Back to Prep Stanford GPS Goal Planning 2026/27 — Skeleton

Stanford GPS Goal Planning 2026/27 — Skeleton

Reuben Thiessen, Emerging Technology Lead, SAL

Status: First-pass skeleton for the next 12 months (≈Aug 2026 – Aug 2027). New-but-related to 2025-26 — each goal carries forward a thread from last year but with a new verb and shape. All SMART goals are framed against actions in my control. Outcomes that depend on partners or stakeholders are surfaced separately as Indicators, not as goal criteria.

Built from: May 14 1:1 framing (R/R/R as guiding grammar; Robustness as the through-line for the year ahead) + the May 20 retrospective’s three growth areas + active Q1 2026 work.

Through-line

The retrospective named three growth areas. Each becomes the spine of one or two goals:

  • Writing the work down → Goal 1
  • Operationalizing the repeatable-offerings idea + the TTT discipline → Goals 2 and 3
  • Continuing to be a sustainable, mentorable presence → Goal 4

R/R/R appears throughout in the Big Pictures and Experiments rather than serving as a separate spine.

26-27 Goals

Goal 1: Build a Sustained Writing and Publishing Practice

Category: Communication/Professional Development Aligned Competencies: Communication, Develops Self & Others Big Picture: The retrospective named the gap directly — more than ten strategic consultations happened in 2025-26 and none of them turned into publishable artifacts. The writing habit itself was the constraint. This year’s work is to build the practice: monthly writing block, a piece shipped every month regardless of length, and quarterly submissions to external venues. Success is measured on whether the writing happens, not on whether it gets picked up.

Tiny Experiments:

  • Calendar-protected 2-hour writing block on the first Wednesday of each month, before the week fills.
  • Use the TTT playbook (reference/building-a-train-the-trainer-project.md) as the canonical voice/structure reference for future documentation work.
  • “Strip the IT-guy” framing — every piece explicitly names a strategic move and uses technical detail only as supporting evidence.
  • Keep a single running list of half-finished pieces; pull from it when the writing block lands rather than starting fresh every month.

SMART Goal (in my control): By August 2027, I will have held the monthly 2-hour writing block in 10 of 12 months, shipped one written draft per month for the year (12 total, any length), and submitted at least 4 of those drafts to external publication or talk venues — measured on submission, not acceptance, because acceptance is not in my control.

Indicators (not in my control, watched separately):

  • How many of the 4 external submissions land.
  • Whether internal pieces get circulated by Josh, Joe, or Isabelle.
  • Whether any piece gets cited or referenced in someone else’s work.

Goal 2: Build the Documented Studio Offerings Catalog

Category: Operational/Development Aligned Competencies: Creativity and Innovation, Develops Self & Others Big Picture: “Repeatable Studio service offerings” was the wrap-up item from the May 26 end-of-month meeting (Fizzy #114). The TTT playbook is the first one written and the proof-of-concept that the format works. This year’s goal is to produce the catalog itself — at least three more offerings documented in the same shape — so that when a partner asks “what does the Studio actually do,” there is a documented answer that Joe and Darcy can hand to them without me in the room.

Tiny Experiments:

  • One new offering documented per quarter, using the TTT playbook structure as the template (readiness criteria, kit, pipeline, cadence, sustain mechanics, common pitfalls).
  • Use real partner intake conversations as test inputs — does the catalog entry hold up when someone asks about it cold?
  • Annual catalog review at the GPS quarterly check — deprecate offerings that didn’t carry; add ones the year surfaced.
  • File each offering at reference/offerings/<name>.md with a uniform header so the catalog can be assembled from the directory.

SMART Goal (in my control): By August 2027, I will have produced a Studio Offerings Catalog containing at least 4 documented offerings (the TTT playbook plus 3 more — leading candidates: Strategic Consultation Engagement, Flash Lab Partnership, Prototyping Sprint, Offline AI Playground / webllm), each following the same structural template, and I will have used the catalog as the reference document in at least 6 of my own partner-intake conversations across the year.

Indicators (not in my control, watched separately):

  • Whether Joe or Darcy actually adopt the catalog in their own intake conversations.
  • Whether any catalog entry gets picked up by another GSE program or referenced externally.
  • Whether the catalog produces a measurable change in how partner conversations open.

Goal 3: Develop the Quality-Control Craft for Train-the-Trainer Programs

Category: Technical/Strategic Leadership Aligned Competencies: Vision and Strategy, Leading Change Big Picture: The TTT playbook calls for a quality-control system — a written standard, a competence check before independence, asynchronous signal collection, and a periodic refresh. None of those exist yet for Build-a-Bot. This year’s goal is to build the QC craft as a discipline I can teach, starting with Build-a-Bot as the first concrete instance. The work is to produce the documents and run the experiments, not to certify any specific number of facilitators.

Tiny Experiments:

  • Draft the written quality-control standard for Build-a-Bot (the document the playbook says is the precondition for everything else).
  • Run the recorded-session async review experiment with 2-3 existing facilitators in Q1 — does the asynchronous signal collection idea hold up at low cost?
  • Pilot the competence-check gate at Phase 4 for one new facilitator before they go independent.
  • Document each QC experiment as it runs — what worked, what didn’t, what the standard had to be revised to.

SMART Goal (in my control): By August 2027, I will have shipped a documented quality-control standard for Build-a-Bot, run the recorded-session async review process with at least 3 facilitators (and written up what the experiment showed), piloted the Phase 4 competence-check gate with at least one new facilitator, and produced an annual QC retrospective documenting what the year’s experiments taught me about whether this craft transfers to other Studio TTT programs.

Indicators (not in my control, watched separately):

  • Whether quality signal actually improves (depends on facilitators).
  • Whether the ISTE partnership ends up adopting the QC standard.
  • Whether the CRISPRkit Ambassador program (if it runs) uses the QC standard from day one.
  • Whether the licensing economics around TTT clear any specific revenue threshold — out of my control entirely.

Goal 4: Mature the Sustainable Leadership Practice into a Teachable Frame

Category: Wellness/Professional Development Aligned Competencies: Positivity and Resilience, Emotional Intelligence Big Picture: Year 3 held the three routines (physical, reflective, mental). Year 4’s work is to keep them, add the calendar/project-management discipline as a fourth leg, and make the underlying frame — Personal Logic Model, capacity analyses, weekly review — visible enough that it could be picked up by someone else. The retrospective named the identity shift Josh fed back (“not just an IT guy — relationship writer”); the way to honor that is to teach the practice, not just hold it.

Tiny Experiments:

  • Continue the Fuhrman + 2 mi/day pattern; weekly weigh-in as the light-touch signal.
  • Quarterly capacity analyses continuing the Jan/Mar 2026 pattern (next: Jul 2026, Oct 2026, Jan 2027, Apr 2027).
  • “Calendar surgery” once per quarter — protected focus block, weekly review, and writing block placed onto next quarter’s calendar before it fills.
  • Share the Personal Logic Model as a teaching artifact in one structured conversation per quarter — with Josh, a junior colleague, a seed grantee struggling with scope, or someone else where the framing might travel.
  • Continue last year’s “Let me check my capacity and get back to you” reflex — one explicit use per week minimum.

SMART Goal (in my control): By August 2027, I will have held the four sustainable routines (physical, reflective, mental, calendar/project-management) on a weekly cadence for 80%+ of the year as recorded in my own logs, completed all four quarterly capacity analyses (Jul / Oct / Jan / Apr), conducted four “Personal Logic Model as teaching artifact” conversations (one per quarter), and completed the annual logic-model review with Josh.

Indicators (not in my control, watched separately):

  • Whether the people I share the Logic Model with adopt or adapt any of it.
  • Whether the Studio team starts referencing the framework in its own conversations.
  • Whether the practice produces measurable changes in how I show up — body weight, energy, written reflection quality.

Open questions for today’s 1:1

  1. Are these the four right goals? Each is new-but-related to a 2025-26 goal: writing practice (← documentation/communication), offerings catalog (← repeatable scaling), QC craft (← scalable capacity), teachable sustainable practice (← sustainable leadership). Right shape?
  2. In-control framing. Every SMART goal is measured on actions I take, not on outcomes others have to produce. Indicators are surfaced separately. Does that read as appropriately ambitious to Josh, or as too defensive?
  3. R/R/R as integrated grammar vs. quarterly theme rotation. The skeleton goes with integration. Josh floated theme rotation at May 14. Confirm.
  4. Time/Project Management as a category. May 14 named it as the fourth category. Here it lives inside Goal 4 (“calendar/project-management” as the fourth routine). Split out, or kept folded in?
  5. Who else sees this. Retrospective goes to Joanna. Forward plan — Reuben↔Josh only, or shared more broadly?
  6. Title / comp / TPM hire. Deferred at May 14. Named here, or kept parked?

Drafted: 2026-05-28 morning. New-but-related to 2025-26, framed against actions in my control. SMART goals are measured on what I do; outcomes that depend on partners or stakeholders are watched as separate indicators.

Source: prep/2026-05-28-gps-forward-plan-skeleton.md