A detailed insight into creating an effective Strategic Plan through the change management process as a leader.
In this blog series looking at the role of a LEADER, I will be sharing ideas and strategies following common research for change management and starting at a new school as a school leader. I have had several requests to share my thoughts on starting at a school that needed urgent improvement in many areas. Also, to advise on what leaders can do to cope with the demands of leadership, getting a balance and remaining calm, positive and focused on the task at hand.
Necessary Change.
“People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete - the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.” —Peter Drucker
In the last blog entry stepping into an underperforming school, I focused on the collection of data, listening and starting with the fundamentals in your team. Once this is complete, the school strategic plan is the next phase to share after revisiting the 'purpose' of the school through the Vision, Mission and Values.
Vision, Mission and Values
These are core to your strategic plan. During the process of creating and implementing the strategic plan, you should review and update your school Vision, Mission and Values. During this process you can ask the following questions:
Are they current? When were they reviewed?
Do they represent the school?
Do they provide guidelines, purpose and tangible outcomes that represent the intended journey of the school?
Do they excite, give a real focus and cause for embracing the challenges ahead?
Are they understood, visible and do the community have ownership over these?
Are they embedded?
We will start with what is a strategic plan and 6 steps to make your strategic plan really strategic. The purpose of the plan is to give the school a direction to aim for, relating to the educational decisions, ideas and improvements planned ahead. To make sure that all resources are used efficiently, purposefully and in a logical manner including priorities of goals created, strategic planning in education. In a school, this can be a 10-20 page document including the following areas, 7 elements of a strategic plan.
Core features to include:
There is no standard layout, no right or wrong way to format the plan but it should include many of the helpful areas below:
Theory behind what a Strategic Plan is?
Why it is needed?
Vision, Mission and Values
Long term goals
SWOT Analysis
Yearly Objectives
Action Plans (Action grid example)
Process used to create the plan and those involved
Positive Change.
Once the plan is complete, this should be shared with all stakeholders and published on the school website. Yearly improvement plans will feed into this and show the progress made but overall the document will produce projects culminating in a 3-5 year period of improvement to work towards the vision of the school. At this point, the school have made a clear decision in which direction to head. I genuinely respect people/teams who can share this decision as by making this, not everyone will agree with you but you have made a commitment to change. Change for the better, for the staff, students and parents in the community.
If this process has invited everyone to contribute, to have an opinion and it's been an open project, enabling all to input, this is an incredibly positive step forward. Listening, formulating ideas and then implementing these in a meaningful way.
“You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.” —Jeroen De Flander
Communication
Updates on the strategic plan should be shared in a clear and transparent way to unite the community, including some of the ideas below:
Annual School Improvement Plans
Strategic Plan uploaded to the School Website
Progress of areas shared visually through infographics, pictorially etc.
Staff Meetings
SLT Meetings
Whichever future-focused strategy you use to create your School Strategic Plan, spend time on this. According to many studies, this is the main challenge for any team to agreed upon and finalise ahead of a period of improvement.
There are example files which may help this process on the leadership resources page along with 50 other files and ideas for you to try.
The next step is to build a team and recruiting the right staff as a LEADER.
Published by Paul Walton. @paultwalton
Principal, Educator, Leadership Coach.
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