SUBJECT: General Business
Title
Board of Trustees 2019 Work Plan
Body
DEPARTMENT: Administration
PRESENTER: Town Administrator
FISCAL INFORMATION: N/A
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Discussion and Direction
End
SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND OF SUBJECT MATTER:
PURPOSE: The Board of Trustees desires to conduct a Retreat on Sunday, January 13, 2019 to develop a Work Plan for 2019. Staff has developed a proposed agenda and draft materials for the Retreat. Staff wants to (1) confirm the agenda and draft materials reflect the Board’s interests for the Retreat, and (2) ask the Board to identify any tentative issues and/or projects the Board wants on the tentative list for consideration and prioritization during the Retreat.
2019 Work Plan
In his book The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni, states,
“Among the actions the leadership team must take to promote organizational health is to regularly ask, “What is most important now?” Most organizations have too many top priorities to achieve the level of focus they need to succeed. Wanting to cover all their bases, they establish a long list of disparate objectives and spread their scarce time and energy and resources across them all. The result is almost always a lot of initiatives being done in a mediocre way and a failure to accomplish what matters most. This phenomenon is captured best in that wonderful adage, "If everything is important, nothing is." There is no way employees can be empowered to fully execute their responsibilities if they don't receive clear and consistent messages about what is important from their leaders across the organization. There is probably no greater frustration for employees than having to constantly navigate the politics and confusion caused by leaders who are misaligned.”
With this in mind, the Board of Trustees has scheduled a Work Plan Retreat on Sunday, January 13. To clearly identify the Board’s priorities during this Retreat, the Town Administrator suggests this eight step approach:
1. List. Identify and list in writing all the issues/projects the Board and staff believe are important to address in the coming year (or reach milestones on for multi-year projects/issues).
2. Clarify each issue/project so the desired outcome is sufficiently understood to facilitate prioritization by the Board.
3. Q&A and Advocacy. Allow time for the Board to engage in Q&A with the Administrator and Directors and, if the Mayor and Trustees wish, to individually advocate for those issues they think should be among the highest priorities.
4. Prioritize. Use a “dot exercise” or other quick approach to rank and tentatively prioritize all issues/projects.
5. Review/Refine. Review, discuss and refine the prioritized list of issues/projects to confirm it captures the Board’s interests.
6. Time Budget. Tentatively budget the amount of Board meeting time the Board believes will be necessary to adequately consider each issue/project. Review the results and then, if necessary, adjust the issue/project list to minimize schedule “overload” by (a) putting some projects/issues “On Hold” to be considered later in 2019 if workload permits, (b) adjust down the anticipated time Council will devote to some issues, understanding that doing so might make some issues feel rushed and/or result in poor quality work, (c) commit to longer meetings, or (4) some combination of a, b and c.
7. Engagement Promise. Related to the time budget for each item, is the level of community engagement the Board expects to pursue for each item. Please see the attached “Strategic Framework for Public Engagement”, and especially consideration #4 regarding “What level of engagement are we promising the public?” Projects/issues that require significant levels of engagement will require much more time and resources to successfully complete. The Board should factor this into both the Board meeting time allocation and the schedule for considering each project/issue.
8. Schedule. Once the priority list reflects the Board’s priorities without overload, then prepare a schedule (by Quarter) indicating when the Board will consider each issue (if time is short, staff can handle this step after the Retreat). This schedule will help facilitate advance planning and avoid overloaded meeting agendas.
This approach will enable the Board to develop, in one day, a prioritized list of projects/issues to tackle in 2019. The attached “Board of Trustees CONCEPT 2019 Work Plan” is an example of this list in summary form. As a follow-up to the Retreat, staff will prepare for formal Board consideration and adoption, a more detailed description of each project/issue, including a clear objective for each item, the available budget (including any additional resources needed), milestones, and timeline. This detailed list will clearly signal what is important to the Board and empower employees to fully execute their responsibilities and be accountable to the Board. Staff will provide quarterly status reports on each item on the Work Plan to maintain this accountability.
Proposed Retreat Agenda. The attached draft agenda suggests a proposed time schedule for conducting the Retreat to accomplish each of the steps listed above.
It is important to remember that the Board’s Work Plan in many respects will NOT reflect the day-to day work associated with delivering primary municipal services (public safety, public utilities, public infrastructure, parks and recreation facilities and programs, planning, administrative support services, governance and the other day-to-day municipal services). The Board’s Work Plan may focus primarily on new initiatives and/or improving the quality or effectiveness of existing services, not on the significant effort required to simply maintain the service levels that support the quality of life and economic health of the community.
Town Administrator Goals
The Town Administrator’s Employment Agreement specifies, “During the first 90 days of employment, Fleming and the Board of Trustees shall work together to develop concrete, reasonable performance goals for the first year of employment, with concrete, reasonable timelines.” Staff suggests using the results of the 2019 Work Plan-and anything else the Board deems appropriate-to identify the specific goals and timelines the Board wants to set as the Administrator’s performance goals. This proposed activity has been scheduled for the latter portion of the Retreat.
Recommended Action:
Board discussion and direction to:
1. Confirm the agenda and draft materials reflect the Board’s interests for the Retreat (or suggest changes the Board would like to see), and
2. Identify any tentative issues and/or projects the Board wants the tentative list for consideration during the Retreat.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Draft Agenda for January 13 retreat
2. 2019 Concept Work Plan
3. Strategic Framework for Public Engagement