Strategic Planning in the Academy

Many academic and administrative groups in higher education identify their opportunities for improvement and long- range growth through the development of a strategic plan. As faculty and administrators develop their strategies, they often identify processes that will need to be improved in order to achieve their goals. Strategic planning encourages faculty and staff to listen to the voices of their stakeholders and to assess the strength and weaknesses of their organization. All of these activities help set the stage for systematic improvement.

 The strategic planning process in the academic community differs significantly from strategic planning in the corporate setting. There are differences in terms of who needs to be involved in the planning process and differences in the relative emphasis on financial issues. There are similarities in terms of the need to develop a vision, and to focus on a relatively small number of critical steps that will move the organization towards achieving the vision. Educational institutions and corporations all can have difficulties due to their mission statements.

Effective strategic planning in the educational setting combines aspects of planning from the corporate setting with the elements of the highly participative community planning process known as “future search.” The “future search” process was created to enable a large number of people in a community or organization to all have a voice in the strategic direction of their group. (1) The community-building feature of the future search model is a vital component of strategic planning in education where it is essential for a community of educators and stakeholders to develop a consensus regarding their collective future.

People who participate in strategic planning may have a negative view about the process due to past experiences. Strategic planning is often a long, drawn-out process that results in a document that commits the organization to a myriad of actions that no one finds compelling. The plan often ends up on a shelf gathering dust. To be effective, the strategic planning process needs to be fast paced and energetic, and it should result in a plan that people are excited about implementing.

Who needs to be involved in strategic planning?

Whereas the strategic planning process in the corporate setting may be exclusive, bringing together a small number of experts who can study market conditions, marketing data, and financial data, the educational setting moves toward the opposite extreme. Academic units, colleges, and universities need a broadly inclusive process in order for the plan to gain validity and commitment. A corporation may not share its strategic plan with its employees or even the stockholders. In education, the success of the plan usually depends on the understanding and commitment of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni. If a major stakeholder group feels cut out of the planning process, they may resist the implementation of the plan in a variety of unpredictable ways.

In an academic department, all of the faculty need to be involved in developing a strategic plan. This plan will affect the teaching, research and outreach activities of each faculty member, so they all need to have a voice in the planning process. Planning sessions need to be at a time when all faculty can attend. Many academic units have some type of factions within the faculty. It could be based on area of academic interest, philosophical differences, differences in research or teaching styles, or outside activity. It is important that all of the faculty be included.

 At some time an organization becomes so large that all of the faculty cannot be present in the same room at the same time. When it becomes evident that not everyone can be personally included it is time to develop a strategic planning team in which everyone will be represented. If a large college is made up of five academic departments, then each department needs representation, both from the chair and from faculty within the department. Administrative staff in the college also need a voice in the planning process, along with representatives from the students and the alumni. These diverse perspectives enrich the planning process and help assure an outcome that will be well received by all stakeholder groups.

Academic support organizations also need strategic plans. Residential life, student health, financial aid, and the registrar’s office must all deal with changes in technology, changes in the workforce, and changing organizational needs. Strategic planning in support organizations should include the largest number of staff possible. While the manager may be tempted to gather a few people together to develop the plan (drawing upon a business model for strategic planning), it is important to develop an understanding and commitment to change among the staff by involving them in creating the strategic plan.

The strategic planning process should be facilitated by a neutral party. The facilitator’s role is to keep the process moving. The facilitator should not attempt to influence the content of the strategic plan, but should stick to helping the planning team by leading them through the process steps and assuring that all planning team members are participating.

Work before the strategic planning meeting

In many cases it is a good idea to preface the strategic planning meeting by providing participants with data they may need to digest before they become engaged in the planning process. For example, there may be important budgetary information that participants should see and consider prior to the session. There might be feedback from a variety of surveys, self-assessment studies, or external reviews that people need time to study prior to the meeting. If this type of information is shared, it is essential that all participants are able to see the same information before the meeting.

 Start with some reflection

The strategic planning process should begin with a bit of reflection. While everyone may want to jump in and start discussing the future, there is great value in some reflection about the past and the present circumstances which may profoundly influence the future direction of the organization. This time of reflection will provide the organization’s leadership with an opportunity to share information that may provide a compelling case for change. It gives people an opportunity to let reality sink in a bit, and prepares them to think about the need for change within their organization that may well affect their everyday lives.

 The reflection for the strategic planning process could be generated from an assessment process, using feedback from stakeholders. By using either a short form for assessment or a more detailed evaluation using the framework of a national standard for quality in education, the strategic planning team can gain valuable insights into the institutional issues that need to be addressed in the strategic plan. The findings from a self-assessment can be presented to the strategic planning team prior to their initial meeting, or as part of the process of reflection when the team is assembled.

There are tools that are widely used to stimulate reflection in preparation for the strategic plan. Timelines are used to create a common understanding of the history of the organization. A SWOT Analysis permits the organization to assess its current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Each of these tools creates an opportunity to build a common understanding of events that are now impacting the organization. They build a more level playing field between new and old members of the group and provide everyone with a similar perspective concerning factual information that must be considered in developing a vision of what the organization needs to become.

In the time line exercise, the group collectively builds a history of the organization, going back as far as the memory of the person with the longest history in the group. The time line is drawn on flip chart pages that may stretch across a wall in the room where the planning team is meeting. This sometimes starts with a senior faculty or staff member who takes a few minutes to describe what the department, college, or group was like 40 years ago. The entire group needs to hear about some of the personalities, the technology that was employed, and other major events or conditions that defined that time. This is important validation for the senior members of the group and can provide valuable insights for newer people of the group. Information for the time line is drawn from all of the group members and continues right up to the present. Figure1 is an example drawn from a time line developed by the faculty in the Law School at Louisiana State University as an initial exercise in their strategic planning process.

Figure 1 - Paul Herbert Law Center Timeline

After the time line exercise is completed, it is beneficial to leave it on the wall during the rest of the planning process. Ask participants to ponder the time line and to identify any trends or issues that will be carried into the future.

The SWOT analysis is widely used in business and educational strategic planning. Members of the planning team list the strengths of the organization, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and the threats. Thoughtful leaders will prepare the planning team for this step by providing some background data. The data will help the planning team all understand what the leader may know in terms of problem areas and opportunities. People may be in denial that problems exist, so some background data will help people see their situation from a different perspective. It should be noted that when people list their strengths, they often paint with a broad brush. A major strength, such as quality of the faculty, may just take up one line on a page. When people list their weaknesses, they often use a fine brush, so the number of weaknesses identified may outnumber the strengths, but it is important to consider the amount of detail that people may have used regarding the weaknesses.

It is usually a good idea to list strengths, weaknesses, and threats, and then to end on opportunities. If the group ends the exercise on threats, it can be discouraging. Strive to end on an upbeat by considering the opportunities.

The SWOT analysis is another tool to build a common perspective about the current status of the organization. It will provide useful information when the planning team moves on to consider the future. The objective of these reflective exercises is to create a common understanding of the need for change.

 This is also the time to review important data that will further help create a level playing field within the planning group. Feedback from climate surveys or from outcome surveys would be valuable for a planning team to review. Budgetary information or comparative data from similar institutions can also be important at this stage.

Create a vision

Once the planning team has spent some time in serious reflection, the stage is set for creating a vision of what the team would like to see the organization become in five to ten years. In the past, some institutions have been successful with longer range strategic plans, but technical and social change often makes this impractical and unadvisable.

 The facilitator can help the group create a vision by leading them through a vision creation exercise. In this exercise, the facilitator invites the participants to imagine that they are gathered together five, seven, or ten years in the future. They are gathered together in order to receive some type of reward or recognition for being the best unit of their type. (The facilitator must work with the chair of the team ahead of time to define what the recognition should be so that it will be credible and meaningful to the team members.) The facilitator asks the group to imagine they are in the future and are about to receive this reward, then asks the group to describe this future state. It is important to suggest that not everyone may agree on the future state. They don’t have to have a consensus at this time. They need only to share their dreams, their hopes, and their aspirations for the organization. The facilitator collects these descriptions of the future state of the organization on easel pages that are posted where everyone in the group can see them.

 This is a very dynamic, exciting process. Participants usually get excited about sharing their vision and one person’s comments generally stimulate other comments from the group. It is important at this stage that the facilitator not allow participants to begin to critique the vision. There does not have to be 100% unanimous agreement about the elements of the vision of the future. That agreement will take shape when people start talking about actions.

Look back from the future

Once the group has shared their ideas about a desirable future state for their organization, they need to move on quickly to discussing how this future state was achieved. Ask the group to imagine that they are still in the future, some seven to ten years from now. They have described the future state for which they are about to receive a reward or recognition. Suggest to them that as part of the awards ceremony, they must describe the major actions they took that moved them from where they were seven or ten years ago to achieve this award-winning future state. Ask the group to look back and describe what it was they had to do to move from where they were to where they imagine themselves to be in the future. As people share their ideas, write them on an easel page in large letters so everyone can see the emerging idea. Continue this exercise until all the ideas have been exhausted from the group. Ask the group to reflect on the actions to see if anything has been left out. For each feature of a potential future state, there should be at least one action that described what they did to move in that direction.

An organization cannot charge off and work on 40 or 50 actions simultaneously and expect to have much success. It is essential to prioritize the list of potential actions to determine which actions are the ones that generate the most commitment and enthusiasm from the participants. With a large group of people, this means using some form of nominal group technique.

 First, ask the group to review the list of actions to see if any are duplicates, or may convey the same idea with slightly different wording. Get the group to identify what ideas should be combined. Then count the total number of possible actions and divide by three to determine how many choices each participant will have. If there are 60possible actions, then each participant will be allowed to select the 20 that they think are most important to take in order to move the organization in the direction it needs to go. Participants usually enjoy being given the appropriate number of colored adhesive dots (used in offices to code file folders) and being asked to place one dot by each of their top choices. It is important to instruct people not to place more than one dot by each of their top selections. People tend to enjoy this activity for several reasons. First, it allows them to get up and do something after sitting in a meeting. Second, it allows the group to see the pattern that has emerged. The areas of strong consensus can quickly be seen by the whole group.

Nominal group technique offers several advantages for developing a consensus (2). The first is that it can be a rapid process. No one is allowed to block a particular option by arguing extensively against it. Second, people can see that their own ideas are either supported or ignored by the group as a whole. In one session a faculty member gave a passionate speech regarding his idea, which then received only one dot. He quickly learned that his colleagues did not share his perspective. Third, it allows the group to easily see the areas where there is a strong consensus in terms of what actions should be taken.

Identify the hypothetical actions that were selected by at least half of the participants as being the active list of actions, and rank this short list of actions based on the number of times each was selected. There may actually be a few actions that everyone in the group chose. This is the set of unanimous actions that must be included in the action plan. The rest of the items on the short list are about to become the consensus actions. To achieve a consensus on these items, it is necessary to ask the participants if anyone is absolutely opposed to an item on the short list. This is not asking the participants to endorse the action, but to be certain that none of the actions would be impossible for some member of the group to live with.

 It is important to point out to the participants that although they may have generated a lengthy list of potential actions, no organization can effectively go out and do 40 or50 things at once. The group needs to concentrate on the most important actions they can take over the next two to three years that will have the most impact in terms of where the organization will be in seven to ten years. As the highest priority items are completed, they can certainly work their way further down the list.

Develop Action Plans

Once the group has identified the key actions that need to occur to move the organization in the desired direction, the group needs to move on to developing specific action plans.

The development of action plans immediately causes the planning team to confront two issues. First, the organization cannot do everything at once. While some initiatives can be launched in the first year of the plan, others will have to wait until the second and third year. Second, the sooner an initiative is launched, the sooner it will begin to impact the long term condition of the organization. As in changing the direction of a ship, the sooner you begin to steer in a new direction, the sooner you will achieve gradual long-term change.

While an organization’s strategic plan may seek to look seven or more years into the future, the plan is typically useful for only about three years before it should be seriously revised and updated. Therefore, the planning horizon for action plans should not greatly exceed three years. Four years should be the outside limit for action plans.

Strategic planning is like driving across country at night. The ultimate destination (the vision of what the organization is to become) may be a great distance away, but you must be careful not to overdrive your headlights by planning actions that are more than three years in the future.

Effective action plans are often developed by breaking the strategic planning team into sub-groups. In some cases, a sub-group may bring in people who were not part of the overall strategic planning process in order to gain insight and expertise in a specific area, such as the use of technology in classrooms, or in planning the development of web-based classes. Many organizations will identify someone to serve as the leader for each of the sub-groups and will establish a due date by which the sub-group is to develop its action plan.

The objective of creating action plans is to define what specific steps will occur to implement a key strategic action, to define who will be responsible for each step, and to define a time frame for the completion of each step. A major action plan may include numerous steps with completion dates (sometimes called milestones) defined for each step. In some cases it is beneficial to define moments in time when progress on the implementation of a plan will be formally reviewed. It may also be beneficial to clarify or define the end-point for an action plan. How will you know you have reached your destination? At what time will you declare victory and celebrate.

Figure 2 is an example of an action plan from the Department of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (3).

Using the Strategic Plan

Some organizations fail in their strategic planning process after they have developed an exciting plan because they place the new plan on a shelf and do not use it on a regular basis. Imagine the frustration and cynicism that then develops among the people who gave their time and energy to develop a strategic plan as the plan begins to gather dust! In the day-to-day rush of events, however, the strategic plan can become ignored. People may be rewarded for focusing on the latest crisis rather than for steering the organization by following up on the actions in the strategic plan.

The strategic plan needs to become the organization’s mantra. It should reverberate throughout the organization like a regular drumbeat. The Dean, Department Chair, or Director that “owns” the plan should regularly use the plan in meetings to review progress on strategic actions. A review of strategic actions should be a regular action item in all staff meetings.

Leaders can emphasize the attention given to the plan by developing Gantt charts to track progress on the action plans (4). Gantt, a pioneer in the field of engineering (who used to lecture at Stevens, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale) developed these charts to allow people to visually track the progress on complex projects that have multiple steps. Figure 3 is a Gantt Chart used at the Lowery Learning Resource Center in the College of Nursing at The University of Alabama. The chart enables the Center’s Director and the Dean to track multiple improvement projects occurring within the Center.

Figure 3 - Gantt Chart from Lowery Learning Resource Center

As an organization begins to implement the action plans in its strategic plan, it will often encounter “the fog of war.” This term emerged from the 18th and 19th century military leaders who observed that once the troops or ships engaged in action, it could be difficult to tell what is happening due to all of the smoke from guns and dust from cavalry. Without a Gantt Chart, the smoke and dust that arises from the day-to-day work on any campus can make it difficult to determine if an organization is actually making progress on the action plans. Most organizations will encounter new issues or problems that were unforeseen during the planning. These issues may not change the vision, but they may affect the rate at which the organization can focus resources on accomplishing the action steps. Unforeseen declines in revenue, unanticipated expenses and problems with facilities, or even the unexpected illness or move of a key contributor may require due dates or action plans to slip. This slippage can be discouraging, but a visual tracking tool, such as the Gantt Chart, permits the organization to clearly redefine the new completion dates and can help keep everyone appraised of the change.

While only a few days may be spent in developing the strategic plan, the implementation may involve years of work. People from all parts of the campus may be involved in implementing the plan, so it is wise to assure that these diverse groups have had a voice in the planning process. Those who create tend to support.

Re-visiting the Strategic Plan

While the mission of an organization can last for centuries, the vision that supports the mission must be renewed every three to five years in order to stay abreast of changing world conditions. In the early 1900s, universities would develop a 50-year strategic plan. It would take 25 years to accomplish all of the key actions in the 50 year plan. Today, with changes in technology, changes in institutional leadership, variation in state funding, changing federal initiatives, changing student demographics, and fluctuation in national and regional economies, an institution of higher education cannot afford to conduct strategic planning on a 25- to 50-year cycle.

A three to five year strategic planning cycle allows the higher education institution to maintain a fresh vision and to keep developing new actions and initiatives that will help the institution achieve its vision. It will be difficult to gain commitment from faculty and staff if past strategic planning processes were drawn-out, laborious processes that exhausted participants and produced only a document that was promptly ignored by everyone.

In the 1980s, a popular book about management fads suggested that successful organizations should use a process of ready, fire, aim for planning.(5) The thought was that organizations can waste valuable time through excessive planning and that it is often better to get out and do something rather than sit around planning. The stakes are too high in higher education to adopt this model, and many corporations that tried it have done poorly. One may even argue that a great many expensive ventures into web-based businesses and web-based classes fit the ready, fire, aim model of planning. The proper approach is ready, aim, fire. The secret for success is to aim quickly and aim well.

Effective leaders embrace the concept of strategic planning and recognize there is a natural cycle for planning and a natural need to develop a new strategic plan every three to five years. The actual moment to revisit the cycle and develop a new plan can be triggered by a variety of circumstances, such as the completion of most of the action items in a plan, a change in leadership, a major change in technology, or a significant new demand, such as the opening of a new business in the school’s region or the emergence of a new field, such as e-commerce.

If the winds of change are strong, don’t refuse to revisit the strategic plan simply because the institution has only partially implemented the current plan. The long-term destination may remain the same, but there may be a need to develop a strategy to steer around a hurricane or to use a new wind to your strategic advantage. 

Problems With Mission Statements

Many academic and administrative groups have weak mission statements. It may not be worth the effort to change a poor mission statement if it means slowing down the development of a strategic plan that is urgently needed. However, in some instances, the timing may be right to refine a group’s mission statement.

How does one distinguish an inspiring mission statement from a dull one? Dull, ineffective mission statements simply define or state what the organization does. We teach students. We feed students. We admit students.

Exciting mission statements define what the organization accomplishes. It is worthwhile to spend some time defining the end result that justifies all of the work and compels people to devote their lives to this type of work. The real accomplishment may be to add value to the community, to explore and create new knowledge, to prepare leaders for the future, or to solve social or economic problems. These are missions that motivate people.

Examine your institution’s mission statement and ask if it inspires people and excites them about coming to the campus. Will the mission statement excite people about serving on your board of advisors? Will it attract students to your institution? If your mission statement generates a yawn, it probably focuses on what the institution does and not on what it accomplishes.

Example: Strategic Planning with a University

The University of Iowa has completed several five-year planning cycles. Like many other universities, Iowa’s plan identifies a relatively small number of overall goals. In the two most recent plans, Iowa has strengthened the plan by identifying strategic indicators to measure their progress in each of the overall goals. For a strategic plan with seven overall goals, Iowa developed 35 areas to measure to determine the university’s progress toward the overall goals. In each of these 35 areas, targets were established to be achieved within five years, based on input from a variety of stakeholders.

For example, Goal Four concerns “Distinguished Research and Scholarship.” In this area, Iowa will measure external research funding, intellectual property disclosures, and library rankings.

Iowa’s President-Emeritus, Dr. Mary Sue Coleman, observed that strategic planning, combined with strategic indicators and performance goals, provides many advantages. This approach certainly enhanced communications with all stakeholder groups, both inside and outside the campus. By understanding the strategic goals, employees have been able to enact changes at their own levels in the organization to support the strategic goals. (6)

Example: Strategic Planning with an Academic Department

The Art and Design Department is the largest academic program at the University of Wisconsin – Stout, with 850 majors enrolled in this program. Because of continued growth and the addition of new faculty to the department, the Department Chair felt that the timing was right for developing a new strategic plan for the department.

All of the faculty members, and the departmental secretary, met on a Thursday and Friday early in the semester at a restaurant and conference facility that was about 30 minutes away from the campus.

Prior to the meeting, the faculty received budgetary information about the department, along with information on enrollment trends, so that all faculty members would have a common understanding about the important financial issues facing the department.

The strategic planning session began with a time line exercise. The history of the department, going back 25 years, was reconstructed on pages that filled a wall in the conference facility. A great deal of valuable information was shared with the newer faculty members, while the older faculty members had the opportunity to reflect on the many challenges and changes they had weathered over the years.

The time line exercise was followed by a SWOT analysis in which the faculty examined their enrollment figures, their budgets, their staffing levels, their facilities, and the reputation of their department with employers who hire their graduates. Faculty members were encouraged to share their perspectives without having to reach any consensus on whether or not everyone would agree with a faculty member’s specific observation. One professor might consider a facility to be a weakness, while another might see it as a strength, and this difference of perspective was encouraged to help everyone better understand how the department was viewed in different ways. After some realistic assessment of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, the faculty developed a vision of what the department might become over the next seven years. They developed some exciting ideas in their vision, but also stayed within the realm of reason. The visioning exercise again allowed individual faculty members to express differing views. There was no drive to gain consensus on the vision. Instead, the visioning exercise was another opportunity to allow faculty to learn more from each other regarding how they each viewed the possible future of the department.

Based on their discussion of a vision of what the department might become, the faculty discussed the types of actions that would need to occur in order to move the department in the general direction they would like to see it go. They developed a list of possible actions and narrowed the list down to a vital few, through nominal group technique, to develop a list of their top ten action areas.

By using this nominal group technique, the faculty developed a list that identified the areas of strongest consensus among the faculty. No one won or lost by having a vote. Every faculty member (and the departmental secretary) had an equal voice in the decision- making process, and everyone had issues they supported show up on the list of the top actions.

Faculty chose to focus on establishing an improved process to review curriculum, creating a national juried exhibition for student work, and establishing a Master of Fine Arts program in the College of Arts and Sciences. Within the first year the faculty had made significant progress on all three Strategic goals, had restructured the department’s committee system and revised the department’s by-laws regarding personnel issues.

Example: Strategic Planning with a Support Organization

The new Director of the University of Georgia Press believed that the press was in need of a new vision and strategic plan to energize the organization. The Director could compare the press’ performance against other scholarly publishers and could see considerable room for improvement. Some of the staff members at the press had been there for many years and considered the present state of affairs to be normal. Others were eager to develop new products and approaches to marketing their books.

The Director launched a strategic planning process. She first gathered pertinent comparative data regarding the performance of The Press and the performance of other scholarly presses. Having collected the evidence that would present the need for change, she scheduled an all-day planning off-site with all of the staff.

The Director saw that it was important to involve everyone at the press in the strategic planning process, because the press needed to change and everyone was going to have to be convinced of the need for change before it change could effectively occur. She also recognized the need to get the staff out of their offices for a day, where they would not be interrupted by the busy day-to-day work of working with authors and preparing manuscripts and illustrations.

The strategic planning off-site began with a time line exercise. Long time employees enjoyed relating the ups and downs of the press over the previous 25 years as it moved from an old location to new facilities, adapted new technology, and experienced a variety of leaders. Newer employees discovered that their colleagues had overcome some very interesting challenges.

 The time line exercise was followed by a SWOT analysis. The group discussed the relative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the press. At this time, the Director shared the comparative performance data so all the staff could see how they compared with other presses. Staff members offered many perspectives and learned a great deal about how others in the organization saw their situation.

The staff then participated in a visioning exercise. They imagined that it was seven years into the future and they were assembled to receive an award for excellence in the field of scholarly publication. They created a vision in which they would maintain their reputation for high quality scholarly books, but would also increase the number of titles produced each year.

With this vision in place, the staff brainstormed a list of actions they would have had to have taken over the seven-year period to obtain their desired future state. They listed over twenty possible areas for change in their organization. After they had developed an exhaustive list of ideas, the staff members prioritized the actions, using a nominal group method, resulting in seven key strategic areas on which everyone agreed they needed to focus.

 Staff then devoted the afternoon to developing action plans for each of the seven strategic areas. The staff divided into four teams that discussed the top four strategic areas and developed an action plan for each one. The teams then reported their plans to the entire group for a critique. Teams then modified their plans to incorporate ideas from the critique. New teams were then formed to develop plans for the final three areas, and those plans were also critiqued by the whole group and modified by the teams.

Summary

Long-term improvement in any academic organization depends on the use of a systematic approach to assessment and the development of strategic plans in a manner that is suitable for the academic environment. Using a traditional corporate model of strategic planning often fails to provide appropriate participation from faculty and staff in the higher education setting. An alternative, “future search” model creates a highly participative approach that generates faculty commitment to strategic plans. Academic leaders can obtain ideas for continuous improvement and strategic planning through a variety of methods. One effective method is through benchmarking of other academic, or even non-academic organizations that have evidenced excellence that other institutions would like to emulate.

(1) Weisbord, Marvin.  Developing Common Ground. San Francisco: Barrett-Kohler Press, 1992.

(2)  Moseley, Donald C. “Nominal Grouping as an Organizational Development Intervention Technique  Training and Development Journal (March 1974) pp 30-37.

(3)  Porter, Warren and Paris, Kathleen. “Creating a Strategic Plan.” Department of Zoology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison. 1998.

(4) Gantt, Henry. Industrial Leadership. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916.

(5) Peters, Thomas J. and Waterman, Robert H. In Search of Excellence. New York: Warner Books, 1982.

(6) Coleman, Mary Sue. “Implementing a Strategic Plan Using Indicators and Targets” in Pursuing Excellence in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.