In 1992, UH-Downtown instituted a unit-planning process designed to improve overall institutional effectiveness by combining evaluation, planning, and budgeting activities into a single comprehensive, integrated process.  Unit planning is a bottom-up process involving all units of the university and covering all aspects of university operations. Evaluations of the university’s effectiveness in carrying out its teaching, research, and public service missions are a regular part of the process and serve as the basis for university planning decisions at all levels of the institution.  The university’s mission statement and long-range goals establish the basic framework under which plans are developed and the criteria against which success is measured.

At the start of each planning cycle, units, the Office of Institutional Research distributes Academic Unit Profiles  to the Academic Unit and Administrative Profiles  to the administrative units.  These documents contain a variety of reporting data that units can use along with their own assessment data that they can use in analyzing their planning needs. Units are also sent copies of the institutional performance measures that are prepared for the state and the System.  While units are analyzing their specific needs, the President works with the Executive Council to determine how best to address those priorities that have been established at the State and System levels. The President then works with the University Planning Council in preparing a unit planning package that is sent out in the Fall of even-numbered years with guidelines and the support materials needed for preparing unit plans. In the alternate or odd-numbered years, the University engages in strategic planning process to identify longer-range goals that will establish a framework for the unit plans.  Until 2006 unit plans had been prepared annually, but unit plans are now done on a biennial basis to better align unit-planning with the biennial appropriations process and to more clearly distinguish the type of longer range planning that focuses on basic questions of institutional purpose and the development of yearly operational plans and budgets.

 The basic elements of UHD’s unit planning process are described below:

• Unit planning is an open process:  Effective planning requires an on-going dialogue between units and their supervisors. The planning calendar spells out the type of consultation that should be taking place at the different stages in the planning process. The calendar has been designed to allow time for this required consultation to take place.
• Planning goals should be measurable: Planning guidelines ask units to state what they are trying to accomplish and to describe how they will determine if progress is being made. The most meaningful goals are those that are defined in terms of desired outputs and outcomes, not simply in actions taken.
• Plans should identify total project costs: All units should discuss with Information Technology and Facilities Management the implementation and support implications of their proposed projects.  Unit plans should identify the total costs to the university of their proposed projects and how those costs will be met.
• Unit plans should examine policy and organizational issues: Concerns continue to be voiced that unit planning is more of a process in which units compete with one another for new dollars than a genuine planning process. At every level of the planning process, the basic questions asked should be: 1) how effective has the unit  been in reaching its goals in the past, and 2) what can we do to improve its effectiveness.  Plans at all levels should be analyze ways in which changes in organization, process and policy might improve performance.       
• Unit planning priorities should be highlighted in an executive summary: The planning guidelines call for a narrative account of what the unit hopes to accomplish in FY2008.   This summary should be concise (no more than two pages) but should identify in specific language what the unit wants to accomplish and the basic strategies it proposes using to accomplish its goals.
• Unit planning should analyze the best use of all possible resources: There are other possible sources for funding initiatives than through a hoped for increase in state appropriations.  Plans should examine the possibility of meeting needs through gifts, state and federal grants, local fees, or the reallocation of existing funds.  Unit plans should provide a single comprehensive list of all planning priorities even though various priorities might end up receiving funding support from different sources.
• Unit plans should list only the planning initiatives of that unit: The planning focus at the unit level should be on initiatives that will be undertaken by that unit or by that unit in collaboration with others. Collaborative initiatives should indicate all the partners in the collaboration and each partner should list the collaborative initiative in its list of ranked planning initiatives.