Resource Management Principles:

Approaches to Planning and Budgeting

THIS FRAMEWORK OF RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES is shaped by the

conviction that the entire university, as well as each unit, will benefit from an articulation of

“first considerations,” a set of institutional priorities that will clarify and shape our ongoing

decision-making processes.

During periods of budget reduction, it is especially important to place the decision-making

process into the context of several academic and support perspectives, to inform those who

will be responsible and accountable for decisions that will shape the direction of the

university.

The principles described within each perspective are interrelated and complex. No single set

of principles can stand alone. However, taken as a set, these principles outline key

parameters of what we must know and understand to make the best decisions.

Through these sets of fundamental and ongoing institutional principles and perspectives,

administrators, faculty, staff, and students will be better informed and prepared to lead and

manage Michigan State University in ways that will keep it relevant to the needs of the 21^st

century as well as highly regarded among its peers. They will be particularly significant to

those whose advice we solicit and value, and will serve as “sense-making” tools for those

making complex decisions which may require considerable collaboration and compromise.

Coupled with the university’s ongoing processes of institutional- and unit-planning,

program review, performance evaluations, policy development, and academic governance,

this framework or resource management principles is organized to include:

·“First Considerations” for General Fund Budget Management

·“First Considerations” for Overall Resource Management

·The MSU Approach to Resource Management: Planning and Budgeting

·Institutional Context: The Value- and Principle-Based Context for

All Decisions Throughout the Institution