Strategic Planning: Quick Wins and Benchmarking

  By Dr. Maadi Al-Madhhab

 After discussing the concept of strategic planning and analyzing the status quo, some issues should be discussed, otherwise, a favorable opportunity would be lost or a problem would be aggravated. This is known in the strategic planning principles as the quick wins. They are recommended for a decision-maker to take an action on the spot without waiting for a plan to be worked out. He should rescue the situation with the givens available for him. He is like a physician who diagnoses an illness and takes on-the-spot decisions to save the patient’s life. 

      The university has taken serious steps thru which it can achieve quick wins. This is clear in the workshops held to analyze the status quo. They show how far the strategic planning steps might coincide with one another and might be delayed or put in advance. Yet, at the end they integrate one another. 

      The strategic planning might include more than one operation at the same time, one of which is benchmarking. Benchmarking means studying the experiences of national and international universities and even the local universities to see how far they are distinctive; observe the methods applied; check the aspects of organization, administration, and finance; and see the alternatives it has adopted to be an exclusive university.  

      The strategic planner must not wink an eye to the environment surrounding him and the other effective factors. Sometimes, the social and administrative environment and other factors breach initiatives and dispirit people not because they are not desirable but because they are time consuming and waste efforts and money. 

      Final word, it is not important to have an elaborate plan that might be mapped out by one person, if has time to. Instead, every body should co-work out the plan and should work on reaching the same goal. A plan with no belief or interaction is a list on hopes or dreams predestined to be shelved.