Confidential R1 University

The Challenge

The Information Technology (IT) team at a public R1 research university had recently welcomed new senior leadership and had been tasked with developing an IT strategic plan to illustrate the future of the IT organization and its contributions to the institution. The university’s IT team aspired to be leaders not just in technology but also in service and community building. They aimed to enable a thriving remote/hybrid work culture while using technology to reinforce a positive and collaborative environment.

The IT team needed to demonstrate its alignment with the institution’s strategic plan that laid out university-wide priorities and objectives. This presented an opportune moment to create a strategic plan for IT, adopting a holistic approach that would include input from across the university.

A comprehensive IT strategic plan would serve as a roadmap for the IT team during this time of transition and demonstrate the team’s value to the campus at-large. However, the university had never developed a full-scale, multi-year IT strategic plan before; and the timeline was tight—just two-and-a-half months to complete the project before the end of the fiscal year.

Our Approach

To produce a comprehensive strategic plan on an expedited timeline, the institution engaged Vantage to guide them through the process. Our task was to ensure that the IT strategy supported the institution’s strategic direction while addressing the IT team’s specific opportunities and challenges.

The Vantage team included:

• Kirk Kelly, Vice President
• Shannon Dunn, Director of Strategic Team Operations
• Susan Featherston, Senior Strategic Consultant
• Valerie Vogel, Senior Strategic Consultant
• Kim Lindros, Strategic Consultant

Together, we helped the institution explore stakeholder priorities and identify the unique challenges the IT department faced. Vantage engaged 12 groups of stakeholders across a wide range of units and roles in focus groups and designed stakeholder survey on IT services, which generated several hundred responses.

Armed with stakeholder contributions, institutional data, and industry research, the team traveled to the campus to conduct a series of workshops with the IT team. These included:

• An external inputs workshop, examining how broad technology trends were playing out at the university
• A strategic thinking workshop that helped the team move from tactical to strategic thinking and prepare for plan writing
• A “Big Rocks” workshop, helping the team first identify major priorities for the next 10-15 years and then brainstorm what actions the team needed to take in the present to be prepared for the future

These workshops presented an opportunity for Vantage to coach the IT team on strategic planning—not only focusing on what items were on their roadmap, but also emphasizing what their plan means for the broader campus and how it aligns with and enables institutional priorities.

When the time came for writing the plan itself, the Vantage team continued its close partnership and mentoring. Vantage team members with deep experience writing strategic plans collaborated with staff members who showed enthusiasm for the work and rose to the occasion. Vantage helped the team think through the implications of stakeholder feedback and encouraged writers to partner across areas of expertise. Encouraging collaboration in writing the strategic plan helped the team work across siloes and build partnerships for future efforts.

Outcome

Vantage took a developmental approach to the strategic planning project, and the results were overwhelmingly positive. We focused on not only delivering a plan that met their immediate needs but also helping their team align IT initiatives with institutional goals while developing their strategic thinking capabilities and acumen.

Although most members of the project team had never authored a strategic plan before, developing their strategic thinking skills allowed them to craft a comprehensive and actionable plan. The exercise also helped IT discover previously unearthed team talents, such as their project manager’s exceptional writing skills.

Vantage helped the institution deliver a strategic plan and roadmap on time, and IT leadership noted the remarkable growth of its team throughout the process. University leadership enthusiastically approved and adopted the plan, and IT has shifted its focus to a successful rollout across campus, including a dedicated website.