- Determine where you are.
- Define your vision and mission.
- Define your goals.
- Identify objectives.
- Determine what you can do with the resources that you have available.
- Determine how to allocate available resources to accomplish goals.
- Determine gaps that would need to be filled
It may be tempting to jump over steps #5 and #6 to #7. But, step #7 should be addressed only after a thorough exploration of how existing resources and strengths (including those that exist outside the organization) can be leveraged to accomplish goals in fulfillment of the mission. The IANR Communities facilitate these inter-unit sharing of faculty and staff resources to achieve our collective mission.
For example, jumping to step #7 before steps #5 and #6 can result in stunting of creativity, innovation, and opportunities for collaboration. It can also result in unnecessary redundancies in expertise that can limit, rather than expand, achievement of vision and mission.
Also, avoid the temptation to engage in the it-would-be-nice-if-we-had-someone-in-house-with-X-expertise type of conversations and decision-making, without first engaging in a thorough assessment of where that expertise currently exists and how it might be leveraged.