Sharpen the Focus
With shared direction established, this is the stage where institutions make disciplined choices.
Teams use disaggregated data, lived experience, and structured assessment tools to define priority equity gaps, clarify what the student experience should look like across academic, financial, advising, and career touchpoints, and determine where concentrated effort will matter most.
This stage moves transformation from broad ambition to focused commitment.
Success in this stage prepares institutions to Act with Purpose.
Your Institution Could Benefit from Resources in this Stage if…
- You have multiple initiatives underway but lack a clear sense of what’s working—or why.
- You’ve collected a lot of data, but it hasn’t been consistently used to inform priorities or decisions.
- Equity gaps are acknowledged but not clearly defined or targeted.
- You need a clearer picture of the student experience to shape the next steps.
- Campus leaders are ready and willing to make investments but want data to guide decision making.
Example Milestones of Institutions that are Sharpening the Focus
- Cross-functional teams map the student experience across departments and systems.
- Data and lived experience are combined to identify root causes rather than symptoms.
- A focused set of equity-centered priorities is established with sequencing decisions.
- Infrastructure gaps that could limit implementation are identified early.
- Resource trade-offs are made explicitly.
Most Relevant Institutional Capacities when Sharpening the Focus
Strategic Data Use
Why it Matters
In this stage, data becomes a shared tool for decision-making. Disaggregated insights help institutions move beyond assumptions, define root causes, and make focused choices.
What it involves:
- Using disaggregated outcomes data to identify and target equity gaps
- Evaluating the effectiveness of current programs and policies
- Establishing shared metrics and definitions for student success
- Creating space for collaborative data interpretation across roles
- Using tools such as structured assessments (ITA) to surface strengths, barriers, and priorities
You may need to strengthen this capacity if teams have data but do not have shared routines for making decisions with it.
Student-Centered Mission
Why it Matters
Sharpening the Focus requires clarity about what a strong student experience looks like and what the institution is responsible for changing to deliver it.
What it involves:
- Defining the student experience you are trying to create, not just the outcomes you want
- Identifying where policies, practices, or systems do not match student needs
- Aligning priorities to a shared vision of student success and equity
- Ensuring diverse voices shape goals and decision-making
You may need to strengthen this capacity if priorities shift frequently or decisions are not consistently grounded in student experience.
Strategic Finance
Why it Matters
Focus requires trade-offs. Institutions cannot pursue every priority at once, and investment decisions must reflect the reforms that will most directly improve student outcomes.
What it involves:
- Aligning financial resources with selected transformation priorities.
- Assessing the cost implications of proposed reforms before implementation.
- Identifying where current spending patterns do not align with equity goals.
- Making explicit trade-offs when resources are limited.
- Building transparency into resource allocation decisions tied to transformation.
You may need to strengthen this capacity if priorities are named but not funded, if sequencing decisions are unclear, or if financial implications are considered only after reforms are selected.
Technology Infrastructure
Why it Matters
Selected reforms must be measurable, operationally feasible, and supported by reliable systems. Without adequate infrastructure, even strong reform designs struggle in execution.
What it involves:
- Assessing whether existing systems can track selected indicators and milestones.
- Identifying infrastructure gaps that could limit implementation.
- Ensuring systems support coordination across advising, instruction, support, and finance.
- Clarifying data access and reporting workflows for teams responsible for monitoring progress.
- Planning for system integration where reforms require cross-unit coordination.
You may need to strengthen this capacity if teams cannot access timely data, if reporting systems are fragmented, or if proposed reforms depend on tools that are not yet integrated.
Strategic Data Use
Why it Matters
In this stage, data becomes a shared tool for decision-making. Disaggregated insights help institutions move beyond assumptions, define root causes, and make focused choices.
What it involves:
- Using disaggregated outcomes data to identify and target equity gaps
- Evaluating the effectiveness of current programs and policies
- Establishing shared metrics and definitions for student success
- Creating space for collaborative data interpretation across roles
- Using tools such as structured assessments (ITA)to surface strengths, barriers, and priorities
You may need to strengthen this capacity if teams have data but do not have shared routines for making decisions with it.
Student-Centered Mission
Why it Matters
Sharpening the Focus requires clarity about what a strong student experience looks like and what the institution is responsible for changing to deliver it.
What it involves:
- Defining the student experience you are trying to create, not just the outcomes you want
- Identifying where policies, practices, or systems do not match student needs
- Aligning priorities to a shared vision of student success and equity
- Ensuring diverse voices shape goals and decision-making
You may need to strengthen this capacity if priorities shift frequently or decisions are not consistently grounded in student experience.
Strategic FInance
Why it Matters
Focus requires trade-offs. Institutions cannot pursue every priority at once, and investment decisions must reflect the reforms that will most directly improve student outcomes.
What it involves:
- Aligning financial resources with selected transformation priorities.
- Assessing the cost implications of proposed reforms before implementation.
- Identifying where current spending patterns do not align with equity goals.
- Making explicit trade-offs when resources are limited.
- Building transparency into resource allocation decisions tied to transformation.
You may need to strengthen this capacity if priorities are named but not funded, if sequencing decisions are unclear, or if financial implications are considered only after reforms are selected.
Technology Infrastructure
Why it Matters
Selected reforms must be measurable, operationally feasible, and supported by reliable systems. Without adequate infrastructure, even strong reform designs struggle in execution.
What it involves:
- Assessing whether existing systems can track selected indicators and milestones.
- Identifying infrastructure gaps that could limit implementation.
- Ensuring systems support coordination across advising, instruction, support, and finance.
- Clarifying data access and reporting workflows for teams responsible for monitoring progress.
- Planning for system integration where reforms require cross-unit coordination.
You may need to strengthen this capacity if teams cannot access timely data, if reporting systems are fragmented, or if proposed reforms depend on tools that are not yet integrated.
Sharpen the Focus with Evidence-Based Practices
Evidence-based practices become a decision lens. Rather than jumping to reform design, institutions should evaluate how advising, developmental education, digital learning, financial aid processes, student support systems, and career alignment currently interact.
What to Do:
- Use data tools to examine student outcomes in key areas such as advising, developmental education, and digital learning. Disaggregate data to surface equity gaps.
- Evaluate the current state of student-facing practices using tools like process mapping or the Institutional Transformation Assessment (ITA) to identify strengths, pain points, and areas of misalignment.
- Engage national partners and technical experts to explore best practices and build shared understanding of them across internal teams.
- Define the ideal student experience across key touchpoints, and identify where current policies, systems, or supports fall short.
- Prioritize goals based on insights gathered and develop a focused, high-level action plan with milestones and metrics for success.
- Identify which combination of practices will most directly address root causes.
- Assess whether technology, finance, staffing, and policy alignment can support implementation.
- Define a coordinated action plan with sequencing and clear success measures.
Advising Reform
Developmental Education Reform
Digital Learning Reform
Continuous Improvement considerations when Sharpening the Focus
Reflect
Gather people and use disaggregated data and structured dialogue to define root causes.
The Continuous Improvement Model (PRPAM)
These phases are connected—and continuous. Each cycle builds on the last, deepening impact and embedding equity-driven change over time.
Establish a shared vision. Define the challenge, build the team, and ground your work in equity and student success from the start.
Examine disaggregated data and student experiences to understand root causes. Identify what needs to change—and why it matters.
Focus your resources on what matters most. Target high-impact strategies that advance equity, improve student experience, and align with your mission.
Implement reforms through cross-functional coordination. Test strategies, support your teams, and adapt based on feedback and student outcomes.
Track results, gather insights, and assess progress. Use data and voice to refine strategy and ensure equity stays at the center.
Prioritize & Plan
- Select focused goals and sequence action deliberately.
- Clarify which changes require design work, which require capacity strengthening, and which will require disciplined execution and adaptation.
- Use evidence and stakeholder input to select focused goals and map out a coordinated plan of action.
- Target resources on the most important equity gaps.
- Define what success looks like and how progress will be monitored.
- Align teams around shared priorities, sequencing, and near-term milestones.
These routines prepare the institution to move from planning to disciplined execution.
The Continuous Improvement Model (PRPAM)
These phases are connected—and continuous. Each cycle builds on the last, deepening impact and embedding equity-driven change over time.
Establish a shared vision. Define the challenge, build the team, and ground your work in equity and student success from the start.
Examine disaggregated data and student experiences to understand root causes. Identify what needs to change—and why it matters.
Focus your resources on what matters most. Target high-impact strategies that advance equity, improve student experience, and align with your mission.
Implement reforms through cross-functional coordination. Test strategies, support your teams, and adapt based on feedback and student outcomes.
Track results, gather insights, and assess progress. Use data and voice to refine strategy and ensure equity stays at the center.
Cross-Functional Roles This Stage
Senior Leaders set and communicate institutional priorities, allocate resources, and create the space for honest reflection. Clear commitments to transformation reinforce the importance of alignment and focus.
Mid-Level Leaders facilitate cross-unit collaboration, guide data interpretation, and help translate reflection into shared plans and concrete goals.
Core Staff (IR, IT, Strategic Planning) provide disaggregated data, surface institution-wide patterns, and support evidence-informed decision making through tools, analysis, and facilitation.
Faculty bring critical insight into how policies, practices, and systems show up in the classroom. Help define the ideal student experience and ensure priorities reflect what students encounter in the classroom.
Frontline Staff offer direct insight into students’ lived experiences and pain points. Help assess how institutional systems are working—or not—at the ground level, their alignment to broader transformation goals, and what’s needed to support change on the ground.
