Planning Guidance

Institutional commitment, alignment, and support from all levels of the university is necessary to fully realize our Next-Gen K-State vision for 2030. Each college and major unit (led by a dean or vice president) must develop their own strategic plan and coordinate with their departments and offices to ensure their activities are aligned with these plans. College and major unit strategic plans and planning alignment worksheets must be completed in accordance with the Next-Gen K-State Alignment Chart timelines (pdf).

Key Principles of Plan Alignment

Distinctiveness: The plan must work for you and be distinctive to your college or major unit.
Alignment: While these plans should be tailored to your college or major unit, they still must clearly align and support the university-wide Next-Gen K-State strategic plan – in particular, our ten strategic imperatives.
Stakeholder Driven: The planning process and goal setting should be comprehensive in scope and informed by input from stakeholders at all levels of your college or major unit.
Consistency: Strategic planning is about where you are going (mission, vision, and goals); how you are going to get there (strategies); and how you know when you arrived (performance outcomes measures/targets). Each college/major unit plan should have these components embedded in them.
Interdependency: Your goals, strategies, and actions do not have to be independent to your college or unit. There can and should be areas of your plan with dependencies and collaborations across colleges, units, or departments.
Implementation: Each college and major unit will be required to complete an annual progress report (slide presentation) each fall outlining high-level accomplishments and progress on key performance measures, challenges, and priorities for the coming year related to achieving the vision and goals in your strategic plan. Each college/major unit should have a webpage that includes their planning process and final plan that also links back to the university strategic planning page.

College and Major Unit Strategic Planning Alignment Guidance (pdf)

Includes guiding principles for planning, required components for your plan, an overview of the process and timeline, and how to best align your plan with the university plan.

Review the guidance (pdf)

Strategic Alignment Worksheet for Colleges and Major Units (.docx)

This worksheet helps identify how your plan helps reach our university imperative goals. It must be included as an addendum to your plan and submitted with your completed 2030 strategic plan.

Download the worksheet (.docx)