Finance and Operations Strategic Planning Record
The Strategic Planning Record was created to document goals, strategies, challenges and measures on an on-going basis. This record is intended to provide a framework for planning, understanding, and recognizing our goals, challenges and accomplishments, while moving the organization forward.
The Strategic Planning Record is shaped around four strategic priorities: the organization, finance, service recipients and processes. While the goals may have overlapping priorities, or move from one priority to another, the four priorities will help provide a balanced framework for planning, recording challenges, and reporting progress. Progress will be reflected in qualitative and quantitative measures, utilizing benchmarks and best practices, where appropriate.
- Priority 1) Organizational Vitality: Becoming and remaining a workplace of choice requires a clear vision that enables and empowers the fulfillment of the organization’s mission. Initiatives that contribute to ongoing individual and organizational innovation, invigoration, regeneration, challenge, enthusiasm, learning and growth can be recorded here.
- Priority 2) Financial Stewardship: Maintaining trust, credibility, and accountability is paramount. Initiatives that demonstrate effective stewardship through resource management activities such as asset and debt management; investment; oversight, control and audit functions; risk management; and other initiatives that further cost effectiveness and efficiency (such as budget driven reallocations) can be recorded here.
- Priority 3) Quality of Service: Understanding and assessing the quality of service must incorporate the diverse perspectives of the recipients of the services, including students, employees, Iowa citizens, and other external constituencies. Initiatives that focus on building relationships and partnerships, creating value in services, or developing overall measures of quality of service from the perspective of the customer and others, such as customer satisfaction feedback or surveys, can be recorded here.
- Priority 4) Process Improvement: Continuous quality improvement is basic to good management. Initiatives that can be recorded here include assessing internal and external management structures and delivery mechanisms; implementing appropriate new structures and mechanisms as required; determining which business processes are essential for fulfillment of the organization’s mission, which processes must be improved and how; initiating and implementing changes accordingly, and correspondingly designing appropriate quality assessment tools to monitor and assure excellence.