Handout - Structural Analysis and Planning Tools for Students Association Activities And

Handout - Planning in students’ associations January 2010 NZUSA Conference

What is planning? Why do it?

 Good planning helps to guide our work within the student community. It helps us to focus our activities, and to ensure that we have the required resources to realise our missions and goals.  Some students’ associations will already do planning. Strategic planning doesn’t have to involve big, flash documents. Planning should be relevant and useful.  Planning is about setting out o What your overall goals, o what actions you need to achieve these, o who is responsible for them, o when you plan to achieve them by, and o how you will know if they have been successful.  Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation – all go together. o Planning: working out what needs to be done, how and by whom. o Monitoring happens as you go along (eg at the monthly committee meeting) o Evaluation comes at the end, or at longer term intervals (eg annually).

Where to get started

Steps in the planning process include:

 Planning Workshop.  Writing up the plan  Regular monitoring of the plan.

Planning workshop A planning workshop/session/retreat is a good way to start the planning process. Make it a stand-alone meeting, rather than tacking it on the end of an existing meeting. A planning workshop can include: • brainstorming and focusing exercises (eg SWOT, Friends/Allies/Enemies). • developing goals and strategies, • writing up the plan It may be that you develop detailed action points from your objectives during the planning session itself, or it may be that someone else is delegated to go away and ‘flesh out’ the plan based on the broad statements and goals you’ve worked out.

Preparing for the planning workshop Some questions to ask when you are setting up a planning session could include:  Clarify the goals of your planning workshop. What do you want to achieve?  Decide whether or not you would like an external facilitator  Design a programme for the day (eg people arrive for coffee at 10am, facilitator opens the workshop at 10.30, SWOT analysis, small group exercises, lunch, report back, developing action points and who is responsible, and so on).  Decide logistics, equipment, food, and other administrative stuff.  Decide if there is any reading that people should do first (eg last year’s plan, reports/updates from staff, material from other sources like NZUSA)  Complete the draft agenda and communicate the logistics (location, time, date) the proposed agenda, and any reading material to the student exec. Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected]  Arrive early to set up the room. Writing up the plan

As discussed above, you may like to have a rough go at this on the day, while it’s all still fresh. Or you might draft the plans goals, objectives and actions on the day, and parts of this may be delegated for someone else to follow up on and write up. Below is a template for writing up an operating plan.

As already mentioned, plans come in all shapes and sizes, and you always need to make sure yours is not too big so that it gets ignored. It can be easier to visualise a plan in a diagram – below is one from Sport and Recreation New Zealand that is simple and easy to understand. It comes from their ‘Club Planning’ guide, as part of their Running Sport series.

Using the above diagram, let’s say the Riverton Students Association had a planning session and came up the guts behind a plan for the year. They might decide that their mission is:

To represent, advocate for and support the interests of students at RJSA on and off campus

They then came up with a bunch of goals for 2010, as part of that wider mission. These might have included  Better support for student parents  Achieve a Nil fee increase  To develop a student advocacy network  Sort out the finances and administration of the association  Recommitting to their relationship with the Roopu  Etc etc

Picking one of the goals, to develop a student advocacy network, here is a template for putting it into action. It identifies the overall goal (developing a student advocacy network), and what the objectives, action points and people responsible for it are. You may also want to add another column at a later stage on resourcing – where they money and other resources are going to come from.

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected] Objective 1: To develop a student advocacy network

Objective Action Plan Responsible Date Asses the need for a Research with other services on President and May 2010 network campus eg the mediator, Welfare Officer student health, chaplain Find out how others Look at other students’ Education April 2010 have done this associations advocacy coordinator networks Network with a) Find out what other services President June 2010. community exist (eg Community Law, Citizens Advice Bureau, Tenancy Services) And so on…..

These tools aren’t just applicable for the student executive. Here’s another example of the tool being used - let’s say the local student environmental group had a planning day, and one of their goals was to set up a student recycling project.

Objective Action Plan Responsible Date Asses the a) Do lecture speaks about the a) info officer a) March need/interest in the project student community b) set up a website poll b) webmaster b) March c) notices in student paper c) secretary c) ongoing d) stalls at market day d) president and d) April and volunteers June

Find support in the a) talk to local wastebusters a) president a) April community b) talk to regional council c) info officer b) May Develop a ‘business get support from commerce secretary August case’ department And so on….

Monitoring

Another important aspect of planning is monitoring – making sure you are on track or revising your work if things aren’t going to plan. Monitoring isn’t the same as evaluation – evaluation is a longer term process to see what impact your work is having.

It is important to have a regular review of any plans – especially because of the annual turnover in students associations. For your wider mission and goals – that may happen annually. For your action plans/operating plan, this may be monthly at an exec meeting.

As always, you don’t need to complicate things overly. A monitoring system may be as simple as adding an extra column to your plan. Monitoring also helps identify challenges and problems early so things don’t get out of hand.

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected] Using the example above on setting up an advocacy service, another column can be added to report progress:

 Objective Action Plan Responsible Date Actions to date Asses the need Research with other services President and May Discussions held, good for a network on campus eg the mediator, Welfare Officer 2010 feedback. Several student health, chaplain offers of assistance. Find out how Look at other students’ Education April Variable experiences, others have associations advocacy coordinator 2010 see separate report to done this networks May exec meeting Network with a) Find out what other President June Compilation of community services exist (eg Community 2010. database of services Law, Citizens Advice Bureau, complete. Tenancy Services)

Some Other Tools for Strategic Planning

 Sport and Recreation (SPARC) resources and very down to earth and easy to use. Find them at http://www.sparc.org.nz/sport/running-your-club  Also, the Department of Internal Affairs’ Community Resource Kit has loads of good material. Go to http://www.community.net.nz/how-toguides/crk/ - Planning is the second chapter.

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected] Appendix – Structural Analysis Tools

What is structural analysis?

In the context of students’ associations, these exercises are about assessing the students’ association or a student group/collective, helping you to clarify your strengths and challenges, identify what other groups you may be able to link in with, understand the power dynamics in a group or an issue, and so on.

Lots of structural analysis exercises are facilitated, structured brainstorming sessions. The idea is to get everything out on paper – so you can look at what issues face your group, barriers to achieving your goals, strategising to overcome barriers, build coalitions with others and plan for the future. A key aspect of structural analysis is examining where the power lies on a particular issue or within a group.

There are three tools looked at below. The examples I have given for them are just ones I made up off the top of my head. The details of them aren’t particularly important. In the workshop we will be using examples from the group to demonstrate how to use the tools. I have given examples for each though, so that if you go back home and would like to use some of these, there are examples to refresh your memory.

Structural Analysis

The three tools covered are:

SWOT Friends, Enemies, Allies Environmental Scan

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected] 1)SWOT

One of the more common structural analysis tools is SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

It is both inward and outward focused – looking at the internal capacity of the group/organisation/collective (the strengths and weaknesses) and the external environment (the opportunities and threats).

If we use the student debt campaign as an example, a SWOT analysis might include the following:

Strengths Weaknesses Long history of campaigns Low activist numbers Good resources Education Action Groups not Strong national body functioning People busy with coursework

Opportunities Threats Work with other community Complacency among the student body, organisations eg unions, Grey Power acceptance of debt. etc. Voluntary Student Membership Build on the online campaign to reach Achieving wins under a centre-right new people (eg the NZUSA YouTube government clips)

These are just a couple of examples for each heading – in all probability when this exercise is done properly there would be several points under each.

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected] 2) Friends, Allies, Enemies

This tool is especially useful for when we are looking at building coalitions, or trying to reach out with our issues to other like minded groups. The idea is to get down on paper who we think our friends, allies and enemies are, and to also hopefully move people along the spectrum – e.g. move some allies into the friends column.

Friends. These are people who are likely to be closely aligned with us and share similar views. They can be relied on and trusted. Allies. Are still useful but not as close to us as friends are. They may share some similar views but may have different ways of going about things. You might involve them in some, but not all of your campaign. Enemies. Say no more – these are the people who will get in our way. We try to minimise their influence.

To illustrate this tool, we can use the student campaign on stopping violence against women/Thursday’s in Black.

Friends Allies Enemies/Barriers - Auckland Women’s Centre - Academics - Extreme ‘men’s rights’ - Rape Crisis - National Council of Women groups - Women’s Refuge - Churches - Maxim Institute - Uni-Q - Professional bodies (eg NZ - Conservative media and - Gender and Women’s Federation of Business and commentators studies dept. Professional Women)

This tool can also be broken down further to include individuals as well as groups. So under friends you might say Rape Crisis as an organisation, but also list individual people in your area who you know are useful and trusted.

There may also be instances where some individual people may be in a different column to their organisation. For example, you may not include the University of Auckland as a friend, they may only be an ally, but individuals within the organisation may be a friend – e.g. one of the lecturers in the Department of Women’s Studies. Also – some organisations that are your friends may have some people in it that are actually destructive so they may be an ally or enemy.

Another example might be a campaign to stop fee increases at your institution:

Friends Allies Enemies/Barriers –Student reps on council –Staff unions –Vice Chancellor –Students association –Other Council reps who –Council reps completely activists may be swayed opposed to the student –Pro-student council –The media voice members

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected] 3) Environmental Scan

The material from this section is taken direct from the SPARC Running Sport Series 2 – Strategic Planning, pg 25. The examples given relate to sports, but the tool itself is transferable into a number of situations.

Environmental scanning is the systematic methods used by an organisation to monitor and forecast those forces that are external to and not under the direct control of the organisation or its industry (Byars, LL 1987:26). Checking the environment around an organisation is a critical, and often overlooked, step in the strategic planning process. The four environmental forces used in this analysis, called PEST Analysis, are:

Political Economic Social Technological

Economic forces include the general state of the economy, and indicators such as unemployment rate, average household income, and rate of inflation. Other factors are the level of disposable income and the emergence of sport and outdoor recreation as a basis for tourism.

Technological forces include new ideas, inventions, techniques and materials. New materials have changed some sports equipment (kayaks, cycles etc). Television, videos and computers have emerged as significant sources of information and entertainment for New Zealanders.

Political forces include those that are regulatory and relate to both national and local governments. The Government’s political orientation also has an influence on the environment. Legislation banning tobacco sponsorship is an example of a regulatory force, which has had an impact on sport in New Zealand. 26 Social forces relate to the values, attitudes and demographic characteristics, as well as the changes in the social environment. For example, changing attitudes towards women have put pressure on the media to reflect the success of sportswomen. Other factors are public health concerns and increased recognition of the link between lifestyle, leisure and health. Other factors that may be considered are demographics and lifestyle trends and the role of governments.

Strategic planning tools for students associations. January 2010. 5 Notes by Sam Huggard. Contact: [email protected]