Strategic planning can be wonderful, it can be disastrous, it can be a waste of time or it can be ignored. Setting an intention, being true to the course and not getting distracted can set an organization up for meaningful growth and nimbleness. Reality is often, well reality.
City College of San Francisco undertook an Educational Master Planning process and during that conducted a SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results) online survey. The beauty of a SOAR survey is that the administration can embrace the responses and act upon them or come up with hundreds of ways to ignore what the respondents say. The responses are mostly warm and fuzzy and request the standard elements: communication, student surveys, examining trends and budgeting (City College of San Francisco, 2014, Appendix L). What is not available is data on historic participation in focus groups, surveys and creating a collaborative environment. By combining data between this survey and historic trends a pattern might emerge of how CCSF practitioners behave versus their expectations of the behavior of others.
Right now CCSF is a messy place. They have and until January 2017 to improve or they might lose their accreditation. The accrediting agency is under review by the federal government. CCSF has lost 40% of their student body due to this crisis. The SOAR survey was conducted in 2014. The question is: CCSF what have you done in the past two years to save yourself? Your accreditation was in jeopardy in 2012, you surveyed your practitioners in 2014, you sued your accrediting agency in between and now it is 2016 and you are still in jeopardy. Have you taken the survey results and acted upon them or are you waiting for a pass on your problems from a lawsuit?
This situation is similar to Eastman Kodak. Kodak had plenty of opportunity to embrace digital photography. Twice, historically, Kodak made outstanding technology decisions. Moving from dry-plate to film then investing in color film when it was in its infancy. An extensive environmental scan study, conducted in 1981, stated that Kodak had about 10 years before digital photography becomes common in every household. Kodak did nothing other than continue to embrace film during those 10 years and then when faced with bankruptcy in 2007 they sued Apple (Mui, 2012, January 18). Bad strategic decisions, with quality intelligence available, led to the failure of a mighty giant.
Similarities? Maybe.
City College of San Francisco. (2014, December). Education master plan. Retrieved from http://www.ccsf.edu/dam/Organizational_Assets/Department/Research_Planning_Grants/EMP/EMPDraft/Appendix_L-SOAR_Strengths_Opportunities_Aspirations_and_Results_Survey_Results.pdf
Graphic News. (2013, May 23). Kodak bankruptcy [Illustration]. Retrieved from http://customerceobook.com/welcome-to-the-age-of-customer-ceo-part-2/
Mui, C. (2012, January 18). How Kodak failed. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from Forbes website: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/2/#4e81f35c1a42