Thursday Board Meeting
Board of Directors Meeting
by Dennis Arter, Orlando, Florida
It's Thursday evening and the Board of Directors meeting is finished. Five major topics are worth reporting.
1. State of the Society
Membership is growing. Web activity is growing. Books continue their ten-year decline. (But we still sell over $2 million a year!) Large conferences continue their five-year decline. We are slightly shy of where we financially wanted to be, but nothing significant. All this says that the ASQ is providing more smaller, more customized, products.
2. Business Plan for Next Year
We talked about strategic direction. This is refined in the fall, and composed of
- vision,
- strategic themes,
- strategic success criteria, and
- BoD input.
Our strategic direction drives our organizational (mostly HQ) direction. This is developed in the spring, and composed of
- how we will respond to the themes,
- what strategic challenges present themselves,
- what are our success outcomes and scorecard measures,
- what should be our organizational (HQ staff) direction, and
- valuable input from stakeholder dialogs.
Finally, the organizational direction must be translated into an annual plan and budget. This next year's essential activities will continue to be
- Communications
- Membership
- Quality Body of Knowledge (Q-BoK)
- Education and Training
- Member Unit Performance
The Board approved the annual plan and budget.
3. International Presence
The Board spent about an hour in cafe sessions on the topic of improving our international presence. They approved a major initiative to develop ways to increase ASQ's international presence and better serve international needs. This will be a long-term effort to see how we can become an influence on global quality.
4. Research
The Board approved a new research model. They also approved a new research project:
Penetration and application of six sigma and lean six sigma in US hospitals.
While we know that these approaches have resulted in successes, we really don't know about the failures. (They aren't exactly publicized!) If we find that these approaches are working (and many Board members feel they are), what is the success ratio? Finally, what tools and methods caused the successes?
5. Living Strategy
The Board finished the day, discussing an interesting question:
If we want to serve a community of one million people, what would that community look like? How might we do it?
Board members agreed to take these conversations to the Divisions and Sections for further dialog over the summer. Perhaps by the fall meeting, we will know more about what this means and how to achieve it.
You are welcome to add your thoughts to the comments below.
