I have been selected for the Quality Commission of my university, and we will start preparing internal evaluation report soon. However, a revision will be necessary about the strategic plan of the university and the KPIs for monitoring internal quality (education, research and administrative quality). I recently read a paper and there was an interesting example about determining stragey based on KPIs rather than vice a versa. This actually made sense since main KPIs are already fixed/widely used on national/international levels (like qualification frameworks, and policies of central higher education commissions), and many HEIs do not have the autonomy or the power to change these expectations. So here is the question: Is it better to determine strategy based on pre-established KPIs when compared to determining KPIs based on strategy?
Good Day Akilli,
First of all, for HEI's there are accredition for evalution like Washington Accord; AMBA ; AACSB etc. If you are following these norms. Then you cant change the strategy for KPIs. But, if you are not following any norms. Then you can determine KPIs based on the strategy.
Hi Akilli,
I think its better to determine strategy based on the key performance outcomes (KPOs).
Regards
Hi Serkan:
I do not think you should. Every strategic planning effort of any type of organization has a certain amount of established KPLs. In the case of universities these are the national requirements and the requirements of international accrediting institutions. You need to considered those as "must meet requirements". However, there are still a lot of freedom for many things. One example is competition. You can decide to be the best and come up with strategies to become the best. Likewise, you can have a different funding strategy, recruiting strategies and many others types of strategies that cam make your university a much more effective and solid institution. I was very involved in starting a strategic planning initiative at the college business at my former university in the nineties and they were still having yearly strategic planning when I retired a few years ago.
Dear H. Serkan Akilli,
Many university nowadays make the same move -- have the pre-established set of KPI (for example, the desired rank in the Times, Shanghai Index etc.) and them put any efforts to reach the formal indicators which correspond to the rank "Xth minus Y". The results are usually awful -- see the enclosed the classical paper on the consequences of stretch goals.
Kind regards,
Igor Gurkov
There are people who can walk on their hands, head down and legs up but that is not the normal and right way. :)
I think it is possible but not recommended. KPIs are usually derived from the strategy.
Best Regards
Thank you Janes. I know that deriving KPIs from the strategy is the normal way as Soma says. Personally, I believe an authentic strategic plan with KPIs showing its progress can make huge differences. However, maybe, I must have asked this question in context:)
The thing is, the KPIs for higher education institutions are largely pre-determined, either by the Higher Education Council, or the ESG. And these are asked for in internal evaluations and external evaluations. It is interesting to see that universities with such different plans end up using the same or similar KPIs. This results in either shining strategic plans which are not meant to be implemented, or KPIs which does not indicate success of the authentic vision of the plan. Maybe this is especially the case in Turkey, I don't know. There is also strong resistance to implement and display publicly the KPIs at most of the universities, too. Well it is understandable since even some of the most famous universities are not actually doing well on critical KPIs. We want the universities to provide excellent education, top quality research and have an excellent governance system, ignoring the fact that they provide mass (a big mass with some universities having over 150.000 students) education with limited resources and limited autonomy, and with different management ideas.
At this point comes the question: Why do we spend lots of effort, energy and time to prepare a strategic plan (as if our institutions with all of its members are excitingly looking forward to work crazy for those aims) rather than just build the plan on expected KPIs with minimum requirements, since the expected KPIs are actually what the externals (polticians, higher education commisions, or accreditation institutions) want to be satisfied? At the end of the day, the university will do what it can do and as how it always had done before, and it will not worry about the consequences since it is not really possible to shut it down for not doing well on indicators or not having a robust strategic plan.
Sorry for the long text, maybe I am just over complaining:)
as KPI expert, this move can be taken if you already have the resources to select and determine the strategy you want. but in case you have lack of resources its better to work in the traditional methodology
KPIs should properly be determined as PART of the strategic planning process, which begins with determining required outcomes, then sets broad goals, followed by measurable objectives. The KPIs are the result of the measurable objectives.
If your planning begins with KPIs pre-determined, then you are doing something that is more like Tactical planning, not Strategic.
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