- Planning Types
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A framework that helps you develop more effective planning processes.
- Challenges
Challenges
Discussions and resources around the unresolved pain points affecting planning in higher education—both emergent and ongoing.
Common Challenges
- Learning Resources
Learning Resources
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Conferences & Programs
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Community
The SCUP community opens a whole world of integrated planning resources, connections, and expertise.
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Access a world of integrated planning resources, connections, and expertise-become a member!
- Planning Types
Planning Types
Focus Areas
-
A framework that helps you develop more effective planning processes.
- Challenges
Challenges
Discussions and resources around the unresolved pain points affecting planning in higher education—both emergent and ongoing.
Common Challenges
- Learning Resources
Learning Resources
Featured Formats
Popular Topics
- Conferences & Programs
Conferences & Programs
Upcoming Events
- Community
Community
The SCUP community opens a whole world of integrated planning resources, connections, and expertise.
Get Connected
Give Back
-
Access a world of integrated planning resources, connections, and expertise-become a member!
Scenario Planning
We can’t tell you what the future will be, but we can help you figure out what it could be . . . and what that means for your institution.
What is scenario planning?
Scenario planning
glossary generates multiple well-crafted contradictory narratives about the future to anticipate possible outcomes of environmental forces with the potential to impact an institution.
To be clear, scenario planning does not predict an uncertain future. Instead, scenario planning scans
glossary and analyzes the environment to identify potential outcomes and how they might impact a college or university. Scenario planning helps colleges and universities prepare for the future.
Scenario planning is a versatile process. It can sketch out how large, global forces might play out in the next 20 years, or it can identify how trends might impact a specific department or initiative in the next six months.
Why do it?
Scenario planning can prevent you from being blindsided by events, forces, or trends. This is why it’s often used in the military to deal with VUCA
glossary (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) situations, and what makes it well-suited for recovery or response planning.
Because scenario planning requires you to look outside your institution to analyze current forces and trends, it identifies and questions your assumptions about the future and your institution’s place in it. This makes it a good companion to strategic planning. Scenario planning before your strategic plan can help inform decision making, and scenario planning after strategic planning can help you prepare for implementation hurdles and assess the ongoing validity of your plan’s aims.
Scenario planning can be done at just about any time. These times in particular are helpful:
- Disaster preparedness planning
- Before contingency planning in response to a disruptive event
- Before strategic planning
- After strategic planning
- Before deciding how to respond to long-term threats, like the demographic cliff or climate change
Why is SCUP’s solution unique?
Integrated planning focuses on collaboration, alignment, and readiness for change. Taking a collaborative approach to scenario planning ensures that each force or trend is looked at from many different angles. Aligning scenario planning to strategic plans and institutional operations makes it easier for your institution to quickly respond to future threats and disruptions. Finally, participating in regular scenario planning can help stakeholders across your institution think more strategically. Rather than relying on assumptions or what worked in the past, they develop skills to think critically about the future and how they can respond to change.
Build A Culture of Integrated Planning On Your Campus
Through Hands-On LearningPlanning Institute Workshop Series
SCUP’s PI workshop series will help you and your team no matter where you are in the planning process. Learn more about the PI.Integrated Planning Coaching
Get quick, timely problem-solving advice from planning experts with boots-on-the-ground experience. We’re here to help support your institution. Let’s talk! Get in touch.Featured Resources
Tool
An Integrated Approach to Scenario Planning
Recovery Planning in a Volatile EnvironmentNo 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.
Planning for Higher Education Journal
Using Scenarios and Simulations to Plan Colleges
From Volume 33 Number 1 | September–November 2004Higher education institutions can benefit from constructing and using multiple future scenarios and simulations during strategic planning. One method of scenario planning to create visions of potential futures is presented, with a case study from the College of the Desert.
Planning for Higher Education Journal
University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach
An Irish Case StudyFrom Volume 38 Number 1 | October–December 2009Dublin City University has taken the lead in Ireland in terms of its emphasis on strategic planning. Its 2005–2008 strategic plan, Leadership Through Foresight, was part of an ambitious foresight exercise that was aimed at informing subsequent strategic cycles. This article reports on this process in the context of the wider literature examining the value of foresight/futures thinking as applied to universities.
Planning for Higher Education Journal
Developing Scenarios
Linking Environmental Scanning and Strategic PlanningFrom Volume 18 Number 4 | 1989–1990In this article, we discuss a method for developing and writing scenarios for a college or university. We begin by reviewing the general literature on scenarios; we then detail a scenario development project at Arizona State University. This project, conducted in 1988–89, was Arizona State University’s first institution-wide, futures-based planning and scenario development effort.
Webinar Recordings
Pivot Complete. Now What? Planning Through the Pandemic to a Sustainable Future
Recorded June 3, 2020Higher education has become accustomed to a volatile environment. Volatile environments create significant degrees of ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty. How do institutions navigate through this volatile environment? Scenario planning.
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Have content you’d like to share?Contact:
Sadie WutkaDirector of Content Strategysadie.wutka@scup.org
734.669.3293