Who loves a good strategic planning session? I do! The thought of heading into the war room filled with flip charts, sharpies, endless amounts of sticky notes, and everyone’s oversized coffee cup to keep them hopped up on caffeine is exciting. Your creative juices flowing, sharpening the pencil, feverishly writing down your thoughts and then feverishly scribbling it out as you come up with a better way to phrase it. All in the pursuit of creating an inspiring mission, vision, values, and action plan to carry them out.

So, what exactly is strategic planning, and how can it help you and your organization achieve your goals? According to Harvard Business School Strategic planning is defined as the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business’s intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

My fellow board members and I recently completed a strategic planning session to create a new mission, vision, and values (MVV) statement for AAPPR. These statements were shared in June’s Pulse Newsletter. If you missed it don’t worry, we are planning for a bigger launch of the landscape plan and the MVV later this year.

What I loved about the planning session, and many follow-up discussions, was how everyone really participated in the process. We all strived to come up with a well-written strategic plan that will play a pivotal role in the growth and success of AAPPR. With the rapidly changing landscape and challenges in provider recruitment the board worked hard to provide clear goals and objectives for the organization. The new strategic imperatives will help position AAPPR as an industry expert, strengthen the value of membership, champion a diverse, equitable and inclusive physician and provider workforce, and diversify and grow the membership and customer base.

I want to express my deep admiration and appreciation for my fellow board members for their time and dedication in planning and paving the future of AAPPR.

Thank you,
Doug Lewis