Learning Resources

An Integrated Approach to Scenario Planning

Recovery Planning in a Volatile Environment

By: Nicholas R. Santilli, PhD, SCUP | Sadie Wutka, SCUP

No one can predict the future. That doesn’t mean it needs to be a total surprise. This toolkit will walk you step-by-step through scenario planning with instructions, examples, and worksheets that you can use to start scenario planning at your institution immediately.

Abstract: The pace of change is getting faster, and it’s getting harder to anticipate what the future holds—and how your institution can prepare. Scenario planning can help your institution plan for a volatile and uncertain future. Scenario planning uses today’s forces and trends to imagine probable futures and what they could mean for your institution. It’s a flexible process that can inform your institution’s regular planning processes or be used as part of recovery planning in response to disruptions or catastrophic events.

An Integrated Approach to Scenario Planning is a toolkit that will walk you step-by-step through scenario planning. It includes instructions, examples, and blank worksheets that you can use to start scenario planning at your institution immediately. Don’t let your college or university get blindsided. Download your copy and prepare for the future.

Planning Types: Continuity Planning, Resource Planning, Strategic Planning
Tags: COVID-19, Crisis and Disaster Management, Decision Making, Environmental Scanning, Planning Processes, Recovery Planning, Response Planning, Scenario Planning

Member Price:
Free | Login

Non-Member Price:
$40

Trends Outside Higher Education | Fall 2020

How is the world outside your institution changing? While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact every aspect of our lives, other trends and forces are worth watching. This issue broadly explores trends outside higher education.

Abstract: We’ve organized Trends using STEEP: Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Political. Each trend includes a brief trend summary, a footnoted source, and discussion questions to help you analyze and act on the trend.

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Webinar Recordings

Published
July 15, 2020

Coffee Chat: Tracking the External Environment

The SCUP Spring Trends Report

By: Nick Santilli, Senior Director for Learning Strategy, SCUP | James Downey, Vice President for Planning & Institutional Effectiveness, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Join Nick Santilli and Jim Downey for a conversation that will highlight the SCUP Spring Trends and SCUP Trends for Canada reports. Scanning the external environment is a key factor in keeping your institution nimble and change-ready—two facets necessary for effective institutional planning. These documents are essential tools for strategic planning, scenario planning, and contingency planning.

Abstract: Join Nick Santilli and Jim Downey for a conversation that will highlight the SCUP Spring Trends and SCUP Trends for Canada reports. Scanning the external environment is a key factor in keeping your institution nimble and change-ready—two facets necessary for effective institutional planning. These documents provide overviews of the important external forces that impact institutional operations. They are also essential tools for strategic planning, scenario planning, and contingency planning.

Planning Types: Continuity Planning, Campus Planning, Academic Planning, Information Technology Planning, Student Affairs Planning, Strategic Planning, Resource Planning
Tags: COVID-19, Environmental Scanning, Scenario Planning, Trends External to Higher Ed

Member Price:
Free | Login

Member-only Resource

Join now to have access

Trends: Canada 2020

This special issue of Trends focuses on the forces and events affecting Canadian higher education. Our guest editors contributed observations, trends, and insights based on their work within Canadian colleges and universities.

Abstract: We’ve organized Trends using STEEP: Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Political. Each trend includes a brief trend summary, a footnoted source, and discussion questions to help you analyze and act on the trend.

Member Price:
Free | Login

Non-Member Price:
$40

Trends Inside Higher Education | Spring 2020

The pace of change keeps speeding up. This issue focuses on forces and changes directly impacting higher education, now and in the future.

Abstract: From new learning technologies to upcoming legislation, the focus is on what’s next for colleges and universities, with questions that can help your institution keep up with change.

We’ve organized Trends using STEEP: Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Political. Each trend includes a brief trend summary, a footnoted source, and discussion questions to help you analyze and act on the trend.

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Blog Post

Published
October 11, 2019

5 Ways to Use Environmental Scanning

By: The SCUP Learning Team: Sadie Wutka, Director of Content Strategy | Nicholas Santilli, Senior Director of Learning Strategy

The practice of environmental scanning is often a first step in the strategic planning process. Typically, planning teams engage in an exhaustive analysis of the internal and external forces acting on the institution to set the planning context. But should scanning the internal and external environment be limited to the early phases of strategic planning?

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Trends Inside and Outside Higher Education | Fall 2019

How is the world changing outside of higher education, and how is higher education responding to change? This report focuses on trends both inside and outside higher education.

Abstract: We’ve organized Trends using STEEP: Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Political. Each trend includes a brief trend summary, a footnoted source, and discussion questions to help you analyze and act on the trend.

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Blog Post

Published
August 9, 2019

Get a Week’s Worth of Strategic Planning Done in One Day

By: Sadie Wutka, Director of Content Strategy, SCUP

In one eight-hour day, six teams came together to perform scanning, analysis, and prioritization activities, all toward one goal: setting “positive, but not delusional” strategic directions that would be the basis of the college’s strategic plan.

Planning Types: Strategic Planning
Tags: Engaging Stakeholders, Environmental Scanning, Strategic Planning, SWOT Analysis

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Implications From the Internal Environment | Spring 2019

This edition focuses primarily on forces of change from inside academe that may drive further evolution in colleges and universities.

Abstract: We look through an array of different lenses to gain some perspective on issues and opportunities that appear to be on the horizon—or at our doors.

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Implications of the External Environment | Fall 2018

We look through an array of lenses outside the world of higher education to gain some perspective on issues and opportunities that appear to be on the horizon—or at our doors.

Abstract: From demographics and social change to politics and technology, many trends impact planning in higher education. SCUP’s Trends for Higher Education is designed to help you and your institution make sense of the most significant evolutionary forces.

Member Price:
Free

Non-Member Price:
Free

Planning Types

Challenges