Strategic Planning

Welcome to GCC’s Strategic Planning Webpage. At GCC, our strategic plan defines and communicates our most important efforts to realize our college’s vision to foster student success by providing innovative, quality learning experiences for all members of the community. Springing from our fundamental institutional values, the strategic plan also sets forth the metrics by which we will hold ourselves accountable as we work to make this vision a reality.

Focus 2024

Focus 2024 is GCC's college-wide strategic plan, accessible via the link included in the Downloads section on this page. Developed through an inclusive process, the plan leverages the Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) to help to ensure forward momentum by asking individuals and departments to take an active role in our GCC Super Goal: Increase completion with equity from 23% to 33% by Fall 2024. The plan also includes three strategic goals to advance specific areas across the college: Enrollment, Operational Effectiveness, and GCC’s Reputation and Competitive Edge. Together, our Super Goal and three Strategic Goals will result in a stronger and more integrated engagement in our strategic efforts to better serve our community.

Background

In fall 2020, the Strategic Plan Design Team (SPDT) was formed to draft the institution-wide 2021-2024 strategic plan. The SPDT was tasked with the mandate to engage in a process that was thorough, inclusive, transparent, data-informed, and future-focused.  The SPDT engaged with constituencies across the college, including direct interviews and listening sessions with more than 150 students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members who provided feedback on key areas and big ideas requiring college-wide attention for future success. Out of this process came a strategic plan that was shorter, more streamlined and more focused than prior plans, and which included quantified metrics for success. The plan also provides vertical and horizontal alignment of college strategy across all departments and with the Maricopa District.

Many institutions create a strategic plan and then struggle with follow-through to actually execute the strategy they have developed.  Recognizing the need for a structured, diligent and integrated approach to strategy execution, GCC has devoted significant institutional energy and resources to make sure its strategy execution is achieving the goals set forth in the college’s strategic plan.  The tool we are using to support this is Franklin Covey’s Four Disciplines of Execution® (4DX).  The 4DX program and process is enabling GCC to focus on our strategic goals and to engage everyone in a standardized framework for weekly accountability.

In Fall 2021, GCC launched a college-wide effort to begin the organizational change to implement 4DX, train hundreds of employees in the new methodology, and identify the college’s goals-of-focus. Through an inclusive process, GCC identified one primary Wildly Important Goal (WIG) focusing on increasing Student Completion, and three sub-WIGs focusing on increasing Enrollment, Fall-to-Fall Student Retention and Successful Course Completion.  Each of these WIGs is stated with clear, numerical metrics for success, with Equity as an explicit component of every metric.

In January 2022, GCC began its first 4DX Run Cycle with 75 teams and over 500 employees, representing nearly every department in the college.  Each team developed a goal aligned with one of the college’s WIGs and established Lead Measures to guide their weekly work and commitments.  Following a successful completion of the first Run Cycle in May 2022, GCC began its second Run Cycle in Fall 2022 with 80 teams. At GCC, 4DX is proving to be a useful tool to enable the college to focus on goals most critical to its institutional Vision to foster student success by providing innovative, quality learning experiences for all members of the community.

Executing the strategy outlined in Focus 2024 requires an inclusive and engaging approach to ensure all constituents have the opportunity to share their ideas as we engage in this concerted effort to implement a plan for our future.  If you would like to schedule a meeting or listening session, please contact us at strategicplanning@gccaz.edu to coordinate a time that works for your group to ensure your voices and ideas are heard and integrated into our future plan.