Strategic Planning Process

A strategic planning committee (SPC) was formed in December 2018 with a mandate to develop a strategic plan for Waterloo Pharmacy that would provide strategic direction over the period from 2020 to 2025.  The SPC was chaired by the Hallman Director and included faculty, staff, undergraduate, and graduate students.  Diana Royce from the Deerfield Group served as an external consultant. 

Strategic planning for Waterloo Pharmacy largely occurred in parallel with similar planning at the university level.  The availability of several white papers by the university’s strategic planning group, as well as the approval of the University of Waterloo’s new strategic plan “Connecting Imagination with Impact” in Fall 2019, was helpful in ensuring that Waterloo Pharmacy’s plan aligned with that of the university. 

The SPC met throughout 2019 with initial meetings devoted to developing vision, mission, and values statements.  An environmental scan was conducted and included surveys of faculty, staff, undergraduate students, and graduate students as well as telephone interviews with key informants.  These individuals represented a diverse range of sectors including academia, community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, regulatory, government, and pharmacy advocacy groups.  The environmental scan results and preliminary work of the SPC were presented at a Strategic Planning Workshop held on May 1, 2019 and attended by 54 faculty, staff, and students.     

Key priority areas emerged from the workshop. Sub-groups of faculty, staff, and students were formed and met throughout the summer to develop goals and strategies addressing issues in each area.  The SPC reviewed the work of the sub-groups in fall 2019 and prepared a draft of the strategic plan.  Faculty, staff, and the external consultant provided feedback on the draft plan in December and the final version of the strategic plan was discussed and approved at Pharmacy Council in January 2020.

Next Steps

A strategic plan is only as effective as the plan for implementation and monitoring progress towards meeting the specified goals.  At Waterloo Pharmacy, we intend to use the plan to guide our development over the next several years and expect that this will be a living document that will be adjusted and modified as necessary as the internal and external environment evolves. 

Overall responsibility for execution of the strategic plan will reside with the Hallman Director and the Executive Committee of the School of Pharmacy.  An operational plan will be developed as a companion document to the strategic plan and will specify who will be responsible for each of the listed strategies.  The operational plan will also define other individuals, committees or working groups that will contribute to execution of individual strategies along with timelines, outcome measures and key performance indicators.  Progress reports will be prepared annually and presented at School of Pharmacy Council for review and discussion.