Education DepartmentStrategy Alignment and Execution

Fall 2013

How do we get a

competitive advantage?

What essential improvements must we make

to how our team

operates?

Strategy formation, alignment, and execution are key to making sure the Zoo is achieving its mission.

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How does Education connect to the Zoo’s

overall goals?

How do we deliver on our plan?

The Process of Strategy

Continuous Process Improvement

What programs

will help us achieve our

mission?

How do we know we

are creating value?

What is our value

to the Zoo?

What’s our 3 year target?

What’s the gap to

reach it?

The Zoo’s 2011-2014 goals provide the larger context of Education’s mission.• Market

– Be recognized as a MN treasure and must-see Midwest destination

• Conservation, Education, and Guest Experience– Be a leader in animal care and conservation– Inspire people to learn, care, and act on behalf of wildlife and wild places

• Pilot and grow env programs on prairie ecology conservation and STEM to advance educational messages and reach new audiences

• Make personal animal connections with live interpretation core to the Zoo experience

• Establish a continuum of conservation education programs for all ages• Increase access to and engagement in zoo educational programs

– Model, demonstrate and inspire best practices in env sustainability– Provide the best guest experience in Minnesota

• People– All staff and volunteers embrace the vision of the MN Zoo– Build a sustainable world-class organization

• Financial– Develop a financially robust and sustainable economic model

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ZOO GOALS: How does ED connect to the Zoo’s goals?

MSSION & VISION: What is our value to the zoo?

What will it look like when we’re successful?

BEST FIT MEASURE: How do we know we are creating that value?

TARGET & GAP: What’s the gap between today and where we

need to be in 3 years to create this value?

PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES: What programs will help us achieve our mission

and close the gap?

ENABLING ACTIVITIES: What essential improvements must we make to how

our team operates?

EXECUTION: How do we deliver on our plan?

STRATEGY: How do we get a competitive advantage?

Mission – Why Do We Exist?

What is a Mission?A “mission” is a statement describing a team’s core purpose. It typically answers the question “why does this team exist?”

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?

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ZOO GOALS: How does ED connect to the Zoo’s goals?

MSSION & VISION: What is our value to the zoo?

What will it look like when we’re successful?

We inspire and teach people to act on behalf of wildlife.

We educate to achieve a conservation outcome.Inspire…teach…act…progressionInspire – something that we control

Action – something that we aspire to accomplishGives us three key elements to measure our success.People – everyone, not just kids who take our class

Short and memorable

What is our 3 Year Vision?

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See Hear Feel

When we’ve been wildly successful at creating this value for the Zoo we will

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.

MEASURE DEFINITION SOURCE FREQUENCY CALCULATION UNIT

Develop Measurement Plan for Best Fit Measure

How will we measure our success?

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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.

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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Graphic adapted from Brendan Calder, John O’Dwyer Getting It Done Toolkit, Rotman School of Management

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

What’s Our 3 Year Target, and the Gap to Reach that Target?

3 Year Target:Expected performance against your best fit measure

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.

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Do What We Do Today

Optimize What We Do Today

Identify New & Different Activities

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Graphic adapted from Brendan Calder, John O’Dwyer Getting It Done Toolkit, Rotman School of Management

Key Enabling Activities

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Driver Of Team Performance Definition Examples of Possible Team ImprovementsLEADERSHIP How we inspire,

engage others How do we need to strengthen our leadership capabilities? Do we need to promote a different type of leader? Do we need to adjust who is in different leadership roles?

CULTURE Our norms, behaviors around

“how we do things”

How do we need to change how we are working as a team to get this done?

Does our plan require any new ways of getting work done that we need to institutionalize in our organization?

SYSTEMS/STRUCTURES/ PROCESS

Technology, team structure, core

processes we use to deliver work

Do we need a new technology system to support our work? Do we need to improve a process to ensure work gets

done? Do we need to create new teams/sub-teams to do the

work?

SKILLS/COMPETENCIES What we know and are able to do

Do we need to acquire or build new skills and competencies?

Should we change how we manage team member development?

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?

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Execution

Created charters for critical few initiatives and key enabling 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

High Level 3 Year Plan

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Here’s a worksheet we can use as a starting point for putting our team’s 3 year plan together into a coherent whole.

Mission:

Vision:

3 Year Goal:

Company Priorities

Initiatives

Key Enabling Activities

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Strategy Alignment Process

Desired Outcome:

Everyone in the organization:

Has a precise line of sight about how their work contributes to the zoo’s long-term success, and;

Knows what do to do day-to-day to drive this success.

Strategy

Executable 3 Year Plan

Specific Projects & Activities

Day To Day Resource Allocation, Attention, Follow Through

RecreationEducationConservation

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