The Academy Board, with volunteer facilitator Scot Latimer, has been working for the greater part of 2016 on a five-year Strategic Plan. We started by asking the question, “How best can our organization serve our members and the greater community?” We set out to discover our relevance in a crowded field; our distinct competencies and value proposition; the non-negotiable characteristics that define us; and how we can be a primary player and influencer in the field of healthcare design.
The research portion of our discovery process included a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) Analysis by the Board; individual interviews of Board members, non-board members and others in the field; Board discussions; focus groups of members and non-members; literature searches; benchmarking of other boards; and a member survey.
We received an excellent response rate and great feedback from the member survey. (Thanks to all of you who participated!) The largest needs expressed by our members are education and networking. This realization has been the primary force in developing the Strategic Plan.
With our research in hand, we set up four task forces: Initiatives, Connections & Influence, Talent and Governance.
The Initiatives Task Force looked at all the Academy’s activities, to determine which to continue, which to drop, and which to improve. The first outcome was to reclassify “Initiatives” (which was everything we were doing) into “Programs,” “Influence and Relationships” and “Operations.” This change will feed directly into our governance improvements (see below). Most of the Programs will continue, with some regrouping and improvements.
The Connections & Influence Task Force found that we have a lot of work to do to improve our communications. Internally, we need better and more dynamic communications with our members. Externally, we need to better connect to related organizations, to become a larger voice in the healthcare industry and to bring more value to our members.
The Talent Task Force determined that we have a need to update the committee structure and “job description” of volunteers, to make members’ involvement more clear and meaningful. Clarifying the pathway to board membership is also important. Engaging and retaining younger professionals in the Academy’s work will be a focus.
The Governance Task Force aims to realign the Academy Board as a strategic and fiduciary oversight body; this will entail greater empower of committees. Moving more operations activities to support staff will be investigated. Also important is to create and leverage connections with local healthcare components.
Outside of these Task Forces the Academy is developing a way to continuously reinvent itself over the coming years, creating a separate group to envision future practice and desirable connections.
The Academy’s next steps are to formalize and approve the Strategic Plan (scheduled for December), and to develop tactics, priorities and a timeframe for execution.
If you have questions or comments, or would like to be involved in the Academy’s Strategic Plan implementation, please contact aah@aia.org.
Sincerely,
Joan Suchomel, AIA
2016 AAH president