A strategic plan is at the heart of any organization; it outlines the vision for the future and maps out the goals, initiatives and milestones needed to get there. Furthermore, it helps prioritize tasks, makes resource decisions, and gets everyone to work towards a shared vision and a set of agreed upon goal. Strategic plans must be understood and properly cascade to colleges, deanships and various units.

Through strategic planning, an institution can assess its internal and external environment using widely known tools such as PESTEL and SWOT analysis, articulate its vision and mission, formulate its strategies for the future, develop objectives, and set critical measures and actions for success. While doing so, an institution is expected to proactively identify, evaluate and mitigate risks that may prevent it achieving its strategic objectives. Managing risk has been widely acknowledged by scholars and professionals and a well-developed body of knowledge is available to guide efforts to do so. While traditional risk management approach may be siloed into operations and finance functions, the more holistic approach integrates with the strategic planning process to provide higher education leaders with vital information to address strategic and operational risks at various levels of the institution and facilitate decision-making.

Higher education institutions are still facing a perennial gap among academic and administrative staff in fully understanding the importance of strategic planning and risk management to their work, the crucial role they play in achieving their respective institutional and/ or college’ aspiration and what is required to implement and sustain their plans, which can collectively contribute to the failure in strategy execution.

This workshop is designed to provide a unique opportunity for executives in higher education institutions to learn and apply the process, tools, and techniques of the strategic planning process and how it integrates with risk management to provide an enterprise level perspective to effective risk-informed strategic execution and improved outcomes.