Selected slides from our strategic alignment planning within the education department at the Zoo

1. Education Department
Strategy Alignment and Execution
Fall 2013

2. Strategy formation, alignment, and execution are key to
making sure the Zoo is achieving its mission.
The Process of Strategy
Continuous Process Improvement
How does What’s our What essential
What
Education What is How do we How do we 3 year improvements
programs How do we
connect to our value know we get a target? must we make
will help us deliver on
the Zoo’s to the are creating competitive What’s the to how our
achieve our our plan?
overall Zoo? value? advantage? gap to team
mission?
goals? reach it? operates?
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3. The Zoo’s 2011-2014 goals provide the
larger context of Education’s mission.
ZOO GOALS:
• Market How does ED connect to the Zoo’s goals?
– Be recognized as a MN treasure and must-see Midwest destination
MSSION & VISION:
What is our value to the zoo?
• Conservation, Education, and Guest Experience What will it look like when we’re successful?
– Be a leader in animal care and conservation
– Inspire people to learn, care, and act on behalf of wildlife and wild BEST FIT MEASURE:
How do we know we are creating that value?
places
• Pilot and grow env programs on prairie ecology conservation and STEM to
advance educational messages and reach new audiences STRATEGY:
How do we get a competitive advantage?
• Make personal animal connections with live interpretation core to the Zoo
experience
• Establish a continuum of conservation education programs for all ages TARGET & GAP:
• What’s the gap between today and where we
Increase access to and engagement in zoo educational programs need to be in 3 years to create this value?
– Model, demonstrate and inspire best practices in env sustainability
– Provide the best guest experience in Minnesota PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES:
What programs will help us achieve our mission
• People and close the gap?
– All staff and volunteers embrace the vision of the MN Zoo
ENABLING ACTIVITIES:
– Build a sustainable world-class organization What essential improvements must we make to how
our team operates?
• Financial
EXECUTION:
– Develop a financially robust and sustainable economic model
How do we deliver on our plan?
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4. Mission – Why Do We Exist?
ZOO GOALS:
What is a Mission? How does ED connect to the Zoo’s goals?
A “mission” is a statement describing a team’s core purpose. It
typically answers the question “why does this team exist?” MSSION & VISION:
What is our value to the zoo?
What will it look like when we’re successful?
Why do we exist?
 Is it education for education sake?
 To get people to take a conservation action?
 To prime kids to take bigger conservation actions later in life?
 To become wildlife advocates?
 What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?
 What’s our aspiration?
We inspire and teach people to act on behalf of wildlife.
We educate to achieve a conservation outcome.
Inspire…teach…act…progression
Inspire – something that we control
Action – something that we aspire to accomplish
Gives us three key elements to measure our success.
People – everyone, not just kids who take our class
Short and 4
memorable

5. What is our 3 Year Vision?
When we’ve been wildly successful at creating this value for the Zoo we will
See Hear
Fee
l
Our vision is to be a recognized leader in
conservation education, to make a
measurable impact in people’s lives, and to
be a top asset of the Minnesota Zoo.
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6. How will we measure our success?
We inspire and teach people to act on behalf of wildlife .
Our vision is to be a recognized leader in
conservation education, to make a
measurable impact in people’s lives, and to
be a top asset of the Minnesota Zoo.
Develop Measurement Plan
for Best Fit Measure
MEASURE DEFINITION SOURCE FREQUENCY CALCULATION UNIT
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7. Need a Strategy, Just Like Other Companies Have a Strategy
 Identify the major first order activities
the firm does that allows it to deliver
our product/service (shown in blue).
 Identify second and third order
activities that support the delivery of
these activities (shown in green).
 Ask:
 To what extent do these activities fit
together and mutually reinforce one
another?
 Are there ways to strengthen how
activities and groups of activities
reinforce one another?
 Could changes in one activity
eliminate the need to perform others?
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8. What’s Our 3 Year Target, and the Gap to Reach that Target?
3 Year Target:
Expected performance against
your best fit measure
GAP:
The difference between where
you are today and the 3 year
target you’ve set
What We Do Today:
Performance level you’d
achieve if you did nothing
different from what you do today
Graphic adapted from Brendan Calder, John O’Dwyer Getting It Done Toolkit,
Rotman School of Management
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9. When you are thinking about your team’s critical few initiatives
to close the gap, here’s a worksheet to help you visualize and
test your thinking.
3 Identify New & Different Activities



3
2 Optimize What We Do Today
 2


1
1 Do What We Do Today




Graphic adapted from Brendan Calder, John O’Dwyer Getting It Done Toolkit,
Rotman School of Management
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10. Key Enabling Activities
Key question: What aspects, if any, of the following need to be optimized to enable us to deliver
our critical few initiatives while still doing our day-to-day work with quality?
Driver Of Team Performance Definition Examples of Possible Team Improvements
LEADERSHIP How we inspire,  How do we need to strengthen our leadership capabilities?
engage others  Do we need to promote a different type of leader?
1  Do we need to adjust who is in different leadership roles?
CULTURE Our norms,  How do we need to change how we are working as a team
behaviors around to get this done?
2 “how we do things”  Does our plan require any new ways of getting work done
that we need to institutionalize in our organization?
SYSTEMS/STRUCTURES/ Technology, team  Do we need a new technology system to support our work?
PROCESS structure, core  Do we need to improve a process to ensure work gets
processes we use to done?
3 deliver work  Do we need to create new teams/sub-teams to do the
work?
SKILLS/COMPETENCIES What we know and  Do we need to acquire or build new skills and
are able to do competencies?
4  Should we change how we manage team member
development?
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11. Execution
Created charters for critical
few initiatives and key enabling
High Level 3 Year Plan activities
Developed project plan to show
what parts of which initiatives/
activities will happen when
Articulated who’s accountable
for what and established
project teams for delivering
Defined how you’ll monitor the
performance against your plan
and adjust is as necessary
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12. Here’s a worksheet we can use as a starting point for putting our
team’s 3 year plan together into a coherent whole.
Company
Priorities
Mission:
Vision:
3 Year Goal:
Initiatives
Key Enabling
Activities
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13. Strategy Alignment Process
Conservation
Education
Recreation
Desired Outcome:
Strategy Everyone in the organization:
 Has a precise line of sight
about how their work
Executable 3 Year Plan contributes to the zoo’s long-
term success, and;
 Knows what do to do day-to-
Specific Projects & Activities day to drive this success.
Day To Day Resource Allocation,
Attention, Follow Through
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