Conclusion

"When used in its entirety for reviewing the core strategy of the college the kit becomes more than the sum of its parts and has helped significantly with team development."

Rohan Slaughter, Head of Technology, Beaumont College

That the final question in the monitoring checklist in the previous section asked 'Are the results of our monitoring activity considered and acted upon as part of the next round of our planning process?' is no coincidence. For it is a question which succinctly links the last area of guidance offered in this resource with where it began. The process begins afresh, but is - crucially - informed by all that has been put in place and learned already; thus emphasising the interconnected status of all the stages and processes outlined in this infoKit.

The contribution that further and higher education sectors make to the advancement of knowledge, to the growth of the economy and to the cohesion of our society is immense. The reputation of our universities and colleges and the quality of the teaching and research they offer is rightly respected around the world. The future undoubtedly offers many challenges and quite conceivably many threats to that reputation and the many achievements it is based upon. Some of these challenges can be easily foreseen; others far less so. Indeed some may as yet be completely unknown to us today but may prove the most testing of them all.

'Forewarned is', as the old idiom states, "forearmed" and all institutions would be well advised to do all they can to predict possible futures and understand what impact they may have on them and to recognise the first signs that they are, indeed, coming to pass. Hence the prominence given within this resource to the notion of 'environment scanning'. But clearly there are limits to what we can hope to achieve in this regard. For despite our best efforts we have no crystal ball, no means of knowing what, exactly, lies ahead and when and how our institutions must deal with its consequences.

In such circumstances all that we can really hope to do is to ensure that our institutions are as well managed and well run as possible. If we have confidence in the direction we have set for ourselves and are assured of the quality, robustness and fitness for purpose of the mechanisms we have put in place to achieve our goals then we should be well placed to weather any storm; regardless of when or where it strikes.

The aim of this resource has not been to provide some kind of blueprint for how strategy must be defined and achieved. No, instead it is an attempt to encourage those responsible for setting or overseeing the strategic direction of their institution to review how their institution currently performs in this regard. If the answer to this question is 'perfectly well, thank you' so much the better. But even if it causes a small number of institutions to stop and reflect upon just one aspect of their current approach to strategic management and to think 'perhaps we could do it better' then it will have served its purpose: all the more so if you also find some element of the solution too amongst these pages.

The institutional experience - Beaumont College

"The resulting strategy document we have created is more widely understood than it's predecessor. There is a higher degree of ownership and it will be more resonant within the parent organisation. It will be based on a broader understanding of risk than before and it will effectively guide future action. It will coordinate activity across the college in a more comprehensive way than if we had not followed the infoKit. The investment in two away days of focussed; concentrated activity has process benefits beyond the task, although it has revealed that there is still much work to be done to generate a truly effective leadership team."