Pilot Outputs - Identifying your mission, vision and values
Don't reinvent the wheel
"It is unlikely that your strategic review is starting with an entirely blank canvas. Look at the material you already have which has a strategic flavour and don't be tempted to start entirely from scratch. Colleagues may be more likely to engage in the process if they feel that what has gone before is being used constructively"
The institutional experience (Sheffield)
We went through a process (at senior management level) of re-examining our existing strategic and equivalent statements - including the strategy for the predecessor department referred to above - to identify those key themes and concepts which we wished to take forward into the development phase for the new strategy. While this preparatory stage may not be explicitly referenced in the infoKit, we considered it important for a number of reasons, including the need to be inclusive of previous experience and expertise, particularly in a period of change and restructuring, and because we considered that certain elements from previous strategic plans would continue to be fit for purpose. We characterised the exercise as 'find the gems'. The result was a list of around 20 elements, considerations and concerns, to bear in mind. These included matters such as:
- Clarity of presentation
- Staff and team engagement
- Effective and straightforward monitoring systems
- The importance of flexibility, given the turbulent national and HE environment
- A plain-English mission statement
- A need to ensure that the strategy incorporates a statement on values
Helpfully, many of these points reinforce good practice suggestions included in the infoKit.
