Reviewing and updating strategies

In June of 2005 your Board of Directors made an important decision. Faced with a rapidly changing and increasingly challenging civil aviation environment in Canada your Board felt it was time for some serious navel gazing.

The decision was made to embark on a comprehensive strategic planning process. One which would have them working double-time for the next year.

Your board usually meets three times per year for board meetings. Beginning in October 2005, the board committed to more than double that schedule which will see it meeting for an additional five days by October 2006 for strategic planning alone.

On top of this there is considerable between-meeting work being done.

The last time any strategic planning had been done was in 1998. While that was valuable, little had been done since in terms of reviewing and updating strategies.

COPA is a strong and well respected organization which 18,000 pilots have come to depend on so it behooves us to be working with up to date objectives and strategies to meet today’s realities.

A good, comprehensive strategic plan is a living document, developed over time, and re-evaluated regularly. It sets out objectives which the organization can use to measure its performance. Building regular reviews into the plan ensures we will change with the times.

The strategic planning model we chose to use has several key components beginning with a new Mission Statement. This sets out who we are, what we do, for whom we do it, and our values. Developing an accurate, concise and comprehensive Mission Statement is a challenge and took much longer than anticipated.

Subordinate to the Mission Statement are a number of Strategic Objectives defining our areas of focus and what we wish to accomplish in each area. For our environment we can expect 6 to 8 Strategic Objectives, which in turn break down into 1 to 6 Strategies for accomplishing each objective. The Objectives are intended to be measurable at least qualitatively if not quantitatively.

The final level in the Strategic Plan is the Tactical level. Under each Strategy, Tactics are developed which define resources needed and details of how the strategies will be carried out. At this stage, priorities need to be established which results in an iterative process for refining each level. Back and forth we go until we have a road map to the future.

I am very proud of your Directors for tackling this huge task and showing such a strong individual commitment to doing a thorough and professional job of it. We are fortunate to have Darin Graham on the board who has extensive strategic planning experience.

Darin and COPA President Kevin Psutka have done all the between-meeting work of steering the process.

However, in order to leave Kevin and Darin free to participate in the planning meetings, and to provide some objective guidance, we have engaged the services of an experienced facilitator.

COPA member Inge Hansson agreed to facilitate for us and has been doing an outstanding job.

The board is now planning its fourth meeting of the initial strategic planning process for the September long weekend. We’ve long talked about trying to get some of our meetings out into the regions so we could better make ourselves available to the members.

With this meeting we are doing just that. We’ll be meeting in Halifax on Sept. 1, then spending a day and a half at the famous Stanley, Nova Scotia Labour Day Fly-in. We’re looking forward to experiencing some of that great Maritime hospitality.

I am hoping we will be ready to bring you the details of COPA’s new Mission Statement and Strategic Objectives before the end of the year. This will truly be a milestone for COPA which will move us toward being the strongest and most progressive aviation user organization in Canada.

Meanwhile, you can help by bringing in a new member to share the benefits.