Yesterday afternoon, members, leadership and staff of NRPA gathered for a presentation and discussion about the Structure of NRPA as an association (as it differs from an agency or public business model) and the FY11-13 Strategic Plan which will be put forth to the NRPA Board of Trustees at the annual board meeting on Saturday.
The Strategic Plan that is adopted on Saturday will become effective on July 1, 2010 and will guide the Association's direction and priorities for the next three fiscal years, ending June 30, 2013.
There was a great turn out for the Structure & Strategy session and members engaged in asking insightful questions both about the structure of the association and about the details of the Strategic Plan.
If you missed the session, you can view the presentation by downloading the Power Point below:
Download NRPA Overview - Structure & Strategy 10-14-2009
Some key questions that came up ...
"The Plan looks great - if not a bit aggressive - does NRPA have a 'plan' to implement the Plan?"
In years past, the final version of the annual strategic plan would include not just the Goals and Objectives that are published in the current plan, but also a detail of Strategies and Tactics to describe how those Goals and Objectives will be carried out. This year, as we've gone to a true, fixed three-year plan, that model would not provide the flexibility required to adapt to the changing environment - what we we believe to be the best way to achieve the goal today, could be obsolete in 9 months, and our successes will come through our ability to innovate through those situations, not be restricted by pre-set Strategies and Tactics.
The Association's solution for this was to create a Business Plan - an internal staff document - as a companion to the Strategic Plan which articulates the measurable outcomes and strategies to accomplish to goals over three years. The business plan, because it is an internal document, can be changed as needed to adapt to emerging priorities while still supporting the Strategic Goals and Objectives.
"How do we ask questions or offer suggestions at this point if we have an idea about achieving an objective - like on growing membership or engaging students and citizens?"
The vehicles to engage with NRPA and with your peers in membership and the field will rapidly expand through the professional networking areas of the new NRPA website. Initially, this blog is a good place to offer and exchange ideas about the Strategic Plan by using the comments feature below - ultimately, the content for the Strategic Planning Blog will be incorporated into the NRPA website and professional networking area, allowing for a more fluid dialog and exchange of ideas in these topics, so check it out and stay tuned!
There were other great questions at the session... if you were there and would like to share your thoughts, please leave a comment below. If you were not able to make it and have a question of your own, you can use the comment section below for that as well.
Thank you, again, for everyone who contributed comments to the development of this new three-year Strategic Plan over the last year and to those who participated in the dialog yesterday!
We look forward to hearing from you in the future!