LASALLE College of the Arts
Co-creating a strategy around the student journey
The context
Pushing the boundaries of what is possible for the future of education
Founded in 1984, LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore is a leading arts and design institution in Singapore. Its stunning campus at the heart of Singapore's emerging arts and culture district is home to over 2,900 students and 260 staff.
While Singapore's education system is among the most successful in the world, recent technological, societal and environmental transformations have led to the realisation that conventional education undervalued the importance of creative and critical skills. Hence, LASALLE’s challenge was clear: develop a new approach to arts education that ensures Singapore’s continued success in times of transformation.
LASALLE works at the contemporary edge of its field, where no established benchmark exists. The strategy had to match that position: imaginative enough to lead the field over the next ten years, grounded in the institution's founding values, and concrete enough to act on immediately.
LASALLE's recently appointed president had the ambition for the strategy to be crafted together, not written for the institution top-down, but with it. This is why For Planet Strategy Lab facilitated a participative strategy process with over 100 students, staff members, alumni and external stakeholders.
The call for courage started the moment we decided we were to get consultants to help us. For almost ten years, LASALLE had never had external people coming in. We were not looking for someone to tell us what to do, but to enable us to realise our own direction of travel.
Professor Venka Purushothaman, President
The process
Connecting diverse schools and divisions to one common reference: the student journey
Knowledge-organisations like universities have the challenge of navigating different schools, divisions and experts – all with different opinions and priorities. We thus anchored the strategy to the student journey instead of existing institutional silos. This is where the work of academic and administrative colleagues alike turns into real value that translates into society.
For several months, we turned the institution’s former cafeteria into a Strategy Room, where more than two hundred people worked on their strategy together. The strategy process stopped being abstract the moment it had a room: the space became a hub for strategy work itself, and for social activities like strategy apéros that emerged around it.
We worked closely with a curated entrepreneurial core, while ensuring students stayed involved throughout. We also brought the Board of Directors in early to participate in engaging sessions rather than be presented with polished presentations, so that their ideas could shape the strategy directly. Our process provides a steady rhythm, while deliberately leaving room to listen for what is emerging through liquid agendas and experimental sessions – fully aware that uncertainty is both inspiring and challenging.
I appreciate the honesty and sincerity, and the ability to actually have frank conversations with FPSL. As a person who needs structure, the idea behind a liquid agenda puts me on the edge sometimes. But I've come to fully appreciate the necessity for it.
Cindy Phua, Director, Division of Quality & Planning and Global Engagement
Together, we crafted LASALLE’s refined purpose, ambition and value principles, then built a living strategy where values are more than just words and provide the foundation for every future decision. The strategy document itself was only the start; the even more important work was translating the strategy into everyday work and bringing it to life across the schools.
The impact
A strategy collectively brought to life by students, designers, entrepreneurs, and artists
Strategy work with educational institutions is inspiring yet challenging. As in all knowledge-organisations, the core challenge is connecting people with different expertises and backgrounds. We made sure to create a space that brings the best out of the many perspectives that characterise such organisations.
With LASALLE, we built that space together. People found new room to move: speaking up outside their usual team structure, sharing ideas before they were polished, and letting students and outside voices ask questions that used to stay inside the leadership team. This also strengthened LASALLE’s entrepreneurial capability and mindset, one that asks leaders and their teams not just to propose ambitious initiatives but to take responsibility for sustaining them.
The most important outcome is not the strategy document but the routines it gave rise to. A strategy shaped by over a hundred people is harder to shelve than one written by a few, because the people who bring it to life are already invested. The strategy process equipped LASALLE with a new way of working: engaging in fruitful conversation, prototyping early and iterating fast.
LASALLE's own students are now at the heart of the new strategy and its ambition to redefine the education of the future. Seeing students excited for what is to come beats every traditional KPI.
LASALLE's way of including students in such processes is very important. Seeing what is being done, I believe being a bit jealous of the future students is a good thing, because it shows there are improvements. I hope we can come back and be jealous.
Chloe Chen Siyu, Student
