The First 90 Days of a Cross-Campus Initiative: How to Build Momentum That Lasts

When a new challenge or opportunity emerges for a higher education institution, it typically starts out with plenty of support and enthusiasm. Leadership is quick to assemble groups or committees, schedule meetings, and kick off progress.

Before too long, calendars get crowded and departments get caught up in different priorities. An initiative that once felt urgent is competing with everything else that demands attention.

The first 90 days are an opportunity to not only make progress, but to keep the momentum for the future. Instead of trying to develop the perfect plan from the beginning, teams can use those first three months to build alignment, take action, and establish a rhythm for learning together.

Days 1–30: Get Clear on the Opportunity

When a cross-campus team comes together, there can be pressure to start solving the problem immediately. But first, make sure everyone understands the opportunity in front of them.

What challenge are we really trying to address? What would meaningful progress look like? Whose perspectives are represented, and whose are missing?

This is also the time to take stock of what you already have. Every campus has assets that can be easy to overlook: expertise, programs, relationships, data, technology, physical spaces, and connections across departments.

Rather than starting with what you lack, consider what could happen if you connected existing assets in new ways. By the end of the first 30 days, the team doesn’t need a complete roadmap, but they do need a shared understanding of the opportunity, the people who should be involved, and the resources already available.

Days 31–60: Decide Where to Start

Once people begin sharing ideas, the hardest part is choosing what to do next. Use the next 30 days to identify an opportunity that is both meaningful and doable. Ask: What can we accomplish with the people and resources we have right now?

Complex challenges can make teams feel they need additional funding, more staff, greater authority, or complete consensus before they can begin, but waiting for ideal conditions can keep an initiative stuck in the planning stage. Instead, look for an opportunity that creates progress while contributing to the larger goal. That might mean testing an approach with one group of students, piloting a collaboration between two departments, or bringing a few new partners into the work.

You don’t need to solve the entire challenge, you just need a place to begin.

Days 61–90: Turn Ideas Into Commitments

Now it’s time to move from possibility to action. Instead of ending a meeting with, “We’ll work on that and revisit it next time” get specific. Who will take the lead? What will they do? By when? When will the team reconnect?

Small, clearly defined commitments create accountability and keep the work moving. Then, at the end of the first 90 days, ask more than whether the team completed its tasks. Ask: What did we learn?

Maybe an assumption proved wrong or a small experiment uncovered a bigger opportunity. Use what you’ve learned to determine the next step rather than simply returning to the original plan.

From Planning to Strategic Doing

Cross-campus work rarely follows a straight path. Higher education institutions are complex networks of people, priorities, and relationships, and conditions can change quickly.

That’s why the first 90 days shouldn’t be expected to produce a finished solution. They need to create enough clarity to begin, enough structure to keep moving, and a way for the team to learn and adjust together.

This reflects a core idea behind Strategic Doing: in complex environments, strategy can be built through action.

Ready to help your campus move from conversation to action? The Agile Strategy Lab works with higher education institutions and teams to build the skills and practices needed to collaborate, tackle complex challenges, and turn shared priorities into action.