by Christopher Holt, AIA
AIA Central Valley Vice President
Strategic Planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy; It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding implementation of the strategy.
Introduction / History
As you may know, the Chapter has developed two previous strategic plans 2009-2014 [led by Matthew Shigihara, AIA] and 2015-2019 [led by Michael Parrott, AIA]. As the task has traditionally been assigned to the Vice President, I am the lucky recipient this time that will lead the effort to update the Strategic Plan for the 2020-2025 period. Fortunately, I will not undertake this effort alone. I have assembled a representative committee that includes current Board of Director members, the previous plan author, and chapter members representing firms located outside the Sacramento metropolitan area. This diverse committee will provide a broad-based experience and vision which we believe will result in continued excellence for our AIACV Strategic Plan.
Approach
As architects we have an innate ability to plan a work effort, design a framework, and then flesh out that design with great details. The approach we’re taking closely aligns with typical Strategic Planning methods. To start, we have researched adjacent Chapter/Component Strategic Plans and will soon be interviewing stakeholders. Collectively we call this portion of the project Outreach. One of our first outreach efforts was creating a general membership survey—hopefully you have seen it? If you have already responded, thank you! If you haven’t, there is still time! (bit.ly/aiacv2019survey). Our continued outreach will include interviewing specific membership classes (EP, AIA, Emeritus), firm sizes, and geographic populations (Sacramento, Roseville, Davis, Tahoe, etc.) to ensure a broad cross-section of input.
There are two important pieces that must be determined in the nascent phase of a plan: Mission Statement and Vision Goals. These are followed up by the Tactics which are the workplan to achieve the vision goals. The AIACV has a clear mission statement, and our work on previous Strategic Plans will inform the vision goals of our updated plan.
The second portion of work is called Develop where we will focus on developing succinct vision goals and tactics. Finally, we will move into Review work where we will present draft and final versions of the plan to the Board of Directors and members for comment and, then approval by the Board
Schedule
We have developed a schedule that spans the majority of 2019–beginning with research/outreach in the spring. Vision goals and tactics will be developed in the early summer, followed by document format and graphical standards. Membership review and comment, and the Board of Directors approval process will begin in the fall, with release of final document around the time of our November Chapter Election Meeting. Our committee will be in constant contact with the Board of Directors through a series of presentations at board meetings, throughout the year.
Evolution vs Revolution
Many AIA Chapters will be writing strategic plans for the first time in order to satisfy the AIA accreditation requirements. Fortunately, the AIACV has a legacy of knowledge to draw on. As we work on our new updated plan the question of evolution versus revolution has come up. Our committee believes the previous plans have a set a solid foundation for the Chapter, and as such, we seek to evolve through this effort. Some strategies we are targeting for the new plan include: increased transparency, accountability, and a more integrated approach across our membership (geographic, phase of career, and market sectors).
We will keep you up-to-date as the process unfolds, sharing our progress in NOTES as well as on our website: https://aiacv.org/strategic-plan/ . Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, AIACV staff, or the members of the committee at any point should you have questions or comments. This is collectively OUR plan, and we value and appreciate your input.
Christopher Holt, AIA, Vice President & Committee Chair
Genevieve Vargas, AIA, President
Ida Clair, AIA, Treasurer
Paul Menard, AIA Secretary
Mike Parrott, AIA
John Hammond, AIA
James Theimer, AIA
Pete Kreuser, Allied Member / Sustaining Partner