Developing a Strategic Plan for a Financial Technology Project
Overview
Students complete a multi-phase project in which they create a strategic plan with clear, actionable steps to implement a financial technology initiative for an organization of their choice.
Why Use This?
This assignment helps students build skills that are directly relevant to their careers, giving them the opportunity to practice and receive feedback before applying them in the workforce. Students practice specialized skills, including using strategic planning techniques to evaluate and prioritize business initiatives and identifying financial technology opportunities to help their chosen organization succeed. They also strengthen foundational skills such as translating data into practical recommendations and creating professional documentation.
How Does It Work?
Students research a financial technology opportunity for an organization of their choice and guide the implementation of that project. In this phase, they develop a strategic plan by setting goals and objectives, summarizing findings from prior work, and defining strategic priorities. For each priority, they identify a financial technology goal and two objectives, with templates provided to help structure pillars, goals, and objectives clearly.
After completing the strategic plan, students reflect on ideas they excluded from their final plan and consider why many businesses do not create formal strategic plans, as well as the importance of doing so. This reflection encourages critical thinking and helps students understand the real-world value of strategic planning in professional settings.
Instructions
Tips about the process
Developing a strategic plan isn’t a linear process. I encourage you to brainstorm and draft multiple ideas. If you do the process earnestly, there will be ideas that “didn’t make the cut.”
It takes time to get the language correct. As I mentioned earlier, internal and external stakeholders will review this document. Wording that sounds good internally might raise a red flag to external stakeholders. Take this into consideration.
Part 1: Developing the Strategic Plan
Your strategic plan should contain the following sections and details:
Introduction Section
Briefly explain the significance of setting goals and objectives within the strategic plan.
Briefly summarize key findings from previous phases.
Strategic Pillars Section
Identify 3-4 pillars (i.e., strategic priorities) for your organization.
For each pillar:
a. Provide a concise explanation emphasizing its importance and relevance for the organization.
b. Connect each pillar to the research you did during Phases 1 and 2.
Goals and Objectives Section
For each pillar, identify a financial technology goal.
For each goal, identify two financial technology objectives.
Provide commentary on your goal and objective selection that:
a. Articulates why you prioritized this goal and how it connects to the pillar
b. Discusses how the objectives will use financial technology to help achieve the goal
NOTE There may be other goals and objectives that aren’t relevant to financial technology, but for this course, I want you to focus on the financial technology aspect.
As you determine the goals and objectives you want to present/pursue, take the following into consideration. You don’t need to include this information in your plan, but it should inform your final document.
Timeline: How long will it take for a goal or objective to be met? Will this cause issues?
Responsible Parties: Who will be needed to help achieve this goal? The more people/teams, the more challenging it can be for a goal to be met.
Resources Needed: Are there budgetary constraints that need to be considered?
đź’ˇ TIP You can use the table structure below to organize the “Goals and Objectives” section. Regardless of how you organize your work, it must be easy for me to find the relevant information.
Pillar #1:
Goal:
Objective: This should be directly related to financial technology.
Objective: This should be directly related to financial technology.
Goals and Objectives Structure
Commentary:
Articulate why you prioritized this goal and how it connects to the pillar.
Discuss how the objectives will use financial technology to help achieve the goal.
Part 2: Reflection
Remember when I said there should be ideas that didn’t make the cut? Here is where I want you to share them. What ideas did you have that you decided not to pursue or include?
What pillar(s) didn’t make the cut and why?
What goals did you consider but also didn’t make the cut?
Were you excited about a certain financial technology solution or idea, but upon further analysis, you determined it didn’t fit a goal?
Based on what you’ve learned, why do you think it is important for businesses or organizations to go through this exercise?
Developing a strategic plan is not a secret concept and yet many organizations don’t do it. Why do you think that is?