2009 RP Planning Award Winner - Multi-Campus District Strategic Plan Implementation Framework
The first formal Strategic Plan in the history of the Los Angeles Community College District was adopted by the Board of Trustees on January 24, 2007. The result of a year-long, district-wide effort, the plan set priorities that guide district actions and initiatives for the period 2006-2011. It serves to align district goals and priorities with those established in the California Community College System Strategic Plan. It also serves to guide the development of the strategic plans for each of the nine District Colleges. The District Planning Committee (DPC) oversees the plan's implementation and works to coordinate the
planning efforts of all nine District Colleges.
Currently, the District is refining the Implementation Framework for the Strategic Plan. The three major components of this framework are the “Strategic Plan Implementation Matrix,” the “Core Indicators of Institutional Effectiveness,” and the “College Strategic Plan Self Inventory.” (These documents, with the Strategic Plan, are available online at the webpage listed below.)
The Implementation Matrix outlines the short-term (qualitative) and long-term (quantitative) outcome measures of effectiveness for each of the five goals and thirty-three objectives contained in the Los Angeles Community College
District District Strategic Plan, 2006-2011. It also designates the agents or groups responsible for implementing the objectives at the college and District level as well as the individuals or groups responsible for monitoring their implementation. The District Planning Committee, which is articulated within the framework of the Strategic Plan, bears the primary responsibility for monitoring implementation of these objectives. The DPC fulfills this monitoring function during regular reviews of college strategic and educational master plans and accreditation self-studies. The results of these
reviews—conducted at the time of five-year plan revisions, periodic planning updates, and prior to accreditation site visits— are communicated to the Board of Trustees during presentations to its committee on Planning and Student
Success.
The Core Indicators provide data on the progress towards the long term goals of the District Strategic Plan. This system was designed to provide on-demand reports for each of the nine Colleges within the District in a centrally maintained, easy to use and readily understandable format. Using the District’s data warehouse tool (SAP’s Business Warehouse product), the Core Indicators system provides a web-based, graphical interaction with the data used to support and inform the Strategic Planning process. The data can be “drilled down” to the college, department, and course level. Just as importantly, the data provided represents the accumulated knowledge and best practices of the District, assuring each of the nine Colleges with not only a common data set, but also the best available data set.
The Implementation Matrix was used to create the Strategic Plan Self Inventory, through which each of the nine Colleges has documented its progress towards achieving the qualitative and quantitative goals of the District Strategic Plan. The completion of the Self Inventory was the result of extensive discussions at each of the Colleges. A presentation to the Board of Trustees in October of 2008 reported that the District’s progress towards the Strategic Plan goals is nearly 50% complete (the presentation and results of the initial inventory are available online on the webpage listed below). The
District Planning Committee is engaged in a dialogue on how effective the current progress has been and how to address the areas that require more progress. The DPC is also revisiting the Self Inventory to refine its measures prior to reassessment this spring.
The success of the LACCD’s Strategic Plan Implementation Framework is evident in individual College planning efforts as well as the implementation of the Strategic Plan. College-based strategic plans are aligning with District Strategic Goals and informed by the Core Indicators data. Several Colleges have created online Program Review processes that align with the District Strategic Plan and use the Core Indicators data, and a District-wide task force has been formed to develop an online program review model for use by LACCD Colleges.
The Implementation Framework effectively documents an ongoing process for making the Strategic Plan a vital and living document. It has provided the District and the nine LACCD Colleges with the framework to develop the tools to manage, coordinate and implement the Strategic Plan, assuring that all nine Colleges are able to effectively use the Strategic Plan. Moreover, the Implementation Framework creates the critical feedback mechanism that makes the Strategic Plan an ongoing and systematic process. The Los Angeles Community College District is using the Strategic Plan Implementation Framework to assess and improve institutional effectiveness and thus student learning and achievement, creating a process of continuous improvement for the largest Community College district in California.
