Effective planning requires choosing goals, establishing objectives, charting a course, and following that course to realize the objectives. In most cases, the conventional wisdom holds true: failing to plan means planning to fail.
Planning implies a mental predisposition to do things in an orderly way, think before acting, and act in the light of facts rather than guesses. Planning, though, must retain a degree of flexibility. A plan should be a guide, not a rigid form.
For a component to realize its fullest potential, its leaders should develop long- and short-range organizational and financial plans. A component's budget can grow logically out of the planning process and respond to directions set by the planning committee.
Internal/External Considerations
• Throughout the planning process, component leaders should consider both internal and external matters. While it can be useful to consider these areas separately, the goals and procedures established to deal with internal and external matters should be complementary.
• Internal matters involve the character, purpose, structure, and operation of the component organization. Issues such as membership, budget process and format, election procedures, meeting structure, specific services, and office operations fall into this category.
• External matters involve the thinking and philosophy of the membership and the position the component takes on issues, problems, and trends affecting the membership, the profession, and society.
Defining Terms
The planning process can create confusion if everyone does not share the same vocabulary. The following definitions may be useful.
• Goals are relatively long-term intentions or plans that support the founding principles of the component. Stated in broad, general terms, goals cannot be quantitatively measured but should be attainable. A goal is the ultimate long-range end result. Example: "To increase public awareness of the contributions architects make to the community."
• Objectives further define the goals. Narrower in scope and more focused, they suggest the means for achieving a goal. Example: "To develop a comprehensive public-awareness program directed at community leaders, fellow professionals, and the public in general."
• Strategies involve the methods of accomplishing an objective and define the course of action that can be taken. A strategy's success and results can be measured. Example: "To survey local chambers of commerce and compile a list of community business leaders to whom a public awareness campaign should be directed."
• Tactics help realize a strategy through a series of specific actions. Example: "Include community business leaders on magazine/newsletter mailing list."
• Resources include the hours that personnel (paid and volunteer) are available and the funds that are available within the time frame to achieve goals and objectives.
• During its planning process, a component may determine that increasing resources is requisite to achieving some of its goals.
• Tasks are specific, discrete actions that must be undertaken to realize tactics and strategies. Tasks include phone calls, securing speakers, issuing invitations and so on. Tasks should be assigned to appropriate individuals.
Long-Range Planning
Long-range planning enables a component to anticipate problems and changes and to respond positively. Through long-range planning, component leaders can provide continuity and direction from year to year, evaluate and revise programs to ensure relevancy and maintain member interest, and keep pace with changes in the design profession.
Long-Range Planning Task Force
• A long-range planning committee usually consists of seven to twelve members representing the full range of membership interests, concerns, and needs. For continuity, the task force members should have staggered terms. Members might include past officers, current officers, and future leaders such as committee chairs. Often, the president-elect serves as the task force chair. At the state component level, the committee might also include the executive committee.
• A consultant, without a vested interest in the planning process, should be considered to act as a facilitator at the meetings. Components should budget appropriately to cover the costs of a facilitator.
Determining Task Force Charge
The long-range planning committee should have clearly defined responsibilities for what is expected, in what form, and when.
This charge should be in writing and might include the following:
• Review the structure and purpose of the component, referring to the component bylaws
• Formulate goals and objectives for a three-to-five-year period
• Determine strategies and tactics necessary to achieve goals
• Examine feasibility of plans by considering financial resources, human resources, and time necessary to accomplish goals
• Review current plans and programs in light of the goals and make necessary adjustments
• Establish priorities and timetables
• Make specific task assignments to committees, officers, and staff to realize strategies
• Determine a review procedure for an annual evaluation of the component's performance in implementing long-range plans.
Preliminary Data Gathering
• Before a long-range planning task force can determine the future direction of the component, it should assess the component's past and current status. Information that should be useful to analyze includes membership data and trends, the financial history of the component, issues and trends affecting the profession, current and projected economic conditions, and the general growth potential of the component's area.
• If such data is not readily available, formal and informal membership surveys can be undertaken.
The Planning Session
• Once the data is gathered, the task force should review the material and set a time for a meeting. Many components have found intensive weekend sessions to be most productive, while others use a weekend retreat to formulate the basis for a plan, with refinements occurring at later meetings. A task force should understand that proper planning requires time.
• A minimum of eight to twelve working hours is a necessity. Some components invite a small cross section of the membership to attend to ensure that all interests are represented. At the state level, local component presidents and presidents-elect may be invited for an intensive goals session. The results of this meeting may form the basis of action taken by the state long-range planning task force.
Working Agenda
• While brainstorming sessions can produce impressive results, a structured agenda is helpful in organizing the session, covering all the issues, and keeping the meeting on schedule. See Appendix II for an abbreviated outline for a long-range planning meeting.
Brainstorming Session (two hours to half a day)
• Task force members discuss current issues, comment on existing programs, identify needs, and constructively criticize past efforts. This "free" session is necessary to get the issues on the table. The group should aim to generate as many ideas as possible in a short period of time, striving for quantity, not quality. The first rule of brain-storming is that no formal evaluation should occur during the idea-generation period. Building on one another's concepts, however, is desirable.
Goal Session (one to two hours)
During a goal session, also known as a "wish session," task force members set out everything they would like the component to accomplish.
To maintain control and keep the meeting moving, rules similar to those listed below need to be established.
• Devise simple goal statements, not complicated program descriptions.
• Do not discuss details of implementation. Save these matters for a later session.
• Write the goals on a chalk board or flip chart. This process encourages concisely stated goals.
• Group the goals into categories such as "organization," "public awareness," and "professional development."
• Once all the goals are stated, establish a ranking system that assigns a priority value to each goal, for example, 1=highest priority, 2=priority, 3=valuable but can be postponed.
• Reevaluate resources to meet prioritized goals.
Strategy Session (four hours or longer)
• Evaluate the top five goals in each area in terms of current and anticipated resources. In each goal area, list the needed financial resources, time frame, and personnel (paid and volunteer). Discuss methods to reach the goals. Do not attempt to delineate all the details in this session. If some goals do not seem achievable given available resources, seek alternatives.
Implementation Session (one to two hours)
You are now in position to pull your plans together.
• Establish policies and procedures for action.
• Make assignments. While the planning task force may not have the authority to create new task forces or give existing task forces new tasks or charges, it can make recommendations to the president or executive committee.
• Outline review, reporting, and evaluation methods.
• Establish timetables for implementation.
The Final Planning Reports
• Either at the end of the planning session or immediately afterward, a report of recommendations and actions should be prepared. The task force may appoint one member to write and edit the report, or it may assign to several members sections or topics that will then be compiled and edited by one individual.
• Submit the long-range planning report to the board or executive committee. All long-range plans should be reviewed by the board or executive committee for comments or additions. The board should formally adopt the report and present it to the general membership.
• Issue the final long-range planning report to component members. After the report passes through the necessary approval channels, the plans should be shared with the general membership. A component might publish the report as a separate document and mail it to all members, publish it or summarize the key points in its newsletter or magazine, or present and distribute the report at a component meeting.
Implementation
• Based on the recommendations of the planning task force, the board can begin acting on the plan by reviewing the charges of the existing committees and revising them as needed, instituting new committees or task forces as needed, or assigning responsibilities to the component staff.
• The plan should be reviewed periodically by the board and adjustments made to reflect the component's achievements, based on human and financial resources and time limitations.
Short-Range Planning
• Short-range planning should grow logically out of long-range planning. Essentially, a short-range plan provides the operating framework for the year to come.
The Short-range Planning Task Force
Ideally, the short-range planning task force first reviews the long-range plans, determining the priorities for the coming year and gauging what can actually be accomplished. The president-elect may add specific goals that he or she would like to see achieved while president. The short-range planning process therefore results in a calendar of events, activities, and programs for the coming year.
As an action-initiating group, a short-range planning task force enjoys the opportunity:
• To identify conditions or problems in the component that can be improved, enhanced, or eliminated
• To identify the players to be responsible for the changes.
The chair of this planning task force might keep in mind that:
• Most of the plans that are fully realized are those built by the people responsible for their implementation
• Planners work best if they are not inhibited by time-consuming paperwork and can concentrate on the issues. Staff should be responsible for assembling and providing the necessary data.
• Planning implies a commitment to the future best realized by committee members whose practices and perspectives are growing
• Only a limited number of objectives, strategies, or tactics can be implemented in a given year; planners should weigh their ambitions within the known limitations of time and resources.
Critical Short-range Planning Questions
Based on the principles above, task force members and staff can begin to answer five central questions:
1. Where are we now? (The situation)
2. How did we get here? (Our momentum)
3. Where are we going? (Momentum, direction)
4. Where should we be going? (Desired direction)
5. How will we get there? (Strategies).
Additional activities of the Short-range Planning Task Force may include
• Evaluating existing committees
• Reviewing the success of existing activities and programs
• Analyzing financial resources
• Analyzing the level of member involvement or staff time to determine available personnel force
• Developing measurable objectives for specific programs and activities and recommending methods for implementing them
• Creating a timetable for events and activities
• Recommending reporting procedures (written or oral, weekly or monthly) to ensure that projects stay on track
• Creating an evaluation process.
Look Out for the Activities Trap
• Many organizations confuse activities with goals and objectives, thereby losing sight of the underlying purpose for these activities. Year after year, the same activities can be scheduled with little or no assessment of their effectiveness or relevance. Lack of genuine goals and objectives can leave an organization with little direction and vulnerable to the charge that it is unresponsive to the needs and concerns of its members.
Budget
A budget expresses in monetary terms the planned operations of a component. Properly designed, a budget is enabling rather than restricting. It projects income and expenditures based on past experience, current objectives, and the existing financial status of the component. New programs and plans must be translated into monetary terms, and these in turn should be evaluated with existing programs in relation to the financial resources of the component.
Since a budget is a projection, those responsible for preparing the budget should carefully analyze whether current and future sources of income are likely to increase or decrease, and whether projected expenditures adequately reflect inflationary tendencies or unforeseen conditions. A component's annual balance sheet and monthly income/expense report can be important tools in planning the annual budget. The program committee's reports and plans also should prove central to formulating a fair, workable budget.
Why budget? Careful budgeting is essential for several reasons:
• A budget provides an important planning tool for the future
• A budget offers a means of tracking cash flow and cash requirements
• A budget can be essential for auditing purposes.
Ask the following questions during the budgetary process:
• Why is money spent on this activity?
• Are current programs meeting long-range goals?
• What other approaches could meet goals or lower costs?
• How beneficial is this project to members? How many members does it reach?
• Are any existing programs or services provided more effectively by another source?
Bylaws may require a component to maintain a balanced budget and not incur debts. In addition, it is usually desirable to summarize and disseminate the year's projected expenditure budget. Objectives of each activity or program can be stated and necessary resources listed.
Authorization for Expenditures
• The board of directors usually has final authority for approving a budget and shares the responsibility for administering it with committee chairs or component staff. Once funds have been allocated, the chairs also have the responsibility for spending those funds wisely and in accordance with the budgetary guidelines. This policy may include a formal procedure for prior approval of committee expenditures by the component president or staff.
Budget Methods and Formats
Budget preparation methods and formats vary from component to component. There are three common types of budgeting.
Zero-based Budgeting
• In this system, the budget committee sets a minimum level of expenditure (and when applicable, staff support) to retain essential programs as a starting point. This determination is generally identified as the top priority.
• Resources required to continue administering all existing programs at their current level become a mid-scale priority, and the cost of adding new programs or expanding services is assigned the lowest priority. All priorities then are ranked on a single scale, and low priority items are eliminated, if necessary, based on revenue levels.
Incremental Budgeting
• In this system, the budget committee begins with the current year's budget and makes additions to certain line items or maintains the line item at the current level.
• Although convenient, this method sometimes can produce a balloon effect: expenditures can increase each year without an evaluation of the reason for additional expenditures, or without an examination of the success of the programs.
Programmatic Budgeting
• When using this approach, a budget committee analyzes a program's true cost and assigns overhead expenses to the program's direct cost. Personnel time, income and expenses in each program area are isolated and identified, allowing a close look at each function. Such analysis quickly identifies areas that make or lose money and save or consume staff time.
• Funding approval therefore can rest on the benefits of a program or item in relationship to its costs. AIA headquarters uses a programmatic budget, and a number of components have adopted this method.