Each year before the Winter Senate Meeting, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) has the chance to address gaps in programs and services and ensure our operational goals still align with our strategic goals, called the Annual Strategic Planning Review (ASPR). The SPC is presented with specific program updates and metrics to determine the effectiveness of current programs. The ASPR focuses on the strategic objectives of the society and what is in the best interest of the society. Then the SPC makes decisions based on data.
With the upcoming governance change, the senate will be asked to take over the main strategic planning responsibilities. Currently the SPC takes a look at the gaps and proposes solutions to our Society level strategic plan. The SPC is made up of some of the SWE Board of Directors (BOD), four senators, the finance committee, and some from SWE headquarters (HQ). The team uses a specific process to address the question, “Where is SWE going in five or more years?
Starting in July, the senate will own the SPC process. Many have questions about what we can do to help the transition to go smoothly. McKinley Advisors can help with that transition and senators from the SPC are returning to serve next year. Keep in mind that the SWE Society Bylaws states that the Senate is a strategic body, so we aren’t really changing, we are going back to what this group was designed for.
How does someone go about determining how SWE can serve our members in the future? Although this sounds like a huge task, SWE has a proven five year process that tackles these big questions one step at a time with the help of McKinley Associates. Goals are set in the first year, and then each year of the process the team tracks programs and services to check for alignment with the goals. We are currently in year four of the five year process.