Making your strategies work for you

Hopefully, having read the previous sections, readers should be left in little doubt as to the importance of defining a clearly articulated set of mission statement, vision statement and statement of core values. They exist to remind people of the big picture and to set the main course and, hopefully, act as a source of stability in an ever changing world.

But their formation, agreement and dissemination mark the beginning, rather than the end, of the process. Unless they guide decisions, shape actions and influence behaviour such statements would achieve little and offer little return on the investment required to create them.

What underpins these high level strategies will vary from institution to institution depending on tradition, circumstance and operational need but regardless of the detail the overall requirement remains broadly the same: to cascade this strategic direction down and throughout the institution with sufficient detail and clarity to directly inform and coordinate its operations and activities.

Stage 3, Managing Strategic Activity explores a host of approaches designed to help coordinate planning and operations within local areas in line with your overall strategic objectives. But before these issues are addressed this infoKit continues to explore the forces which may dictate an institution's strategic direction and which therefore sets the context within which both its institution-wide and local strategic planning must operate.