Strategic Personal Planning

1. In order to complete a satisfying project you need to focus on something tight and do-able. Strategic Personal Planning allows you to arrive at this focus in a paradoxical way, namely, by opening out and acknowledging a wide range of factors and wishes that your work could take into account.

2. Strategic Personal Planning is based on the Strategic Participatory Planning workshop process developed by the Institute for Cultural Affairs (ICA; see Action Research and Participation). The basic propositions of the ICA workshop process include:

• Notwithstanding any initial impressions to the contrary, everyone has insight (wisdom) and we need everyone's insight for the wisest result.
• There is insight in every response. There are no wrong answers.
• We know more than we are, at first, prepared or able to acknowledge.
• When a person is heard, they can better hear others and hear themselves. This causes us to examine decisions made in advance about what the other people are like, what they are and are not capable of.
• The step-by-step workshop process thus aims to keep us listening actively to each other, foster mutual respect, and elicit more of our insight.
• Your initial conclusions may change. Be open for surprises.
• What we come out with is very likely to be larger and more durable than what any one person came in with; the more so, the more voices that are brought out by the process.
• In particular, we will be engaged in carrying out and carrying on the plans we develop.
• In sum, the workshop process aims for the "greatest input, with greatest commitment and the least confusion, in the least time."

3. To adapt these principles to Strategic Personal Planning means that you should hope to come out with a plan for your project that is richer, deeper, and has more dimensions than what you came in with. The more angles on yourself that are brought out by the process, the more likely you are to create something you did not anticipate. The experience of that creativity, in turn, leads you to be more likely to carry out the plan you arrive at.

4. The Strategic Personal Planning Process begins with the Practical Vision stage. This is meant to generate a larger vision of your work, something that informs the specific project you are doing (e.g., for a course or degree). In that spirit, do not focus specifically on your project topic. Instead, consider a more global question: What is needed for your Personal and Professional Development in [insert here: general area required to be addressed by the project]?

Steps

Post-it brainstorming

4.1. Imagine yourself some time after the project is over looking back with a sense of accomplishment on how far you have come in the area of [insert general area required to be addressed by the project]. (Construe accomplishment broadly so it can include your own reflection and growth.) What happened to make this so?—What different kinds of things do you envisage having gone into or contributed to that personal and professional development?
To prepare for this brainstorming, note:

• These things can span the mundane and inspiring; tangible and intangible; process, as well as product; relationships as well as individual skills. (By mundane, think of all the different tasks on your plate —over and above those for this project—that potentially affect your ability to carry out your project in a way that is satisfying.)
• Reread any externally-dictated context and requirements for the project (e.g., the description, objectives, and expectations given in a course syllabus).
• For other ideas—but feel free to depart from these—review handouts from previous post-it brainstorming by students in a course on Action Research and Educational Evaluation.

4.2. Keep in mind the question in 4.1 above, brainstorm your three to five word answers onto post-its in block letters.
(Alternatively, on your computer, you can make virtual post-its that you can move around; see worksheet).

4.3. Pair up and get more ideas from hearing about the kinds of things the other person came up with. Make more post-its.

Clustering and Naming

4.4. Once you have about 30 post-its

• Move the post-its around into groups of items that have something in common in the way they address the question.
• Describe the groups using a phrase that has a verb in it or, at least, indicates some action. For example, instead of "Holistic Artistic Survival Project," an active name would be "Moving holistically from surviving to thriving as artists." (See more examples of clustering and naming.)
• Group the groups in pairs or threes and give these larger groups descriptive active names.
• Group these groups and name them, until you arrive at a descriptive active name for the practical vision post-its as a whole.

4.5. Pair up again and discuss your overall vision.

4.6. After the session, redraw the groups in a neat form (without the original post-its) so you can refer back to it as you define and undertake your project.

Translate Strategic Personal Planning into a concrete research and engagement design

5.1 Quick option: Freewrite (for 7-10 minutes) on the specific actions you might take so as to complete a project that fulfills your practical vision as well as any more specific objectives and expectations. Keep these action ideas in sight, together with your practical vision, as you plan the remainder of your work.

5.2 More time-consuming option: Pursue the other three stages of Strategic Personal Planning, starting with brainstorming on the obstacles to your realizing this vision. Re-vision those obstacles (perhaps with peer or advisor interaction) until you see the underlying issues and a gateway through to new, strategic directions, and then to specific actions that follow those directions.