Strategic Planning
Leadership Training
April 6, 2014
Tony van der Vooren P.Eng, Ph.D., QEP
AMEC Americas Ltd
tony.vandervooren@amec.com
Why Strategic Planning?
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road
will get your there”
Lewis Carroll
“Typical” Planning Process
Member
Surveys
Other
Stuff
Comments
on Plan
Board
Surveys
Planning Committee
Strategic
Plan
Ad Hoc
Input
“Hit & Miss”
Corporate
Memory
Change
Internal
Trend
Data
External
Trend
Data
Increased
Member
Value
Board of Directors
Committees
Councils
Exec Director
Annual Operational
Plan
Survival
A Better Planning Process for A&WMA
Internal/External
Trends & Events
Survey Data
Councils
&
Committees
Focused
Board
Generated Strategic
Plan & Vision
Board
Commissioned Recommendations
Task Forces
Board of
Directors
Decisions
Envisioned
Future
Member Value
&
Growth
Board
Commissioned
Special Projects
Actions
Financial Stability
Annual Review & Periodic Update
ED’s
Annual
Operational
Plan
What is this thing we are doing?
Strategic Planning is about the leadership team
coming to consensus about what will
constitute success over several time periods in
the future:
Establish a clear direction
Guide the allocation of resources
Focus and alignment
What is it?
• It is not an operational plan – what the
organization is currently doing and wants to
continue.
• It is a roadmap to change:
It is about what you are not doing today, and
need to be doing in the future to sustain
success.
It is about what you are doing today, and
need to be doing different in the future to
sustain success.
Why are we doing?
Brings focus to:
Serving our membership
Financial solvency
Keeping pace with
technology
Vibrancy of the section
Four Planning Horizons
10 - 30 Year Planning
Vision:
Core
Core Ideology
Ideology
Core
CorePurpose
Purpose
CoreValues
Values
Core
Envisioned Future:
To Stimulate Progress
Big Audacious Goal
5 - 10 Years:
Critical
Assumptions
3 - 5 Years:
Strategic Planning
Goals
Objectives
Strategies
Assumptions about
the Future
Vivid Description
Annual
Operational
Plan
Annual Strategic
Plan Review
Priority
Setting
Mega Issues
Branding
1 - 2 Years:
Organizational
Focus
Strategic Choices
Knowledge Based Decision-Making
Action
Planning
copyright 199
Tecker Consultants, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Delivering Value to Members..
Associations have to identify and sustain the
right balance between membership and
marketplace
Capitalize on
product and
service in a
competitive
marketplace
Preserving the
unique nature
and culture of
the Association
Key Strategies for Associations
What We MUST do to
• Maintain our identity as a community (and not
just as a “vendor” of services)
• Focus on our core
Core Purpose
• Guides the organization in all activities
• Provides a sense of purpose
• Will not change, even when other things around
them change
• Unifies the organization
• Exists for the long term..10 to 30 years (or since
1907?)
Core Purpose
• 3M: To solve unsolved problems innovatively.
• Merck: To preserve and improve human life
• Nike: To experience the emotion of competition,
winning and crushing competitors
• Wal-Mart: To give ordinary folks the chance to
buy the same things as rich people
• Walt Disney: To make people happy
A&WMA Core Purpose
To improve environmental knowledge and
decisions by providing a neutral forum for
exchanging information
To be the global organization for the
exchange of environmental knowledge,
ideas, and solutions.”
Core Values
•
•
•
•
•
•
Essential to the organization
Set of guiding principles
Intrinsic value
Seldom change
“Organizational Glue”
Defines what we stand for
Some examples:
• 3M:
▫
▫
▫
▫
Absolute integrity
Respect for individual
Initiative and personal growth
Tolerance for honest mistakes
• Merck
▫ Corporate social responsibility
▫ Unequivocal excellence in all aspects of the
company
▫ Science based information
▫ Profit, but profit from work that benefits humanity
Examples (cont’d)
• Walt Disney
▫ No cynicism
▫ Nurturing and promulgation of “wholesome American
values”
▫ Creativity, dreams; and imagination
▫ Fanatical attention to consistency and detail
▫ Preservation and control of Disney magic
A&WMA Core Values
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Environmental responsibility
Ethical behavior
Professional
Open Communication
Quality service and products
Life-long learning
Trustworthiness
Mutual Respect
Communication
Communication
From There
External Assumptions
MEGA Issues
Goals
Strategies
Next Steps
•
•
•
•
•
•
Review/revise the External assumptions
Review/revise Mega Issues
Review Goals
Review/revise strategies
Prioritize
Implementation!
External Issues:
Professional Structure and Competition:
• There will continue to be a decline of employer support for professional
development.
• There will be a decline in technical engineering students.
• Environmental risk identification continues to grow.
• Public perception of environmental issues will continue to be media driven and
sensationalized.
• There will continue to be a climate change shift to adaptation versus mitigation.
• Waste is shifting from disposal to alternate methods.
• The marketing and use of energy globally will continue to change.
• There will continue to be the need for “cross-pollination” of air, waste, water,
knowledge and the inclusion of health and safety will increase.
•
External Issues:
Global Business and Economic Climate:
• There will continue to be slow economic growth in 2014-15, but renewed growth will
take place in 2016.
• Environmental spending will remain flat or decline in emerging markets.
• There will be continued pressure of the use of coal in the U.S., but global coal use will
increase.
• Wind and solar will increase and the use of biofuels will decrease globally.
• Currency markets will remain volatile.
• U.S. oil and gas production will increase
.
External Issues:
Legislation and Regulation:
• Global climate change and adaptations will grow in importance.
• The global water supply will continue to be a challenge and regulating water use will
increase.
• Increased U.S. regulation will drive the creation and use of new technologies.
• There will be increased regulation on e-waste.
• The air and waste industries will increasingly depend on international and country
regulations.
• U.S. will continue to be in turmoil due to litigation causing uncertainty for industry
and difficulty in planning. All U.S. regulations will be litigated.
• Increased local and regional regulations will cause disparity with national
regulations.
• Sustainable practices and reporting will drive corporate business.
• Manufactures will continue to be responsible for upstream and downstream
performance.
• Political and regulatory uncertainty impedes businesses’ ability to plan, therefore,
their willingness to invest.
External Issues:
Demographics and Social Values:
• There is an increasing need for young professionals to participate in the association
due to retirements.
• Some aging professionals will be unable to retire.
• Time and financial constraints will continue to impact home and work balance.
• Employers will increasingly hire temporary workers and contractors rather than
career employees.
• Increasingly, less qualified/non-specialists will be given greater responsibility.
• The public will increasingly expect organizations to be socially responsible.
• Online networking will increase.
• There is a growing expectation that content will always be up-to-date and available
24/7.
• The public’s concern about environmental issues will continue to increase.
External Issues:
Technology and Science:
• Technology will continue to advance outside of academia (i.e. industry) (e.g. data
security, cloud computing).
• Technology will advance more quickly than annually; current ideas will be outdated
more quickly.
• Our ability to sense/measure will continue to outpace our ability to interpret.
• Technology will outpace policy and regulation.
• “Intelligent clustering” continues to drive technological advancement.
• Environmental work will continue to be integrated and cross disciplines.
• Technological advancements will continue to create uncertainties in health and
safety.
• The advancements in searching technology will increasing affect the relevance of peer
reviewed journals.
• Technology transfer outside North America will happen more frequently.
• Technology development and leadership will increasingly happen outside of North
America.
• There will be an increasing loss of intellectual property in the global economy.
• Society is increasingly aware of technology and its potential implications.
• Process redesign and prevention are more important leading to innovation.
External Issues:
Implications of Assumptions:
• What is the right balance between being known as a “generalist” versus responding to
specialty content?
• Should we be more “open source?”
• Future role in “public awareness” of technology advances/changes?
• Greater need for flexibility responsiveness in content, structure, distribution
• How should we distribute content?
• How should we respond to a loss of expertise, historical knowledge, and connections
due to demographic changes (retirements, etc.)?
• Continued importance of our role as analyzing and communicating information
• Members roles and responsibilities are evolving; increased holistic views and
increased specialty information
• Continued need for convening professionals with multiple views and experiences
• It will be more difficult for members to convene
• What is our future role in “social responsibility
Mega Issues
1.
What types of training would be most helpful for specialists (plant manager, permit writer, r & d
specialist) who find themselves promoted to a multi media (air-water, solid waste, wastewater,
safety) position?
2. How can international association promote sectional events and use them to attract a wider
geographic audience? Could these events replace international events or are topics regional in
nature?
3. What is the need for A&WMA, given other trade organizations in the environmental field?
4. Are we adding unique value?
5. Should we retreat to “air” as a core competency?
6. Is expanding to multi-media/sustainability and beyond realistic?
7. How should A&WMA deal with reducing financial resources for environmental professionals to
pay for participation in A&WMA events/programs?
8. Is there fundamentally a market for A&WMA in the association “pie.” If it is agreed yes, then is
membership the right ROI?
9. How can we afford to do the things we want to do?
10. How do we assist in providing mentorship so young professionals can succeed?
11. How does the profession deal with retiring expertise and knowledge?
Mega Issues
12. How do we deal with the reduction in support for travel when face to face networking continues
to be important?
13. What replaces trade shows for vendor connections/contacts and does A&WMA play a role?
14. How will the Association handle students in the next 2 – 3 years? Will they still be recruited?
Will they be considered more of a customer?
15. Has there been any consideration for having a smaller “academia: focused conference?
16. How should the Association handle the inability of federal government employees to travel to our
meetings?
17. How can we engage industry into Association activities and increase their active participation?
18. How can our infrastructure be changed so our ability to produce content and delivery
mechanisms is improved?
19. How do we include/mange the sustainability or supply chain environmental work that includes
air and waste but is broader than our core purpose?
20. How do we build/maintain vibrancy and energy on the international Board?
21. How should the Association engage 3/4th of the current members who are not engaged and most
at risk of leaving?
22. We seem to be comfortable with lower membership. What changes are needed to maintain
financial stability at reduced revenue?
Mega Issues
23. What should the Association do to become one aligned organization under one broad versus
disparate local organizations that see little value in the international organization?
24. What is the optimal membership level? How do we balance between membership and
customers?
25. How does the organization scale operational and fiscal practices to handle a dynamic
membership?
26. At what point does the organization cease trying to adapt to each changing member need and
focus on the core?
27. What is the mechanism for grooming leadership within a dysfunctional membership?
28. How should the Association deal with “local membership?”
29. How should the Association deal with student members, student chapters, faculty who help us
recruit students?
30. How do we deal with support for graduate students going forward? Do/can we make the
professors and students who leave customers?
Mega Issues:
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
How to communicate Association values to Sections and Chapters without alienating locals?
What are the best practices to improve communication between local units and the Board?
How to communicate this out to the local units?
Eliminate Councils and Committees and do a total reorganization, start clean.
Need to sell to customers and give members more free content.
Focus Board selection on quality and not other criteria
Goals..what do we want?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Students and student chapters
Young Professionals
Bringing in the regulators
Bringing in Industry
Succession Planning
???
???
Strategies – Goal A, B, C and D
Done by developing:
Strategies
Milestones
What will we do?
Who will do it?
When will they be done?
What will it cost?
Metrics (both success and failure)?
How have we done?
Do we need to adjust?
This will be our roadmap of the future
The Process
• From here:
• Develop “strategies” for each Goal
• “split” the strategies into:
▫ Just do them
▫ Task Group or other
• Prioritize the strategies (3 or 4 per year)
Strategies (Actions)
Describe how the Organization will commit its
resources to accomplishing work toward the goal.
Serve as a link from long-term planning to annual
planning.
Become part of the budgeting process.
Set accountability and strategic priorities for
employees.
Goal 1: Industry and Regulators
• Goal: Industry and regulators effectively
engaged in A&WMA activities
•
• Objectives:
▫ Improve alignment of industry and regulator needs and content
▫ Enhance delivery of content
▫ Improve effectiveness of communications to industry and
regulators
▫ Increase industry and regulator participation at all levels
Goal 2: Balanced Global Ideas
• Goal: Parties seek out A&WMA for a balanced
exchange of global environmental information,
knowledge, ideas, and solutions
•
• Objectives:
▫ Improve balance between the number of theoretical and
applied/solutions at Association events
▫ Improve availability and interpretation of global information,
knowledge, ideas, and solutions
Goal 3:Strategic Relationships
• Goal: Professionals and organizations engage in
A&WMA as their gateway for strategic
relationships
• Objectives:
▫ Improve the effectiveness of tools for strategic
relationships
▫ Increase the proportion of interactive programming
▫ Enhance the collaboration with partner organizations
Work Group Reports
Product/Service Portfolio Review
Discontinue
Deemphasize
Enhance/Improve
New
An Annual Review and Update of the Strategic Plan
Five Key Questions
1.
To what extent have the plan’s milestones been achieved?
2.
Are we satisfied with the plan’s progress?
3.
Has anything changed in the external assumptions?
4.
What has been experienced in executing the plan’s strategies?
5.
Based on the answers to the above questions, what if any part of
the plan, needs to be changed?