Since its inception, the Office of Strategic Analysis has completed more than 250 projects for clients across Yale University. It has worked extensively with Yale’s graduate and professional schools, Yale College, and Yale’s central administrative units, advising University leaders on important strategic challenges.
To inquire about project scoping with the Office of Strategic Analysis, please contact connor.kerpius@yale.edu.
See below for a few examples of the office’s work.
A professional school at Yale was debating whether to launch a new graduate degree program. Our team analyzed industry trends, labor market demand, and salary benchmarks for potential graduates. In doing so, we determined the program’s value proposition and how a new offering might position the school competitively.
Once the school decided to move forward with the program, we worked with it to establish a steering committee and set up a multi-year workplan, engaging peer institutions to refine our operational insights. Our work helped the school to make an evidence-based decision to launch the new degree program, develop a realistic timeline, and build early momentum toward implementation.
University leaders sought to improve student support in large Yale College lecture courses. Our team used course ratings and enrollment data as well as internal and external interviews to identify places for improvement.
We then created a set of recommendations which included expanding the roles of undergraduate learning assistants (ULAs) and piloting new technology, all with the goal of maximizing individual student learning support. Our client is implementing these new instructional models, and our team is continually engaged in the process of streamlining Yale College’s advising and teaching resources.
An operational unit sought greater effectiveness across a set of independently operating teams. Our team conducted in-depth interviews with leaders from each team to understand their people, processes, and technology. These interviews helped us design a survey which captured how more than 100 staff were performing a set of 30 common tasks.
From this survey, we created a clean, easy-to-use dataset which enabled flexible analysis of task ownership, timing, and tools used across the organization. We also developed a visual map of task distribution, helping leaders quickly see which functions were shared and where roles overlapped. Leaders then identified functions to migrate into a unified team and asked staff members to participate in new trainings and working groups meant to standardize tools and technology across the organization.