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Strengths and Weaknesses
Systems Appraisal Feedback Report
received
In October, MCC received feedback from AQIP on its Systems Portfolio,
which we submitted in May of this year. By now everyone in the college is
talking about S’s and double S’s and O’s and double O’s.
What do these mean?
| S |
= |
Strength |
| SS |
= |
Major strength |
| O |
= |
Opportunity |
| OO |
= |
Major opportunity |
We have received a rating on each and
every item in the Systems Portfolio. For anybody who is counting, that is
well over a hundred items, making the Appraisal Feedback report 47 pages
long. This is a very thorough report card.
There is a mixture of strengths and
opportunities on our report card.
Strengths
The reviewers agreed that we had many strengths, and invited us to share
three of those with our peer institutions through the AQIP Innovation
Exchange web page. The three strengths agreed upon by the Strategic
Planning Team were Distance Learning, the Budget Process and the Annual Work
Plan process. These have been submitted to AQIP as the following documents:
1P7
Two way interactive classrooms expand student access in rural areas
5P1
Annual Work and Performance Plans tied to strategic goals
8P6
Open budget planning process links budget requests to college’s
strategic objectives
Once accepted, these will be posted on
AQIP’s
Innovation Exchange webpage for all member institutions to view.
Opportunities
While some may have expressed dismay at the number of O’s and OO’s we
received, most recognize that the purpose of the Appraisal is to help us
improve as an institution and that the caliber of feedback we have received
has the potential to propel us dramatically forward as an institution.
Because the opportunities are numerous, staff has been asked, via their
Strategic Planning Team representative (as well as Division Chairs) to
review the list of opportunities and identify those they feel it would
most benefit us to focus on first. As of this posting, this
internal feedback is still being gathered, and no institutional consensus
has been reached as to which of these to tackle first. However,
alignment will be coming soon. In this endeavor we are following the
path AQIP envisions. Stephen Spangehl, Director of AQIP, states:
“To reap maximum benefit from the report,
you and your colleagues should plan to invest substantial time in discussing
and considering the team’s observations and advice, and in identifying those
actions that will advance your institution.”
The Systems Appraisal Feedback Report further advises:
“An organization needs to examine its
Report strategically to identify those areas that will yield greatest
benefit if addressed. Some key questions that may arise in careful
examination of the Report may be: How do the team’s findings challenge our
assumptions about ourselves? Given our mission and goals, which issues
should we focus on? How will we employ results to innovate, grow, and
encourage a positive culture of improvement? How will we incorporate
lessons learned from this review in our planning and operational processes?
How will we revise the Systems Portfolio to reflect what we have
learned” (p. 8).
The important thing is to keep the
process going.
So what do we do next?
Read, reflect, discuss, attend a strategy forum in May and formulate
Action Plans to get us moving in the right direction. The
Strategic Planning Team is integral to the process, but everyone in the
institution should be involved in one way or another. |
Envisioning the Next Level
The Feedback from
AQIP in the Systems Appraisal Feedback Report is geared toward
helping our institution find its way to the next level of performance.
What might that level look like?
First, where are
we? It was the perception of the reviewers that “MCC is in the beginning
stages of formalizing and standardizing processes, measurable goals, and
systems,” and that “a better understanding of institutional processes
and systems will support data-informed decision making, assessment and a
continuous improvement environment” (p. 6). It is also their observation
that “Morgan Community College is in the beginning stages of
incorporating continuous improvement principles and practices” (p.1).
While these are not the only items on which we received feedback, they
are indicative of a need to be more systematic in our approach.
The following
offers a useful way of looking at institutional maturity. It is from the
AQIP Category Summary Worksheet (a tool that we used in the process of
assembling the Systems Portfolio.) Which level you think Morgan
Community College is at? [Note, the term “beginning stages” used above
does not refer specifically to this scale, although AQIP is the
source of both.]
Institution’s level of
maturity or stage of development
There are many ways to think about levels of maturity. Here’s one that
may inspire fruitful discussion:
● Reacting
Approaches. The
organization sees its operations as activities rather than
processes. Operations primarily respond to immediate needs or
problems, and don’t much concentrate on anticipating future
requirements, capacities, or changes. Goals are implicit, and poorly
defined. There are lots of “informal” procedures and processes.
“Putting out fires” seems more important than preventing them.
●
Systematic Approaches. The organization is at the beginning
stages of conducting its operations by repeatable, consistent
processes that it can evaluate and improve. It has begun to see the
value of making explicit the goal of every activity, procedure, and
process, and of designing “proactive” processes that prevent rather
than discover problems. There are early signs of closer coordination
among organizational units, with effective processes being deployed
across the organization. Strategy and quantitative goals are being
defined. The walls between organizational “silos” are beginning to
erode.
●
Aligned Approaches. The organization groups and manages
operations as processes that are repeatable and regularly evaluated
for improvement. It strives to make sure that what is learned is
shared among organizational units. Its processes address the
organization’s key goals and strategies. Coordination among units,
divisions, and departments is an major emphasis. People see “the big
picture” and relate what they do to organizational goals and
strategies.
●
Integrated Approaches.
Operations are characterized by processes that are repeatable and
regularly evaluated for change and improvement in collaboration with
other affected units. Efficiencies across units are sought and
achieved, through analysis, innovation, and sharing. Processes and
measures track progress on key strategic and operational goals.
Outsiders request permission to visit and study why the organization
is so successful.
Another useful tool from AQIP is
a description of the
Principles of High Performance Organizations. This gives us a
better idea of what we might aspire to.
Straight From the
Horse’s Mouth
Check out AQIP’s own
newsletter at
AQIP News to Use.
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