Strategic implementation in your university:

Your university context

Reflect carefully on your answers to the questions posed in this worksheet (and in the activity in the corresponding section of the main course). What can theytell you about the way you might go about implementing your plan.Use the following frameworks to gather and record your findings.

Estimated duration: 20 minutes

Identify a strategic change which was successful long after implementation.
Identify a change which was implemented less successfully.
From what you observed, reflect on why the first initiative was implemented successfully, but the second was not.
Try to distinguish the content of the planned change from the method of implementation, and identify the extent to which the success (or lack thereof) was due to each.
Think of one strategic change you would like to make in your university and imagine that your proposal has been approved. What is the most important thing you would do in your efforts to implement it, and why?
Based on the above reflections, consider any aspects of your institution’s culture, politics, structure or climate that may have an impact on your implementation plan.

Force-field analysis

Consider your own strategic aims and draw up a force-field analysis list of all the pressures for change and all the resisting forces against change across your area (use the table below as a framework).

Examine each driving and resisting force on your list and assess its strength. Rate each on a scale of 1–5, with 1 being the weakest and 5 being the strongest.

Identify those forces over which you have some influence or control. Again, rate each on a scale of 1–5, with 1 being the weakest and 5 being the strongest.

Highlight the forces that are the strongest, and over which you have the most influence.

Analyze the list to determine how to implement your strategic aim. Your analysis will reveal several natural choices for action:

Increase the strength of driving forces or add new ones

Decrease the strength of resisting forces, remove them, or seek to alter them so that they become driving forces.

Pressures for change / Resistances to change
Description / Strength (1=weak; 5= strong) / Influence (1=weak; 5=strong) / Description / Strength (1=weak; 5=strong) / Influence (1=weak; 5=strong)

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