ARCHIVED - Internal Audit of Strategic Plan Development Process

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4.0  Recommendations

Overview

We have described in this section, a recommended revised approach to strategic planning that addresses the areas for improvement identified in the previous sections. This approach will leverage progress made over the last two years including the establishment of the TBS strategic planning process and the Strategic Planning Network. We have also taken into account the unique environment at TBS. Our approach recommends periodically developing an approved strategic plan (possibly every three years) and undertaking an annual corporate planning process, which revisits the strategic plan and feeds into the other planning activities within TBS.

4.1  Develop Strategic Plan

As indicated in the previous section, based on the leading practice criteria, the strategic planning process did not result in a strategic plan for TBS. We recommend that, every three years, TBS develop a strategic plan covering a 3 – 5 year period consistent with the leading practice strategic planning criteria.

A strategic plan is a formal written document that sets forth the organization's mission, vision, values and objectives and how the organization will achieve these. It summarizes the environmental and resource assumptions underlying the strategic choices and identifies the risks associated with the choices. Annex C provides a summary of the type of information typically included in a strategic plan. Some of this information has already been compiled as part of the previous strategic planning exercises. The missing strategic planning elements identified in the previous section, should be incorporated into the plan, specifically:

• Agreed upon results and outputs from the process;
• Clear definition of key stakeholder roles;
• Identification and analysis of external stakeholders;
• Integration of strategic planning with other TBS planning activities;
• Incorporation of the environmental assessments into the strategic plan;
• TBS-wide integration across all business lines;
• Measurable outcomes and results with specific targets;
• Proposed strategies for achieving the outcomes; and
• Formal adoption of the strategic plan.

The strategic plan would help provide TBS with direction to address the following:

• Establishment of resource levels;
• Determination of the skills required;
• Adapting to the changing environment of TBS;
• Definition of the relationship between TBS and departments; and
• Definition of the relationship between TBS and TB Ministers.

This strategic plan would help TBS to remain focused on its long-term strategic priorities in light of frequently changing shorter-term priorities.

4.2  Annual Corporate Plan

This proposed corporate planning process would be conducted each year, the effort towards certain activities, such as environmental scanning and priority setting being driven by organizational or external factors affecting TBS. This represents a hybrid planning process incorporating elements of strategic planning within the annual planning cycle at TBS. This approach has been taken to integrate with the other planning requirements and activities at TBS, and to help TBS cope with the frequently changing environment.

The next section describes a proposed future state process that will adopt leading practices criteria for strategic planning and provide practical recommendations for integration with other TBS planning processes as follows:

Organization Enablers – Involvement of key stakeholders within TBS;

Process Enablers – Timing, sequencing and effectiveness of activities and outputs; and

Communication Enablers  - Approve, adopt and communicate the TBS corporate plan.

Recommendations have been developed to address these areas and are depicted firstly in Figure 2 with a description of the proposed annual TBS corporate planning process. The report then further discusses the process, organizational, and communication enablers for the proposed corporate planning process.     

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 A brief description of the proposed TBS corporate planning process flow follows:

1. Planning to Plan – Fundamental to the corporate planning process would be the advance preparation led by the Strategic Policy and Communications Branch, sponsored by the Executive Planning Committee. This effort should occur early in the first quarter of the year. Key stakeholders should be identified from the business lines and their level of participation determined. The role, function and membership of the Corporate Planning Network, ExCo, and business line leaders would need to be defined. Key planning steps to be undertaken and the form and timing of reports also should be specified and agreed upon prior to execution. Ongoing communication from the executive team concerning the timing, significance, and milestones of the process would be necessary to maintain the focus and commitment to the process. Expected final results of the corporate planning process should be defined and agreed upon.
2. Confirm Mandate - TBS is influenced by legislative mandates. At an early stage in the process, TBS should review and evaluate the role and significance of the mandate as it pertains to day‑to‑day business and future activities. The President of the Treasury Board and the Executive Planning Committee should confirm the mandate.
3. Consult External Stakeholders and Update Environmental Scan and Risk Assessment - Environmental scans and risk assessments should be conducted, with key external stakeholders input, by the Strategic Policy and Communications Branch in conjunction with the Executive Planning Committee. These products would identify fundamental issues and expectations for TBS and drive vision and direction setting.
4. TBS Executive Planning Committee Vision and Priority Setting - The priorities and risks facing TBS would be initially addressed by the Executive Planning Committee. This would provide the opportunity for the executive leadership team to synthesize results from stakeholder analysis and to set the direction, vision and targets from a top-down direction. This would represent a TBS‑wide or corporate vision.
   
   The vision provides a description of what TBS should look like once it has successfully implemented its strategies and achieved its full potential. This would assist in focusing the planning efforts on the highest priorities factors and initiate a corporate planning effort conducted from a bottom-up perspective.
5. Define Business Line Strategies to Achieve Outcomes and Measures - Steps should be taken to structure the process to ensure that the results of the environmental scan and stakeholder analysis are made available to all the participants in the corporate planning process at TBS. The business line leaders and the planning network should conduct internal assessments of strengths, weakness and risks to meet the direction set by the Executive Planning Committee. Pre-determined planning templates would assist in preparing summary material. This would not be a detailed or operational plan level.
   
   Synthesis within and across business lines would be developed during this step. Each line of business would be expected to develop their initial strategies to meet outcomes and targeted measures and provide estimates of high-level resource requirements. Comprehensive internal risk assessments, as well as, innovative and flexible strategies would result from this analysis.
6. ExCo Sets Preliminary TBS Strategies, Outcomes and Measures - The business line leaders and the Executive Planning Committee would conduct focused sessions to assess and review initial business line strategies. ExCo would also conduct comprehensive analysis and synthesis of results of stakeholder analysis and risk assessments and challenge how the implementation of these strategies would meet priorities established by the Executive Planning Committee. ExCo would make recommendations on the allocation of resources (budgeting) and quantification of services and products (outcomes and results).
7. Refine Business Line Strategies, Outcomes and Measures – Based on preliminary strategies, resources and results established by ExCo, the business line leaders would adjust and conduct a further iteration of business line plans.
8. Complete Preliminary TBS Corporate Plan  - Results from the revised business line strategies would be assembled in a TBS planning document: the "TBS Corporate Plan". This would be concisely presented and be meaningful to those who need to carry out the plan in operations.
9. Executive Review and Approval of TBS Corporate Plan – The TBS Corporate Plan would be reviewed and approved by the Executive Planning Committee. The plan should be assessed to ensure that the results of the bottom-up process are in alignment and the vision and priorities established at the onset of the process are appropriately reflected. Any change in external factors or priorities would be taken into consideration prior to final approval and adoption of the Corporate Plan.
10. Approval by President – The TB President would review and approve the Corporate Plan presented by the executive planning committee.
11. Present Final Corporate Plan to ExCo – The final Corporate Plan would be presented and discussed at an ExCo meeting conducted early in the third quarter of the fiscal year.
12. Communicate Results to TBS - The TBS Corporate Plan would be distributed to staff (on website and perhaps presented at a Town Hall event).
13. Linkage to other TBS planning and reporting processes - The various other TBS planning and reporting process and documents should be aligned with the output from the corporate planning process. This would ensure that the Corporate Plan is efficiently incorporated into operations and consistently communicated at all levels. During the third quarter of the fiscal year, other planning and reporting processes (e.g., Performance Management Agreements, the RPP, the Department Performance Report, and business line operational plans) would be completed and aligned with the priorities, strategies, resources, outcomes and results communicated in the Corporate Plan.
14. Communicate to External Stakeholders –This activity focuses on key external stakeholders  (e.g., deputy heads of key departments, Office of the Privy Council) to whom the TBS Corporate Plan would be sent.

Organization Enablers

Key to successful corporate planning is senior management's direction setting and involvement of key TBS stakeholders in the process.

Executive Planning Committee - The formal establishment of anexecutive planning committee led by the Secretary would have overall responsibility and ownership of the corporate plan for TBS. Corporate planning would start with the committee's top-down direction. The committee would comprise the Secretary, business line leaders and key members of Strategic Policy and Communications, as well as the Corporate Services Branch. There must be a clear distinction between the roles and responsibilities of Strategic Policy and Communications Branch and the proposed Executive Planning Committee.

TB President - As part of the organization's adoption of the plan, it should be formally approved by the President of the Treasury Board.

Strategic Policy and Communications Branch – Strategic Policy and Communications Branch would have overall responsibility to oversee the effort of the planning process. They would work closely with senior executives to ensure that the organization's commitment to the corporate planning processes is well communicated to all staff. This group would be responsible to ensure key decision makers are actively involved in the preparation and planning stages leading up to the planning process.

TBS Executive Committee (ExCo) – Periodic ExCo meetings have been effective approaches for communicating the direction and priorities of TBS. In support of the planning process, ExCo would be proactively involved in the process to develop a corporate plan that would combine a top-down and a bottom-up approach. ExCo would provide the forum to discuss, direct and decide on TBS‑wide issue and strategies. Formal sessions would be conducted quarterly (minimally) as the plan is developed and finalized.

Corporate Planning Network – The planning network as it operated in 2003 should be discontinued. A new Corporate Planning Network would be given increased authority to make decisions on behalf of the organization and also act as a collaborative body to develop and challenge strategies from a TBS‑wide perspective. The network would be actively supporting the business line leaders in the conduct of internal and external scans and in conducting bottom-up planning, in-line with priorities established by the executive planning committee.   

Key External Stakeholders - TBS should formally identify its key external stakeholders and establish an effective process for obtaining their input into environmental scans and risk assessments. Stakeholders may include Treasury Board ministers, the Privy Council Office, the Minister of Finance and deputy heads from key departments. The approved plan would be communicated to this stakeholder group.

TBS Staff – Select TBS staff would be involved in the bottom-up corporate planning process, supporting business line leaders. The outcome of the planning process should be distributed and broadly communicated to all TBS staff through multiple communication channels.

Process Enablers

We have illustrated in Figure 2 recommendations for process modifications to the current TBS planning processes. These changes will address issues identified during the conduct of our audit.  Process highlights include:

• Timing of the process - The process should be initiated during the first quarter of the fiscal year well in advance of finalization of business planning activities conducted by the TBS business lines. Primary activities at that time would include planning the process, confirmation of the TBS mandate, identifying TBS priorities from the Secretary and business line leaders, stakeholder analysis and update of the environmental scan. The process should be completed early in the third quarter of the fiscal year to align with development of other business and operational planning and the preparation of the Estimates.
• External Stakeholders Analysis - Conduct of key stakeholder analysis and assessment of environment scans would be conducted and would feed top down direction provided by the Executive Planning Committee.
• Iterative Process with ExCo - Multiple ExCo meetings to set priorities, discuss risks and constraints and to adopt strategies would be conducted to ensure the plan is aligned, understood and accepted across TBS.
• Formal Approval and Adoption - The President of the Treasury Board should adopt and formally approve the plan. Communication of the plan to key external stakeholders would be conducted (e.g., key stakeholder departments, Privy Council Office).
• Well-defined Output - The corporate planning process would produce a well-defined corporate document.

Communication Enablers

The Corporate Plan needs to be well defined, distributed and understood by TBS staff and key external stakeholders. Ongoing communication is important as the corporate planning process is conducted. Following are brief descriptions of the key communication enablers, depicted in Figure 2:

Corporate Planning Documentation – The Corporate Plan would be the TBS organizational wide planning document that sets the priorities, vision and strategies to support the TBS mandate. The plan would be distributed to all employees. It would provide the linkage of mandate, vision and strategies to meet targeted outcomes. Timing of results and resource allocations would be clear from this planning document.

Town Hall Meeting - The Strategic Planning and Results Framework was previously distributed to all employees through a TBS Town Hall, which took place in April 2003. Future Town Hall meetings would provide a forum for presenting an overview of the Corporate Plan and progress against the plan.

Linkages with other TBS Planning and Reporting processes – Alignment of output from the corporate planning process and other planning processes needs to be well defined and communicated. Redundant processing and divergence of strategies may result if these are not well-understood and communicated within TBS.

Other Communication Approaches – Formalizedfeedback mechanisms with external stakeholders through environmental scanning is critical for ongoing planning and analysis. Given the dynamic environment and changing priorities experienced in recent years, TBS ongoing planning and reporting against priorities is a critical internal activity for the planning process at TBS.

Other Communication Approaches – Formalizedfeedback mechanisms with external stakeholders through environmental scanning is critical for ongoing planning and analysis. Given the dynamic environment and changing priorities experienced in recent years, TBS ongoing planning and reporting against priorities is a critical internal activity for the planning process at TBS.

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