'07—dc22 2008052672
ISBN: 978-0-87389-753-2
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Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
Chapter One The Why and How of Strategic Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Questions and Answers About Strategic Planning ..................... 2
What is strategic planning? ................................... 2
Why would a school district be interested in strategic planning? ...... 2
How will strategic planning benefit the school district? ............. 3
The Stakeholder-Driven Strategic Planning Process.................... 3
Creating a Strategic Plan......................................... 4
The Outcomes of the Stakeholder-Driven Strategic Planning Process ...... 4
The Big Picture ................................................ 5
Alignment................................................. 5
Deployment ............................................... 6
Process Improvement........................................ 6
Today’s Situation ............................................... 7
Stakeholder-Driven Strategic Planning Phases ........................ 7
Results ................................................... 9
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter Two Surveying Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Establishing a Strategic Planning Team ............................. 14
Conducting an Environmental Scan ................................ 15
Developing the Survey........................................... 16
Determining the Survey Confidence Level........................... 17
Stratifying the Collection of Community Survey Data.................. 20
District Staff Participation........................................ 22
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter Three Internal Review of School District Performance . . . . . . . . . 25
The Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence ............ 25
v
vi Table of Contents
The Organizational Review Process ................................ 26
The Review Process............................................. 29
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Chapter Four Developing the Strategic Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Survey Data Analysis ........................................... 36
Challenges.................................................... 39
Mission ...................................................... 40
Vision........................................................ 41
Identifying Student Learning Targets ............................... 42
Putting It All Together........................................... 43
Strategic Plan Example .......................................... 47
District 93 Mission and Vision Statements ....................... 47
District 93 Challenges ....................................... 48
Student Learning Targets..................................... 49
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Chapter Five Developing the Strategy Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Defining Strategy .............................................. 51
SWOT Analysis................................................ 52
The Strategy Map .............................................. 54
Developing Strategies ........................................... 56
Strategy Map Examples.......................................... 58
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Chapter Six Developing the Balanced Scorecard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Measurement Basics ............................................ 65
Operational Definitions.......................................... 69
All Data Need to Create Five Pieces of Information.................... 73
Developing the Balanced Scorecard ................................ 76
Dashboards ................................................... 85
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Chapter Seven Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Deploying the Mission, Vision, Student Learning Targets, and
Strategic Goals .............................................. 87
Organizational Deployment....................................... 88
District Level .............................................. 88
School Level............................................... 89
Department Goals and Action Plans................................ 91
Assistant Sperintendent for Curriculum and Instruction................. 92
Executive Director of State and Federal Programs..................... 92
Executive Director of Human Resources and Employee Relations......... 92
Assistant Superintendent for Finance ............................... 93
Managing Deployment with Quality Tools........................... 93
Table of Contents vii
Managerial Tools ........................................... 93
Statistical Tools ............................................ 94
Systems Map .................................................. 95
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Chapter Eight Timelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Six-Month Timeline......................................... 99
The Two- to Three-Month Timeline ................................ 99
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chapter Nine Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Appendix A Press Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Appendix B Letter of Invitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Appendix C Reviewing Organizational Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1.1 Educational flywheel. .......................................... 2
Figure 1.2 Strategy pyramid. ............................................. 5
Figure 1.3 The big picture of educational performance excellence. ............... 6
Figure 1.4 Stakeholder-driven strategic planning process flowchart. .............. 10
Figure 2.1 School district stakeholder survey. ................................ 18
Figure 3.1 Reviewing organizational performance questionnaire. ................ 27
Figure 3.2 The reviewing organizational performance survey (short
form example). ............................................... 31
Figure 4.1 Example of a challenges Pareto chart. ............................. 36
Figure 4.2 Example of a student learning Pareto chart. ........................ 37
Figure 4.3 Example of an evidences Pareto chart. ............................ 38
Figure 4.4 Example of a fiscal priorities Pareto chart. ......................... 39
Figure 4.5 Baldrige-level student learning targets. ............................ 44
Figure 4.6 Baldrige-level performance benchmarks. .......................... 45
Figure 5.1 SWOT analysis questions. ...................................... 53
Figure 5.2 Education strategy map. ........................................ 55
Figure 5.3 Strategy examples. ............................................ 57
Figure 5.4 Strategy map for internal district use. ............................. 59
Figure 5.5 Strategy map for community use. ................................ 60
Figure 5.6 Text description of district strategic goals. .......................... 61
Figure 5.7 Text description of district supporting strategic goals. ................ 62
Figure 6.1 Balanced scorecard measure examples. ............................ 66
Table 6.1 Measures for difficult-to-measure student learning targets. ............ 68
Figure 6.2 XmR control chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Figure 6.3 Frequency histogram. .......................................... 74
Figure 6.4 Run chart. ................................................... 75
Figure 6.5 Comprehensive data analysis. ................................... 75
viii
List of Figures and Tables ix
Figure 6.6 Strategy map and balanced scorecard example. ..................... 77
Figure 7.1 Systems map, or view. ......................................... 95
Figure 7.2 District-level systems map. ...................................... 97
Figure 8.1 Six-month timeline. ........................................... 100
Figure 8.2 Two- to three-month timeline. ................................... 100
Preface
T
he infamous “they” say that hope is not a strategy. Well, neither is serendipity, but
it seems that many school districts prefer that strategy rather than engaging in seri-
ous long-range planning. This book has been written to describe what it means to
engage in serious long-range, or strategic, planning and to provide solutions to the inad-
equacies and inconsistencies found in the way school districts approach this process.
The book is intended to be as practical as possible, meaning that by understand-
ing the design and following the suggested strategic planning team activities found in
each chapter, you could facilitate this process in your district. All key components are
described, and multiple examples are used to help the reader understand the intent of
each component and how the components fit together. In addition, questionnaires and
surveys are included to simplify facilitation. If you get stuck or feel the need to discuss
certain aspects of the planning process, my contact information is at the end of the book.
I would be more than happy to do some telephone coaching as you apply stakeholder-
driven strategic planning .
A ShorT hiSTory
The conceptual design for Stakeholder-Driven Strategic Planning in Education started
about 20 years ago at the Midcontinent Research in Education and Learning (McREL)
laboratory where I was a senior associate. The lab began to get requests from state depart-
ments of education and state legislatures to assist them in long-range planning and sce-
nario development. As is often the case, the initial planning design was overengineered
and cumbersome, neither elegant nor agile, but a strong base upon which to build. The
initial idea was to “democratize” the process, that is, to make it an open rather than a
closed process, bringing as many voices and perspectives into the priority-setting step of
the process as possible.
Multiple opportunities have presented themselves to apply the planning design
in various settings over the course of the past 20 years. Stakeholder-driven strategic
planning has been used with equal effectiveness in urban, suburban, and rural school
districts, in demographically homogenous and diverse settings, and in state agencies and
other service and private organizations.
x