STRATEGIC THINKING
What is Strategic Thinking?
Strategic thinking is defined in many different ways:
• It is a particular way of thinking which analyzes
opportunities and problems from a broad perspective
• It is understanding the potential impact your actions
might have on the organization
• Strategic thinkers visualize what might or could be, and
• Take a holistic approach to how to expand or improve on
what they, or the organization they represent, are doing
Why is it Important?
• To ensure that an organization does not stagnate or
become stuck in products, processes and the past
• It is necessary to think beyond what is the present
and how we are doing things now
• It does not dismiss what we do well
• It is focussed on continuous improvement and what
we can do better
• It serves to actuate the vision of where we need to
be in the future.
Strategic Thinking - Focus
• Finding and developing unique opportunities to create value
• Enables provocative and creative dialogue among key people
who can affect the organization’s direction
• It is the input to strategic planning
• Uncovers potential opportunities and challenges assumptions
about the organization’s value proposition
• Targets these opportunities
• Demands understanding of the fundamental drivers of
educational institutions and actively challenges conventional
thinking about them
Alignment
An organization’s strategies must fit with its:
• Mission
• Vision
• Competitive Situation
• Operating Strengths
Goal-oriented
• Strategies are the means by which a company
sets out to achieve its goals
• Effective strategies set clear expected
outcomes and makes explicit links between
these outcomes and the corporate goals
Fact-based
• The best strategies are based on and supported by
real data
• While strategic thinking by its very nature requires
assumptions about the future, these assumptions
must be highly informed guesses, based on facts, i.e.
actual performance data or results of some kind of
pilot test or experiment
• The logic behind the strategy must be clear
• Effective strategies tell believable stories
Based on Broad Thinking
Organizations that are strategically nimble are:
• able to consider multiple alternatives at once
and
• consider a range of scenarios in making
strategic choices
Focused
No PSI can do everything or be all things to all
people
Strategy setting involves making choices about:
• what the organization WILL do
and as important
• what it will NOT do.
Agreement
• In a larger, complex organization, successful
strategies must gain the support of multiple
stakeholders
• This requires a process of developing
strategies that are interactive in gathering
multiple points of view and in sharing the
thinking behind the strategy as it evolves
Engagement
• Strategies that will need to mobilize broad
resources must be easily articulated so that
they can capture the attention of the people
who will be asked to carry them out
Adjustment
• Strategies need to be able to be adjusted to
build on learning from experimentation,
errors, and new information
at the same time
• There needs to be some thoughtfulness in
these adjustments so that they are responsive
without being overly reactive or “knee-jerk”
Implementable
• Because effective strategies draw on the
particular strengths and skills of an
organization, they include explicit
considerations of how they will be
implemented
• Implementable strategies provide clear
guidance for decision making in order to
shape behavior throughout the organization
Strategic Thinking - Key Factors
For PSI’s
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Competencies and Skills
Products, Services and Offerings
Economic Environment and Industry
Considerations
Markets and Customers
Competitors and Substitutes
Stakeholders and Partners
Competencies and Skills
• What are your Post Secondary Institution’s
(PSI’s) strengths?
• How can these be used to create a unique
competitive advantage?
• What are your PSI’s weaknesses that might
leave you vulnerable?
Products and Offerings
• What is the portfolio of offerings of your PSI? (programs,
services, tuition/pricing options, off-site projects)
• What are the overlaps/redundancies among the
offerings?
• How can these overlaps/redundancies serve to an
advantage?
• What are the unique branding opportunities associated
with your PSI’s portfolio of offerings?
• How does this branding fit with your PSI’s image?
• How do they fit with each other?
Economic Environment and
Industry Considerations
• What is the overall economic context in which the PSI competes?
• What is the regulatory or governmental environment and how does
it impact you?
• What is the structure of PSI’s in your area?
• Where is the Post Secondary Education sector headed and where
do you want it to be?
• What is your position amongst all of the PSI’s and what do you want
it to be?
• How do PSI’s in general connect with other sectors, the community,
other levels of education and what are the implications to how you
are positioned?
Markets and Customers
• Who are your target clients, students or sectors for
your offerings?
• What are their needs?
• How is your PSI uniquely suited to meet these
particular needs?
• Are there other potential clients that you are not
serving?
Competitors and Substitutes
• What is the nature of competition for the offerings?
• What other PSI’s have offerings that could meet the same
needs? (Build, Buy or Sell?)
• What are their unique strengths and strategies?
• How are they similar to or different from you?
• How might they respond to your strategies?
• Are there PSI’s not yet “in the game” that might be
considering to do so?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• What market conditions might lead to action on their part?
Stakeholders and Partners
• What other organizations (agencies, government
departments, industry, community and civic
partners) do you need to work with in order to
develop and market your offerings?
• What is their relative power compared to you?
• What are their strategies and strengths and are
they aligned with you?
• What’s in it for them?
VISION 2020
Context
• Through numerous public forums, over 2000
people contributed thoughts and creativity
• Question: if BVC were at its best in the year
2020, what would it look like?
• Huge volume of conceptual data guided
development and design of our plan
Appreciative Inquiry:
The Process
• Engaged Board, Executive, and College Leadership
• Major public event – Opened by the Mayor to more than
1500 of the College’s staff, faculty, students, alumni, and
donors
• Also, community visionaries, government officials, business
leaders, and the public
• Subsequent consultations, facilitated by Dr. Joan McArthurBlair, former President of Nova Scotia Community College.
• Consultation sessions included another 500 internal and
external stakeholders (over 2000 persons in total).
Strategy Behind Vision 2020
• A long-term strategic plan
• Long view allows college to:
o implement the plan over extended timeline
o in coherent fashion
o facilitates sequential and cumulative actions that
bring us closer to vision each year
• Plan calls for new capacity-building
investments as well as nurture and sustain
previous investments
Engagement – Community Inquiry
(or appreciative inquiry)
• Important exercise to engage broader community
• Community inquiry brings people together with different frames of
reference to share dialogue
o More participants – more options on table
o Assumptions otherwise taken for granted or invisible (those close to
college) challenged and brought into open
o Problems are complex; inviting broader participation leads to fully
dimensional dialogue on strategic issues and consideration of
alternatives and solutions
• When people have role in creating something – more willing to
support it and promote success
o Process builds shared vision and fosters shared ownership
Strategic Advantage of the Plan
• When people participate in a strong,
collaborative, and respectful process about the
future of an organization, there are legacy
impacts. People will:
o Expect greater involvement
o Foster deeper sense of community
o Think more strategically more often
o Share a vested interest in the plan’s successful
implementation
Bow Valley College
• There is an assumption in Vision 2020 that we are
not merely responding to our environment but
actually shaping it
o BVC is promoting a future by design rather than left to
chance
• Vision 2020 calls for an approach to adult education
that starts to separate BVC from its peers
There is an opportunity (through learning partner for
life or concept of tri-partite agreements) to establish
distinctive excellence in adult education and training
Bill DuPerron, PhD
Dean
Health, Justice and Human Services Programs
BOW VALLEY COLLEGE
332 – 6 Avenue SE
Calgary, Alberta T2G 4S6
403-410-1498
bduperron@bowvalleycollege.ca
Presenting today on behalf of Dr. Bill DuPerron
Frank G Dungen
Project Officer
Health, Justice and Human Services Programs
BOW VALLEY COLLEGE
332 – 6th Avenue S. E.
Calgary, Alberta T2G 4S6
403-355-4620
fdungen@bowvalleycollege.ca