Executive Summary
In my fourth semester of graduate studies in the Fall of 2019, I blindly entered my online class discussion in Strategic Planning & IDT Programs. I had no idea what the class was going to be about and was worried about the final project. Once I learned what strategic plans were, it clicked and I thought, “Wait…I do this all the time at work, but I’ve never called it a technology strategic plan.” From that moment on, the idea of developing a technology strategic plan for a local business/non-profit seemed fun. The organization that I chose for the plan was my church, Fellowship Bible Church in Searcy, AR. The church was preparing to move to a new facility and this was the perfect time to take stock of what we had and what we needed. I led 5 staff members and a church member through a S.W.O.T. Analysis to determine what we needed to focus on and then built projects that would help accomplish our goal. In the end, all involved were happy with the results.
Personal Reflection
Even though I had worked on strategic projects before, I had never formally conducted a S.W.O.T. Analysis or any of the structure we learned in class. This proved very beneficial, not only for the final project, but I was able to conduct a S.W.O.T. Analysis for my work team. This allowed me to really practice the format and conduct sessions. Side note: I recently held our 6 month review to see if we needed to refocus our efforts. One of the best comments by the staff was, “We couldn’t have done this at a better time. At the end of 2019, we couldn’t have foreseen COVID-19 causing us to make so many changes. If we hadn’t started going down this path, we wouldn’t have been ready to transition to online services.”