Industry
Healthcare
Higher Education
Foundations
Our Role
- Market Research and Benchmarking
- Conduct Interviews with Global Subject Matter Experts
- Facilitate Development of a Compelling Vision
- Facilitate Strategy Development Retreats
- Design And Facilitate Feedback and Input Sessions For Staff And Other Stakeholders
- Estimate The Resources and Infrastructure Needed For Implementation
Situation
Magee–Womens Research Institute and Foundation is the country’s largest recipient of National Institutes of Health funding for women’s health research and its global impact on science and medicine is nearly unparalleled. Starting from this position of strength, MWRIF engaged The Hill Group to facilitate the development of a ten-year vision of impact and a strategic plan that would aim the organization towards its achievement and identify the organizational infrastructure that would enable effective and efficient implementation.
Solution
Primary and secondary market research included interviews with world-renowned experts in the field, key stakeholders within the complicated ecosystem of the University of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and benchmarking of twenty similar research institutes across the country to unearth emerging practices and competitive intelligence. This research informed several facilitated sessions to establish a vision of global impact, assess the institute’s internal strengths and weaknesses and characterize their external opportunities and threats, define future priorities and pathways to vision achievement, articulate the organizational culture needed to do so, and cascade a series of goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics guide institute operations for the five years. The Hill Group also helped to identify the budget, staffing, and structure that will be needed to carry-out the institute’s plans.
Results
- Built consensus among diverse constituency groups on key priorities for the organization's future
- Developed a compelling mission and vision statement to communicate its purpose and plans to potential investors across the globe
- Coalesced into a single user-friendly plan the many disparate planning and visioning documents that were developed throughout the organization in recent years
- Identified a series of key performance indicators organized into a performance dashboard for use by organization leaders to continually assess progress versus plan
- Created a series of goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics to guide the organization over the next 5 years, including estimates of the resources and infrastructure required for implementation
Behind the Scenes
Building long-term strategy for an highly-regarded and high-performing organization can be challenging because there may be few if any obvious opportunities for continuous improvement let along corrective action. For MWRIF, a key to success for this planning project was crafting an inspiring vision of future impact that could alter the course of healthcare. Rallying stakeholders around truly bold impact statements unlocked ideas for new science, increased funding, and transformed education and community engagement.