A New Strategic Plan

In February, the INFORMS Board approved a new strategic plan – highlights of which you will find at the end of this column. The prior strategic plan was put in place five years ago, and while that plan served us well, it was due time to revisit and refresh INFORMS’ vision.

In September 2020, executive director Elena Gerstmann requested that the Executive Committee (EC) conduct a streamlined strategic planning process, with the EC serving as the strategic planning committee. The aim was to set a strategic plan that would be robust to whatever future state INFORMS may face. Our hope is for the new strategic plan to be the basis for more in-depth planning within each functional area of INFORMS, which will be completed by each INFORMS vice president with their respective committees and staff counterparts.

The EC followed Elena’s guidance and enlisted Sheri Jacobs of Avenue M Group (a marketing research and consulting company that serves the association community) to facilitate the strategic planning process at the November 2020 board meeting. Prior to the board meeting, Sheri interviewed key stakeholders and sent a short survey to all INFORMS board members and directors to gather input. She also sent a survey to 2,000 randomly selected INFORMS members. Sheri shared the collected survey data at the board meeting and facilitated further discussion about the strategic issues and questions facing INFORMS and the goals it wants to achieve. Based on this board discussion, Avenue M provided a strategic plan draft for our review.

The Executive Committee refined this draft and presented the plan to the board in January 2021 for its feedback, improvement and ultimate approval.

Renewed Vision and Mission

The vision for INFORMS conveys our purpose and aspiration: Better decision-making for a just, prosperous and sustainable world. The board considered, discussed and debated many variations, all with a theme of creating a better world from better decision-making. The consensus was to keep it simple, memorable and inclusive.

The mission for INFORMS provides some specificity on how we move toward the vision: INFORMS advances and promotes the science and technology of decision-making to save lives, save money and solve problems. This mission recognizes that we are a community of academics and practitioners who conduct the R&D, do the technology transfer and make the applications to deliver impact. We operate with core values in all that we do: integrity, innovation, inclusion and impact.

Let Me Explain

In the renewed vision and mission, there is no mention of operations research (O.R.) and analytics. On one hand, O.R. and analytics remain the backbone of INFORMS and are implicit in these statements. In the first sentence of the very first O.R. textbook, Morse and Kimball state, “Operations research is a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control” [1]. This definition is quite consistent with and is captured by the statements above.

On the other hand, we need to recognize how the INFORMS community has evolved over time and will continue to evolve. Our members now come from many more disciplines, including economics, behavioral science and computer science; what remains common in our community is a desire to have a positive impact on the world, primarily through better decisions. 

Actionable Goals

Our strategic goals are what will make the new plan actionable.

• “Advance the science and technology of decision-making and elevate its impact” reflects all we do to support and strengthen our research community, for instance, through publications, conferences and advocacy.
• “Advance diversity, equity and inclusion in all we do” recognizes the importance and value from an organization and community that are open, welcoming and fair to all.
• “Enhance member value and experience” is core to what we do as an organization. We need to better understand our membership and the different segments, and then the value proposition for each.
• “Champion our profession and our brand” conveys the critical importance to promote what we do to various constituencies, including the public, government and industry.
• “Ensure our operational excellence and long-term financial health” is critical to enable the other goals. INFORMS has limited resources, and we need to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.

We will use these goals to guide and prioritize what we do, as well as what we will not or cannot do. As a next step, the board will work with INFORMS staff to explore the implications of each goal, e.g., how will we know or measure whether we are making progress? What might affect or influence our pursuit of this goal and how? 
Over the coming year we will have more to say as we implement the new strategic plan. In addition, we will continue to disseminate the plan to our community for feedback and comment. As always, if you have comments, questions or reactions, please share them at [email protected].

Reference

1. Morse, Philip M., and George E. Kimball, 1951, “Methods of operations research,” The Technology Press of MIT and John Wiley & Sons: New York.