Strategic planning in higher education traditionally consumes two academic years, involving committees, campus forums and multiple drafts before any action is taken. This approach builds legitimacy, fosters broad support and allows time for thoughtful decisions. For decades, even generations, this measured pace has been a strength.
However, this deliberate process has now become problematic for many reasons. First, the pace of contemporary change makes extended institutional planning too slow. By the time decisions get made, many of the critical campus variables they relied on have already shifted.
Second, projecting across the 10 to 25 years such plans typically aim to serve has become wishful thinking at best, as shifts in funding, technologies, media, careers and politics keep challenging foundational assumptions. Deep thinking and speed must be leveraged together to both force hard choices and adapt quickly.
Third, American higher ed is facing a combination of demographic, financial and societal headwinds like few times in its history.
What Makes a Good Candidate for a Faster Planning Process
Fast planning isn’t the right fit for every situation. It should be taken especially seriously when campus agreement on how to meet conflicting financial and academic pressures can no longer be readily maintained. It is about fresh realignment that is necessary, promising or both.
Success will depend on current organizational dynamics. It requires secure leadership, campus trust, comfort with candid critique and a willingness for genuine change facilitation. With those conditions, a compressed timeline is feasible. Without them, the pace is irrelevant. The practices that make a faster process effective—including direct listening, honest prioritization and visible follow-through—are the same factors that build that foundation in the first place, regardless of how quickly an institution can move.
Building the Plan Faster
Speed is also far from the only thing that matters. Two factors set a good, fast process apart from one that is just rushed.
First, the listening phase must be authentic—and both shorter and more intensive than in typical strategic planning. That especially means listening directly to the people who handle the day-to-day work. But much can be gained by forgoing the common campus planning process of having every forum begin with open-ended discussion. My experience is that, quite quickly, most leadership teams and senior faculty can identify and agree on a school’s key strengths, concerns and opportunities. Start from there and let others vet those options. This fast process is not about pretending we’re starting over; it’s about letting people contribute, in an organized way, to shared understandings.
Second, set definitive limits on what the plan will cover. A long process can, merely by its length, open the door to every idea for an institution’s future. In the fast, shorter process, you’re practically compelled to identify the options that matter most. Such an approach also has a critical benefit. Being less burdensome and cumbersome, it’s easier to return to again, easier to update later and in fact easier to let unfold because the fear of fixed outcomes that a long-term process can generate, explicitly or not, is gone.
What This Process Has Looked Like in Practice
Some institutions have already adopted this approach. Recently, for example, Mackey Strategies helped the University of Tampa develop the essential objectives of its five-year plan through an intensive set of conversations across two days. Those discussions were deeply informed by focus groups and quantitative surveys leading up to them. Data showed the new expectations and perceptions of the university’s students, admissions prospects and alumni. Moreover, the urgency was clear, as across this century, the university had changed dramatically. It had gone from 3,500 undergraduates to 11,500, quadrupled its applicant pool to more than 45,000 and invested $1.06 billion in new construction. Meanwhile, critical national trends, statewide shifts and growing regional competition demanded a rethink of various services and programs.
The starting point of strengths and challenges was set. The teams involved in the discussions across those two days represented academic affairs and the deans’ offices, faculty leadership, admissions, advancement, the president’s office and student life. The result is changing how the university structures academic and career programs, allocates resources, invests in student services, and communicates.
Tufts University illustrates the other half of the argument: a plan designed to be revised. We were not involved but have followed the work with interest. When Tufts launched its Beyond 175 initiative in October 2024, it set a one-year target for making decisions based on five pillars the president had laid out, aiming for specific goals within each, with named owners.
True to the combination of clarity and flexibility this expedited process allows, Tufts’s provost noted that even a well-designed plan could be outdated within a year or two and that Tufts was prepared to refresh parts of it as it unfolded. Tufts released the final draft for comment in January 2026, so they were practically on track for their decision-making pace.
These two examples took different routes and are hardly the only examples of expedited campus planning of late. Every school has different needs, size and decision-making processes. But speed and hard, informed choices can go together.
How an Institution Should Decide Whether to Try This
A faster process requires that intention and clarity match the desire for speed. Before proceeding, leaders should consider the following:
- Is there a concrete reason to move quickly, or is speed being chosen for its own sake?
- Does the institution have functional structures and internal trust to build on, or would a faster timeline merely mask problems that require more time to address?
- Can the process remain truly participatory at a faster pace, or will it become merely top-down that way?
- Once the plan is in place, will there be an established way to review it, such as on a set date via a dedicated task force, or is it just a vague promise to do so someday?
Institutions that can answer these questions honestly and still want to move forward are usually the best fit for this approach. The traditional model is not wrong. But today’s rapidly challenging realities ask the question of whether it aligns with the world that higher education now must meet.
Fast decision-making can be successfully built on a foundation of deep listening. It can allow a powerful combination of awareness and commitment, pivoting and flexibility. In these times, those are the path to success.
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