The Planning Process

Introduction

Working remotely throughout the Covid pandemic, core team members representing the entire SSW community collaborated on a bold, visionary strategic plan. In collaboration with our consultant, the School set the following goals for its work:

  • Align stakeholders (faculty, staff, students, board, and alumni) around the new plan
  • Complement and integrate the plan with the BU strategic plan
  • Generate a continuous flow of actions that strengthen the School, and raise its profile both internally and externally

Inspired by “Building Your Company’s Vision” by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras published in Harvard Business Review in 1996, the core planning team focused on identifying our School’s core ideology — “the glue that holds an organization together through time,” including its core purpose — “or essential tenets, and its core values — its reason for being.” The group then worked to develop a bold 10-to-30-year goal to progress toward an envisioned future.

The Teams

Our efforts featured a core group of 25 students, staff, faculty, and alumni who spent more than 800 hours working on the plan, as well as multiple listening sessions with 100+ students, staff, and faculty; a survey of 600+ field supervisors; discussions with the school’s alumni association and dean’s advisory board; and ongoing conversations with deans from the top schools of social work. 

 

800+ Hours of work carried out by core team members from SSW students, faculty, staff, alumni, & Dean’s Advisory Board Members100+ Additional students, faculty, alumni, and board members participated in focus group meetings600+ Field supervisors & advisors participated in an open-ended survey20 Meetings with deans from the top 20 ranked schools of social work

The Methodology

The team followed the culture model as described by Collins & Porras (HBR 1996) and developed a strategy map (VIsion, Strategy, TActics) that features seven key strategic imperatives, objectives, and tactics that can be measured through 5-10 year metrics.

Implementation

In order to implement our bold plan, groups including committee chairs, academic department chairs, leaders of a unit (CADER, CISWH) and administrative departments, and assistant and associate deans developed work plans and identified resources that will help carry out the work.

The School’s senior administrative and senior academic teams will ensure that we are making progress on implementing our plan. While a Vision to Reality Team (VRT) representing faculty, staff, students, and alumni will provide overarching advisory capacity (40,000 ft view) for the process.

Back to the Plan