Begin with the question, not the product.
A request for a new platform, workshop, or communication plan may point to a deeper challenge. Are students struggling to find support? Are particular groups engaging less often? Is the team unclear about responsibilities or evidence of progress? Defining the question first helps keep the work grounded in an actual need.
Understand what the current evidence can tell you.
Service counts can describe activity, but they may not explain the experience around it. Clarify what is being counted, which time period is covered, and where information is incomplete. Different academic contexts can produce different patterns. My advising-utilization research reinforces the value of asking context-specific questions instead of assuming one pattern explains every student.
Map the experience from the student’s side.
Consider how someone first hears about a service, decides whether it is relevant, finds a way to use it, and acts afterward. Look for unclear language, hard-to-find resources, timing problems, and handoffs. Staff and campus partners often hold useful pieces of this picture. A service map can organize those perspectives without assuming the solution in advance.
Agree on scope and information boundaries.
A useful engagement identifies the decision or improvement it will support, the people involved, and the deliverables. Discuss who can access information, how it will be handled, and what can be shared. Sensitive student records should not be submitted through a public inquiry form. Any data work needs an appropriate institutional process and agreed access.
Make recommendations usable.
A recommendation should help a team decide what happens next. Priorities, ownership, sequencing, and ways to notice progress matter. A focused pilot or revised communication pathway may be more useful than a long list of disconnected ideas. Scope and capacity should shape the proposed work.
Plan the conversation.
Come prepared with the question, relevant context, stakeholders, current constraints, and the kind of help you need. Possible starting points include career-services strategy, advising engagement, leadership development, learning-experience design, and staff development. Deliverables, timeline, and fees are discussed and agreed for the specific engagement.
TAKE IT INTO YOUR NEXT CONVERSATION
Your planning checklist.
- Name the question or decision the work should support.
- Distinguish activity counts from outcomes.
- Identify stakeholders and available evidence.
- Agree on access, privacy, and scope.
- Choose a realistic next step and owner.