Project-Based Strategic Planning

Your strategic plan is gathering dust. Here's how to make it work.

You have led the retreats, facilitated the committees, and produced the polished document. Yet within a year or two, momentum fades. Goals remain unmet. The strategic plan that was meant to shape decisions sits on a shelf, admired perhaps, but rarely used. For university presidents, provosts, deans, and planning professionals, few frustrations run deeper than watching institutional potential stall because the planning model itself is broken.

Project-Based Strategic Planning: A Reimagined Model That Actually Works in Higher Education offers a fundamentally different approach. Dr. Catherine M. Wehlburg, a university president and nationally recognized expert in assessment and institutional effectiveness, introduces the first framework built entirely around project-based strategic planning. Instead of static goals and vague timelines, her model structures strategy into clear priorities powered by purpose-built projects with measurable outcomes. When one project is completed, the next begins, creating continuous momentum that keeps every strategic area alive and progressing. Every element connects directly to meaningful metrics, so success becomes visible, trackable, and demonstrable to accreditors, boards, and stakeholders alike.

Inside, you will discover how to:

• Build a living strategic framework that replaces completed projects with new initiatives, ensuring no goal goes stale 

• Align institutional vision, framework measures, and project-level outcomes into a single coherent system 

• Strengthen accreditation compliance and institutional effectiveness through intentional, data-driven planning 

Whether you lead at the executive level, manage institutional effectiveness, or ensure compliance, this book provides the practical tools and leadership mindset to turn strategy into sustained, measurable action.