Two Great Events from Organizational Excellence

Our colleagues in UVA Organizational Excellence are offering two upcoming in-person learning sessions this spring.  Both are focused on practical frameworks for navigating complexity, accelerating collaboration, and turning strategy into action.

In-Person Session • February 26

Plan to Pivot: Applying Agile Principles in HE Planning and Strategy

Presenter: Gerry Starsia, PhD (UVA SEHD ’10), MBA
When: February 26, 2026 • 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Where: Newcomb Hall, Commonwealth Room

Register Now

Drawing on Plan to Pivot: Agile Organizational Strategy in an Age of Complexity (2023) and Survival to Success: Leading Small, High-Growth Enterprises (2025), Gerry Starsia explores how higher education leaders can manage complexity and keep pace with accelerating change by applying battle-tested agile frameworks to planning and management.

This session will focus on the intersection of planning and management—how to decide where to spend time, how much to invest, when (and how) to make change, and how to adjust as conditions evolve.

At the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand new approaches to planning and strategy
• Strengthen competency in leading strategy implementation
• Explore intersections between planning and strategy
• Propose a framework for developing teams of highly competent, agile members

In-Person Session • March 19

Strategic Doing for Collaborative Change: Accelerating Department-Level Innovation at UVA

Presenters: Scott Barker (Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering); Linda Columbus (Chair & Professor of Chemistry);
Alanna Felts (Instructional Designer, Learning Design & Technology); Andrew Kennedy (Assistant Director of STEM Education Initiatives)
When: March 19, 2026 • 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
Where: Newcomb Hall, South Meeting Room

Register Now

As part of the UVA Success in Science program, STEM departments are strengthening student success through new forms of collaboration, shared ownership, and rapid-cycle innovation.

This session introduces the core elements of Strategic Doing, highlights how UVA departments are applying it to co-create initiatives that improve the student experience, and includes an applied mini-workshop to help participants practice the framework and leave with tools they can use across departments, units, and cross-functional groups.

You’ll gain an understanding of how Strategic Doing:

• Accelerates collaboration in complex environments
• Aligns diverse stakeholders around shared goals
• Helps teams move ideas into action through adaptive, repeatable processes

Questions? Reach out to UVA Organizational Excellence for details, and please consider sharing these opportunities with colleagues who may be interested.