Champion Planning
Competency Area:
Champion Planning
Integrated planning is most powerful when it becomes an institutional norm, when it evolves from a way to approach a planning process to a way of doing and being for the institution. These competencies relate to instilling integrated planning as a durable practice in an institution and/or unit.
Competencies for Champion Planning
Build Buy-In & Commitment
The ability to convince others that planning is necessary and important
- Use intrinsic and extrinsic incentives to make planning and implementation relevant to different stakeholder groups: administration, faculty, front-line staff, leadership, board, and students.
- Identify and develop champions for planning.
- Influence leadership to visibly support planning and decisions made during planning. Institutional Planner Role Only
- Engage stakeholders in planning. Understand obstacles to stakeholder engagement. Leverage stakeholder expertise in the planning process.
Related Resources
Workshops
- SCUP Planning Institute (all Institute workshops)
- Building Buy-in for Planning: Dealing With Resistance and Gaining Support (March 2025)
Tools
Planning for Higher Education Journal
Institutional Savvy
The ability to leverage institutional context to bolster planning, establishing it as a customary institutional process
- Secure a place in the institution’s decision-making process for the plan. Institutional Planner Role Only
- Know change management practices, methods, and tools.
- Navigate politics at all levels (from campus to national).
- Guide initiatives through the institution’s approval process(es).
- Leverage the institution’s culture—values, beliefs, and patterns—to move initiatives forward.
- Leverage required institutional processes (i.e., IR plans) to encourage plan implementation and accountability.
