Hierarchy of Strategic Intent is a systems approach to planning that is continuous rather than episodic in nature. The entire process is the plan; it provides direction and offers a defined roadmap for the institution to follow. It tells us why an organization is doing what it is doing, how it will do it, and how well it is doing it.
Mission helps explain the distinctiveness of an institution and represents assumptions and purposes that guide its planning and activities. It describes the organization’s “reason for being.”
Vision is a present-tense statement that communicates where an organization believes it will be within a stated time period.
Desired Outcomes are observable, measurable and specific results that provide evidence that an organization is moving toward the institutional vision and achieving the stated mission.
Strategic Imperatives are defined as a maximum of ten broad, long-term, relevant, clear and obtainable objectives essential to an organization achieving its outcomes. These imperatives are interdependent.
Strategies are a specific, measurable, obtainable set of plans carefully developed with involvement by an institution’s stakeholders. These action statements are linked to an individual or individuals who are accountable and empowered to achieve the stated result in a specific desired timeframe (usually two-five years). This is the how strategic imperatives are to be achieved.
Tactics are specific techniques or actions developed by the stakeholders used to achieve a planned strategy (usually a one year time frame). Tactics are how the strategies are to be achieved.
Stakeholders are any individuals internal or external to an organization who have a “stake” in the success of the institution (i.e., students, faculty, staff, SUNY System Administration, College Council, employers, families, etc.).
Metrics are processes used to measure the success of outcomes.
