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The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) |
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Plexus Consulting Group, LLC |
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Vital Stats: The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) is a professional, scientific society of more than 11,500 pharmaceutical scientists employed in academia, industry, government and other research institutes worldwide.
The Challenge | The Solution | The Process | Unintended Consequences | Measurements & Results | Lessons Learned
How to implement the association's strategic vision and to tap its unrealized potential? When Executive Director Jack Cox joined AAPS in 1995, the association's strategic planning committee and governing Executive Council had embarked on an internal exercise known as Vision 2020. The purpose of Vision 2020 was to create a strategic vision for AAPS, looking backwards from the year 2020. While the plan set lofty goals, it lacked the tactical machinery that would enable AAPS staff to achieve those goals. How could AAPS empower its staff to implement the leadership's vision and introduce staff initiatives, programs, products and services?
Introduced tactical business planning to enable staff to implement the association's strategy and vision. To move AAPS forward, Cox introduced a model for tactical business planning, outlined in Professional Practices in Association Management. Essentially, AAPS' tactical planning process involved identifying challenges facing the organization and barriers that stand in the way of realizing the association's potential. AAPS took stock of the association's key audiences, services and delivery vehicles, and created a broad matrix of opportunities, one "giant deliverable", which encompassed specific tactical steps for achieving the strategic vision behind each program.
"Creating high-yield road maps." To realize AAPS' strategic vision, Cox and his staff implemented a tactical planning model in the steps outlined below. First, AAPS conducted a situation analysis in 1996, which involved reviewing every function in every area. AAPS realigned, reassigned or discarded many of these functions, and decided to implement others. Next, staff set about designing the tactical plan. Step 1 - Goal-Setting While the leadership's vision had been clearly articulated, would AAPS be able to reach for possibilities the leaders never contemplated? According to Cox, "there are no bad ideas. Most often, it is the blue-sky-idea, the thought from left field, that allows you to break out of the box." In this phase, staff members brainstormed "blue-sky-ideas," reached for "low-hanging fruit," gained early buy-in from stakeholders and the association's leadership. Also, AAPS set about establishing a calendar by function with staff responsibilities clearly defined for various goals, and a timeline for deliverables. Step 2 - Barriers Identification Second, AAPS staff identified both internal and external barriers. For example, typical barriers and obstacles include:
Step 3 - Key Audience Identification On average, a typical association plan will identify anywhere from six to eight audiences. During this phase of the process, AAPS staff identified 79 audiences for existing or potential programs, products, benefits or services, in several major categories, including media, government, other nonprofits, foundations, etc. While this is astounding in itself, Cox has seen one association identify 244 audiences in 14 major categories. Step 4 - Vehicles Identification According to Cox, "associations regularly underestimate the number, breadth, and range of vehicles and tactics for reaching their intended audiences." At this point, staff members began to identify vehicles to reach the association's target audiences. On its first attempt, AAPS staff identified 99 vehicles, including:
Step 5 - Opportunities Matrix Once AAPS set goals and objectives, identified barriers to overcome, identified audiences and the vehicles needed to reach them, it created an opportunities matrix by matching audiences to vehicles (tactics). With audiences listed on one axis and vehicles listed on another, AAPS filled the grid of the matrix with contacts and activities. A critical element of this phase involves a "multiplier effect." Some vehicles reach only one audience, while others will reach all, and some audiences are always key while others have value only once or twice. By identifying who is to be targeted, when and with what vehicle, an association can obtain multiple vehicle hits with various target publics, producing results disproportionate with efforts. Step 6 - Scheduling In the sixth phase, staff calendared out all ongoing or initial launch and completion dates for every goal in the plan, and assigned functional responsibility to each. Whereas tactical plans succeed because they have identifiable deliverables at specific intervals, strategic plans are usually concept documents that come to rest, "if not full stop -- at the concept level." Step 7 - Budget In phase seven, a column was added to the right of the opportunity matrix, indicating the economic impact of every action being scheduled. According to Cox, "no plan will succeed that hasn't defined the financial and staff resources required to accomplish it. Otherwise, it's just a big time-consuming wish list." Step 8 - Periodic Evaluation Finally, the most important step in successful tactical business planning involves periodic evaluation. At this stage, AAPS staff built-in "temperature checks" at very specific intervals to assess plan progress, allowing for essential mid-course corrections. This provided the opportunity to add, drop, change, and measure progress on desired actions, keeping the staff and stakeholders involved in all the outcomes.
When AAPS embarked on the tactical planning model, the following challenges emerged to a greater degree than management originally anticipated:
It proved difficult to overcome entrenched territoriality within
the organization. While some people thrive on change and view it as
an opportunity to grow, others resist it. The business planning process
helped to transform AAPS into a higher speed, higher yield organization,
and resulted in staff attrition. AAPS' management found it difficult
to convince some staff members that the purpose of implementing the
tactical business planning model is not only to enhance the success
of the organization overall but to enhance the success of each individual
participating in the process.
"The process can be gut-wrenching but the yield is enormous." As a result of implementing AAPS' initial three tactical plans, starting
in the first quarter of 1997, the association identified 84 action
steps, which yielded 48 new programs, products, benefits and member
services in 36 months. This amounted to a new benefit introduced every
three-and a-half weeks for three years. In five fiscal years, AAPS
went from a small to a mid-size to a large association. The results
exceeded the fondest hopes, expectations, and dreams of the stakeholders
who created the "high-yield roadmaps." Some of the successes achieved include:
"The only limits here are self-imposed. Tactical planning should be implemented in every organization sooner rather than later." Several key lessons emerged from AAPS' experience:
One key lesson involved learning how to embrace program failure and "move on." There are times when not everything works and in one instance, Cox refused to sugar coat an event that did not succeed. AAPS management and staff learned more about their members as a result of this experience. Moreover, they learned that "not everything is going to be a blockbuster." It is important to acknowledge, without seeking to place blame, that a program can still "tank" although everyone has given the initiative a best effort. By enshrining the tactical planning process as a "by staff and
for staff" initiative, it becomes much easier to obtain buy in
and to proceed effectively without injecting broader organizational
politics into the mix. While change can be threatening, the new strengths
realized in the process speak volumes. From increased workshop and
annual meeting attendance to increased membership figures, the tactical
planning process has resulted in many collateral and intertwined benefits
driven throughout every aspect of AAPS' internal and external operations.
According to Cox, "the rising tide raises all boats." |
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