HumRRO's strategic planning process
Simply put, one of the most common activities in management is planning. This is true whether the organization is large or small, public or private, profit or nonprofit.
HumRRO's management style is intended to encourage innovation and creativity on the part of our employees, with rewards and career growth for those who succeed. HumRRO maintains an environment receptive to the values and climate that foster excellence. We have a reputation for being proactive, willing to change, open to risks, and constantly attempting to apply our skills in new ways. In short, we strive to prepare our employees for the future challenges they will face.
HumRRO's strategic planning process is about setting objectives and developing an approach to achieving those objectives. We endeavor to make our objectives specific, realistic, measurable, timely, and clearly understood by everyone in the organization. As a nonprofit organization, the strategic direction we set for ourselves is intended to improve the value of our contributions to the American public in general and to our clients who directly depend on our products and services.
Our objectives are:
- Engage in strategic business development
- Enhance staff and organizational capability
- Facilitate a stimulating working environment
- Manage and invest HumRRO's financial resources
- Perform high-quality work to meet client needs
- Contribute to science and society
In addition to our corporate objectives, HumRRO's strategic plan also lays out key actions to work toward those objectives and measurable outcomes that help us determine how far we have come towards meeting those objectives. In addition, the measurable outcomes establish criteria that permit us to know if we have satisfied the key actions and objectives, or allow us to make course corrections to accomplish better results, if appropriate.
HumRRO considers our strategic plan to be a "living" document, one which should be used in guiding the company's activities and in setting the path for future directions. Accordingly, our corporate officers review progress in achieving our objectives on a routine basis. This "hands-on" consideration helps reinforce the plan's importance and value in allocating resources (capital and people) in our pursuit of business success. Our Board of Trustees also is committed to this strategic planning process; twice each year, corporate officers report to the Board regarding progress made on the various measurable outcomes as well as actions specified by the measurable outcomes for the next six months. This information is made available to HumRRO employees as part of our efforts to keep them informed about and focused on our mission and objectives.
HumRRO follows two conceptually distinct strategies in directing our long-range planning. The first is to work with our current clients and sponsors to meet their emerging needs. The other is to seek out new clients and to explore new areas of national or state needs to which our expertise might be applied. Both of these strategies have a great deal to recommend them, and we consider them complementary.
One aspect of HumRRO's long-range planning is to maintain the capabilities to help our clients cope with a changing world. Today's most pressing issues include terrorist threats and homeland security, military readiness, educational achievement and accountability, and helping to strengthen the economy by maintaining the competitiveness of our future workforce. Here, HumRRO's value is to apply our objective, high-quality analytic skills to help policymakers set our nation's priorities.
Since HumRRO's business success rests on the satisfaction of our clients, we view communication as a central element to quality control. Ongoing interaction with our clients throughout all phases of each project is essential to ensuring that activities stay on course, and all parties are aware of current and future directions.
By assigning our most qualified people to perform the work, maintaining a client-centered focus, and instituting formal controls that provide detailed quality checks, we are able to ensure a high level of professionalism that translates into equally high levels of client satisfaction.
To assess client attitudes and opinions about HumRRO's performance, we administer a survey instrument that identifies the degree to which clients believe that HumRRO is meeting their needs and expectations. The purpose of this survey is to measure the quality of HumRRO's products and services, and to obtain feedback that would not be available during day-to-day project operations. The survey is web-based and is administered semi-annually via the Internet to clients with projects completed during the previous six months. Clients with multi-year contracts receive the survey annually until project completion. Results of the survey are provided to our vice presidents for research, who immediately contact clients with issues and concerns about any aspect of
HumRRO's performance.
