What’s Your Plan To Avoid The Tyranny of the Immediate?

At the recent AISAP Annual Summit, John Farber of RG175 asked a room full of enrollment leaders a simple but revealing question: How many of your offices have both a strategic plan and an operational plan?

Fewer than 10% of attendees raised their hands.

That moment should give all of us pause. Not because enrollment leaders are not working hard. They are. Most enrollment professionals are working incredibly hard, often while managing more complexity, more pressure, and more uncertainty than ever before.

But that may be precisely the issue.

In the daily pace of enrollment work, it is easy to become so consumed by what is urgent that we lose sight of what is intentional. And in challenging enrollment times, intentionality matters.

This connects closely to a theme I explored in my AISAP Annual Summit presentation, “Too Small to Fail: Strategic Enrollment for Lean Teams in Demanding Times.” In that session, I described what I call the lean team trap: pressure creates activity, activity creates noise, noise creates fatigue, and fatigue makes strategy harder. I also shared that for small offices especially, clarity is not a luxury. Clarity is capacity.

That is why strategic and operational planning matters for enrollment offices of every size — and perhaps especially for lean offices.

A well-developed strategic plan gives an enrollment office high-level clarity. It answers the big questions: What are our most important priorities? What outcomes are we trying to achieve? Where do we need to grow stronger? What challenges must we address? What opportunities are worth pursuing?

That kind of clarity matters for everyone in the office. When the strategy is clear, team members are not simply moving from task to task. They understand the larger direction of the work. They can see how their efforts connect to the health of the school. They know what matters most and why.

But strategy alone is not enough. That is where the operational plan becomes essential.

If the strategic plan provides the “what” and the “why,” the operational plan provides the “how,” “who,” and “when.” It is the playbook for the enrollment year. It identifies specific initiatives, timelines, responsibilities, communication plans, events, follow-up strategies, data checkpoints, and measures of success.

To be truly useful, an operational plan needs real detail. It should not simply name the initiative; it should spell out the owner, audience, timeline, steps, tools, messages, metrics, and key decision points. Ideally, another enrollment professional could walk into the office, pick up a portion of the plan, and understand how to execute it without needing a separate explanation. That level of clarity is especially important for lean teams, where shared rhythm, not individual heroics, keeps the work sustainable.

For lean teams, this is especially important. A small office cannot afford to chase every idea, respond to every pressure with a new initiative, or rely on heroic effort as its operating model. The team needs a clear way to decide what matters most, what can wait, what should be simplified, and what should be stopped altogether.

In other words, the plan is not paperwork. It is protection.

It protects focus.

It protects capacity.

It protects morale.

It protects the team from the constant pull of the immediate.

Every year, new ideas emerge. A trustee offers a suggestion. A parent shares feedback. A competitor launches something new. A team member has a creative thought. A trend appears in the data. None of this is bad. Healthy enrollment offices should encourage idea generation. Creativity and curiosity are essential.

But without a plan, every new idea can start to feel like a new direction. Every concern can become a pivot. Every possibility can become a priority.

Over time, the team can end up working very hard without feeling confident that its energy is aligned around the most important goals.

A planning process creates a healthier rhythm.

The summer is an ideal time to step back, review the previous year, study the data, name the priorities, and build the plan for the year ahead. Once the enrollment cycle begins in September, the team can then focus on executing that plan with discipline and consistency.

That does not mean new ideas are ignored. It means they are handled thoughtfully. One useful practice is to create a new idea parking lot. Throughout the year, team members can capture promising ideas, observations, and possibilities without feeling pressure to change course immediately. Then, in May, when the team evaluates the current year’s work and begins planning for the next cycle, those ideas can be revisited with the benefit of data, perspective, and time.

That approach honors both creativity and focus. It says, “Keep thinking. Keep noticing. Keep bringing ideas forward.” But it also says, “We are going to protect the plan we built unless there is a truly compelling reason to adjust it.”

Of course, plans should not sit untouched in a folder. They should be living tools. Enrollment teams need regular checkpoints to measure progress with solid data. What are we seeing in inquiries, applications, visits, yield, retention, event attendance, financial aid demand, communication engagement, and family feedback? Where are we gaining traction? Where are we falling short? What needs attention?

Data helps teams move beyond anecdotes and assumptions. It creates accountability, but not for the purpose of blame. The goal is learning. The goal is better decision-making.

For enrollment offices that do not yet have both a strategic and operational plan, the rest of the summer offers a meaningful opportunity. This work does not need to be done by one person in isolation. In fact, it may be most valuable as a team project.

Invite the team into the conversation. Review the data together. Identify priorities. Assign ownership. Build timelines. Decide how progress will be measured.

Done well, the process itself can build alignment, confidence, and momentum before the year begins.

Enrollment work will always include surprises. There will always be urgent needs, new ideas, and unexpected challenges. But a strong plan gives teams something to return to. It provides clarity when the work gets noisy, focus when distractions appear, and confidence when conditions are difficult.

Especially now, enrollment offices need more than energy and effort.

They need clarity.

They need rhythm.

They need a plan.