a very fast Friday
Today, of course, included more meetings. My first formal meeting was the SAC/DAC meeting at 1, followed by the SAC meeting. I was an observer rather than a participant this time. This meant that all that I had to do was stay awake and take notes. So far, I have done a good job staying awake in everything - always a challenge in meetings.
The joint SAC/DAC meeting was fairly short. Ron Atkinson commented on the work the board did on "going international," stating that SAC should be the geographic representation worldwide, and DAC is the technical representation worldwide. Grace Duffy talked about the economic case for quality, and mentioned that the Quality Management Division will be releasing four guides related to the subject. Belinda Chavez and Lou Ann Lathrop presented on strategic planning.
From there, the group split up, and I joined the SAC meeting (Dennis - you may have posted first, but you didn't get the same news posted that I would have posted!) This meeting started with recognition of the members of SAC, including especially those that had been involved with various committees. Those receiving plaques for their service included Clay Hodges, Brenda Fisk, Jeff Lackey, David Levy, Rick Litts, Belinda Chavez, Jad G.B. Jadanuth, Roger Keller and Dick McKeever.
The first presentation was from John Breckline, and dealt with using a balanced scorecard for the Excellence Criteria for the SMP awards. SMP currently looks at retention rate, loyalty and satisfaction. The proposed new measures would be retention, membership, growth, loyalty, section activities and section perceptions. The new measures would make use of data that is already available and use +/- scoring to give a final percentage. This percentage would be compared to designated buckets to determine award qualification. There was much discussion, and many action items were recorded. Next, Brenda Fisk presented the status of the SAC restructuring team, and talked about their use of TRIZ within this team. They are looking to schedule their next meeting in June. Next, Clay did some RD training. Finally, Belinda talked about how the business planning that the board does relates to the sections. This seemed to be a very productive meeting.
As we go forward, I have been seeing more and more people that I know in the lobby and in the halls at the Rosen Centre. I ran into Jeff Israel in the lobby tonight while he was on his way in. He previously spoke at my section on Customer Satisfaction, so it was nice to have the opportunity to renew the acquaintance.
The evening ended with a chance to spend time with a high school classmate that I haven't seen since her wedding. This was certainly another full day, and I am looking forward to the next one!
Aimee Siegler
