Presentation Materials: 

E3_ImplementationStrategicPlan_presentation.pdf

When strategic plans fail, it’s most often because there’s a breakdown in the time between planning and implementation. The presenters of this workshop, who have been part of several strategic plans that achieved varying degrees of success and sustained implementation, will share their experience with a five-year strategic plan at Boys Town. Currently, Boys Town is halfway through this strategic plan, which intended to change how the organization delivers services in order to double the number of children served. The presenters have applied lessons learned from past failures and successes, and the plan thus far is achieving the desired results. Presenters will engage attendees in discussions about the communication, measurement, and management systems needed to promote successful plan implementation. They also will emphasize the need for both adaptability (continually reformulating the strategy in response to environmental changes) and discipline (aligning resources and activities needed to enact the strategic plan).

Workshop objectives/takeaways:

• define the core programs and elements of an organization (mission);


• map core elements onto the external environment (strategy);


• synchronize organizational resources to move strategy into action (alignment);


• communicate direction, challenges, successes, and strategy adjustments to staff (engaging staff);


• manage and measure strategy implementation (accountability); and


• drive strategy accountability to the level of the single employee (execution).

Presenters: Daniel L. Daly, executive vice president and director of youth care, Shann McKeever, associate vice president of program fidelity, and Barb Vollmer, associate vice president of administrative services, Boys Town

Workshop synopsis:

Alliance for Children and Families member Boys Town in Boys Town, Neb., conducted a strategic plan in 2007. This five-year plan will move the organization from approximately 13,000 children served to 25,000 children served by 2012. In order to accomplish this plan, Boys Town must reconfigure its services from its traditional, residentially-based services to community-based services focused on in-home family services.

The organization is now at the midway point of this five-year strategic plan.

Boys Town operates 12 sites around the country. The geographic and cultural diversity of this enterprise creates obvious barriers to consistent implementation of any strategic direction. During this workshop, presenters will share some of the challenges inherent in such widespread distance management, as well as some of the principles and solutions that have been attempted to implement this plan.

Some of the major barriers to successful implementation are:

• aligning 12 independent sites to a national plan;


• obtaining the support of 11 boards of directors;


• focusing the efforts of centralized support services, such as human resources, marketing, development, information technology, and training;


• overcoming the diversity inherent in the funding and service requirements across eight states and Washington, D.C.;


• communicating the plan and midcourse corrections to 1,500 youth care staff across the country; and


• developing new service models and measures to track progress of clients and program implementation.

The presentation will focus on systems, tools, and processes that have been developed to promote implementation. Concrete examples and scenarios will be used to facilitate learning and practical application.