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Dynamic Strategy Resource Center

Embedding rigor, agility, and accountability into institutional strategy

As competitive boundaries shift and student preferences evolve, the traditional model of higher ed strategic planning that results in a static, “sits on the shelf” document every five years is no longer sufficient. Instead, sophisticated leadership teams are pursuing (and boards are insisting on) a more active and market-responsive approach that EAB is calling Dynamic Strategy. This new framework for guiding campus decisions requires rigorous scenario planning, principled differentiation from competitors, and the ability to revise priorities and reallocate resources quickly.

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EAB has identified eight strategic competencies that every leadership team must develop to overcome the pitfalls of periodic, stakeholder-driven planning cycles. Whether you are currently in the midst of a strategic planning process or simply want to infuse additional market rigor into your cabinet’s workflow, the below research, resources, and services are designed to help your institution move confidently into the future.

Learn more about the competencies required to build more dynamic strategy below.

1. Build Dynamic External Market Scenarios

Dynamic strategy requires both an external view of industry trends and an internal consensus about sources of unique value and comparative advantage. A holistic analysis of market factors enables institutions to deliberately design a unique value proposition with mission-aligned priorities such as student success, research, and community engagement.

Conventional strategic planning tends to foreground introspective questions about “how to make ourselves better” before considering external opportunities and threats or revisiting assumptions underlying strategic bets as conditions change. As a result, plan documents don’t drive decision-making, because they don’t reflect reality mere months after they’re produced.

EAB believes that prior to engaging in the self-analysis steps of strategy formation, strategy teams should dedicate time to building the foundations for an External SWOT Analysis, a one-time effort that will enable fact-based assessment of market shifts. Building and grappling with these scenarios enables institutional agility—the ability to make informed strategy pivots quickly, without having to redo the planning process from scratch.

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2. Differentiate Your Student Value Proposition

Many strategic plans are inwardly focused and undifferentiated, asserting high-level aspirations that are difficult to distinguish from peer claims and only tangentially linked to students’ top-of-mind needs. While campus leaders can often articulate one or more unique attributes of their institutions, they often overlook the essential question of differentiation: Why would a student choose us over competitors?

EAB recommends engaging in a technique we call Student Value Proposition Mapping. This mapping reframes institutional programs, services, and perceived strengths in terms of practical benefits to students, described in students’ language. It also guards against the tendency to mistake excellence—what the institution does well or has invested in—with relevance to target student groups.

Strategy teams should source data on differentiation from current students, early-career faculty, and frontline staff. This meaningfully engages stakeholders, while also advancing (not diluting) strategic focus. Younger perspectives on institutional differentiators frequently discover untapped strengths and neglected weaknesses that senior leaders otherwise miss.

When completed proactively, Student Value Proposition Mapping results in an approach to differentiation that is relevant to identified student groups, distinctive from competitors, and provable with outcomes data.

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3. Define 5-10 Year Vision and SMART Performance Targets

After defining a differentiated student value proposition, the next step in strategy formation is clarifying vision and measurable performance targets. Target-setting is difficult in any industry, but it is uniquely tough in higher education. The ultimate goal is to translate high-level strategic vision into explicit objectives with time-bound measures for progress and goal attainment. But caution about failing to meet “Moon Shot” goals, lack of consensus on relevant metrics, and the challenge of responding to market volatility create barriers at many institutions.

Many goal-setting acronyms have gained name recognition, including:

  • SMART targets: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound
  • FAST: Frequently discussed, Ambitious, Specific, and Transparent
  • OKRs: Objectives and Key Results

Though these approaches differ in points of emphasis, they agree broadly that effective targets combine aspirational and practical elements. “Upstream” targets set parameters that are essential for “downstream” execution when scoping strategic initiatives and cascading institutional priorities to unit-level improvement plans.

Although target-setting is difficult work, the weight of 500+ academic studies over the last 50 years and dozens of EAB partner testimonials indicate the clear potential to positively inflect morale and productivity across institutions. To support you in this critical stage of strategy formation, EAB has identified several proven approaches to harness the value of target-setting while defusing organizational obstacles.

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4. Prioritize Strategic Imperatives

Upon finalizing performance targets, strategy teams often rush to delegate project execution to committees and taskforces and skip the critical final step of strategy formation: prioritizing strategic imperatives. EAB is defining “strategic imperatives” as the set of large-scale actions that an institution can pursue to bridge near-term current state performance and long-term vision targets. These are not to be confused with the common “pillars,” “themes,” or “buckets” that categorize institutional values and operations and often form the core structure of strategic plans.

Imperatives are not merely campaign slogans to publicize institutional efforts. Collectively, imperative descriptions tell a story about what big steps are needed to execute the overarching strategy, and why each step is important, in ways that are understandable and galvanizing for the entire campus.

EAB recommends keeping the number of truly strategic imperatives to fewer than seven, acknowledging that large, comprehensive institutions often cannot match the narrow focus of out-of-sector exemplars (for whom three key areas of focus are more common). Strategy teams should ensure at least a third of strategic imperative bandwidth is devoted to market position.

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5. Scope and Model Strategic Initiatives

Teams charged with scoping strategic initiatives—translating strategic intent into planning and action steps—should go beyond the traditional task of generating wish lists for new programs and student services. The measure of a successfully scoped strategic initiative is the extent to which efforts have been made to remove barriers to implementation and program stability.

Strategic initiatives are where upstream strategy formation pivots to planning and execution. They’re the time and resource investments that, if successfully implemented, elevate the institution from current to aspirational performance. Broadly, strategy teams should be able to answer the following three questions for any initiative:

  1. How do initiative investments compare to other institutional investments?
  2. What “strategy killers” could derail rollout and success if unaddressed? (e.g., Process, technology, policy, and cultural barriers)
  3. What are measurable indicators of success or failure for this initiative?

Together, activities designed to answer these questions represent the gold standard for initiative scoping in the era of Dynamic Strategy, essential for strategic execution focus and de-risking implementation.

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6. Align Budget Model with Strategic Priorities

Among the most important analyses produced by strategy teams are multiyear financial forecasts, laying out each initiative’s year-over-year revenue and cost estimates. These are the costs an institution must take on for a differentiated value proposition and improvement from as-is to target-state performance over 5-10 years. Traditionally, initiatives could be funded by an increase in tuition revenue, but the flat enrollment environments are forcing many institutions to reconsider their existing budget models in light of their strategy and goals.

Three types of budget model design decisions merit the attention of strategy team because of their potential to increase the size, stability, and focus of strategic investment funds:

  • Migrating to a higher strategic tax rate
  • Growing fungible investment funds
  • Developing consistent strategic seed fund formulas

These three essential decisions stand out as opportunities to “automate” the size and stability of strategic reserves, while creating incentives to improve the alignment and planning rigor of unit proposals. Not every practice is right for every institution—there are cultural, financial, and in some cases regulatory issues involved—but any strategy team should consider and workshop their ideas to identify sustainable paths to fund their new strategic imperatives.

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7. Embed Accountability into Unit Action Plans and Reporting

The most effectively constructed plans take high-level targets and goals and break them down into controllable objectives to pursue, and key results to attain, that are relevant and applicable across units. Annually or once per term, academic and administrative units should create action plans that cascade institutional strategic priorities into unit-level objectives and action items. Absent this exercise, siloed departments and entrepreneurial staff can diminish the impact of their efforts by pulling in too many different directions.

The cascading process works like this: high-level goals flow from central strategy teams downward to deans, department/unit heads, and individual employees who take ownership of specific key results from those above them in the organization. Although objectives are driven from the central team, it is vital that there is input from unit-level staff. Strategy teams should keep the following in mind as they develop their accountability plans:

  • Less is more. Don’t ask units to address every priority—focus rather on the key priorities that align with their unit.
  • Focus on leading, not lagging indicators (measures that map to controllable actions of individual units that ought to inflect institutional improvement)
  • Radical transparency produces positive results—as long as your institutional culture supports sharing across all levels of the organization.

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8. Create Strategy Explainers and Social Media Message Amplifiers

Stakeholder communication is often underestimated as a factor in successful strategy execution. Explaining the rationale for priorities and building awareness of value proposition differentiation is essential for stakeholders to understand the expectations the institution is setting for external audiences.

As more institutions embrace Dynamic Strategy, where priorities recalibrate continuously in response to market developments, the traditional modes of communication (a public plan and town hall presentations) aren’t enough to inform and inspire.

Leaders should augment these traditional approaches with four new additions to the communications and public relations repertoire:

  • Strategy explainers that re-sell boards, faculty, and students on the institution’s value proposition
  • Social proof testimonials capturing authentic stories from campus constituents that speak to the institution’s strategy
  • Stakeholder social advocacy programs encouraging and equipping stakeholders to evangelize on behalf of the institution
  • Unit and individual strategic goals dashboard allowing the tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) helping to advance strategic priorities

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