HESPA Training: Stakeholder Engagement in Strategy

For a large, participative organisation, such as a Higher Education Provider, stakeholder engagement is vital to its ways of working. Strategy only succeeds if a wide range of individuals, from senior leadership to front line teams, understand the intentions of strategy and are committed to the changes it mandates. This course will give participants a practical and applicable understanding of stakeholder engagement in strategy along with the tools and processes to undertake engagement activities. It will include workshop sessions for participants to try out engagement processes and explore how their institution compares to their peers in terms of appetite for engagement.

Learning Outcomes - after the course delegates will:

• Understand the importance of stakeholder engagement in strategy.
• Be able to make the case for stakeholder engagement within their own institution.
• Be able to map different types of stakeholder engagement and understand how they fit across the strategy lifecycle.
• Have a practical understanding of how to engage with stakeholders during strategy development and after strategy launch.
• Understand the governance of stakeholder engagement in a University setting.

Target audience: The session will be relevant for those involved in leading, managing, facilitating or supporting strategy within a university. This could be the overall institutional strategy or a departmental strategy (e.g for a school or programme) or a functional strategy (e.g. a data strategy, research strategy, estates strategy, EDI strategy or online learning strategy)

Estimated level of audience knowledge: beginner, intermediate

Pre work: It will help participants apply their learning if they come to the session with a strategy that they either have or are developing, and which they would like to use as a working example for the purpose of stakeholder engagement.

Speaker bio:

Dr Mike Baxter, Strategy Specialist & Director, Goal Atlas Ltd

Mike has an extensive background in Higher Education strategy facilitation, advising the Vice-Chancellors, leadership teams and strategic planners of many UK universities. He is himself a former Professor & Dean (Ravensbourne) and Director (Design Research Centre, Brunel) with hands-on experience of university strategy, planning, operations and the changing needs of the HE sector. He has been a facilitator and speaker for HESPA, PHES, UUK and the Russell Group Directors of Strategy, and has published three books on strategy (‘The Strategy Manual‘, ‘Core Values’ and ‘University Strategy 2020‘). His latest book, Deep Design Thinking (aimed at a broader audience of ‘makers-of-big-decisions’), describes how to bring both rigour and innovation to the strategy design process. He regularly writes about strategy and strategic planning in his monthly newsletter, Strategy Distilled.

Mike has a background in psychology and design, and has been a government advisor, research scientist and Chartered Designer with patented product designs. Since establishing his company, Goal Atlas, in 2001, Mike has delivered 10,000+ hours of independent business consultancy to the leadership of some some of the world’s biggest brands (e.g. Cisco, Google, HSBC, Lilly, Skype, Sony PlayStation) and has been an advisor and board member for some of London’s fastest growing tech start-ups. He lives with his family on a houseboat in West London.