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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.
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:
The strategic plan would help provide TBS with direction to address the following:
This strategic plan would help TBS to remain focused on its long-term strategic priorities in light of frequently changing shorter-term priorities.
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.
A brief description of the proposed TBS corporate planning process flow follows:
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.
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:
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.