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2000 Highlights |
Executives at the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance sought to improve the strategic use of information in their agency. In multiple workshops, each with its own facilitator, managers anticipated the issues and decisions they will face over the next 3-5 years and identified the information and data they will need to address them.
In conjunction with the above project we revised our introductory presentation for IT strategic planning, "Information: Whose Job Is It?" The presentation uses quotations from various scholars accompanied with illustrations by artist Kevin Kuhne. If you're curious I'd be delighted to send you a copy of the slides, but please be forewarned ‑ the file is over 20 MB!
The University at Albany Information Science PhD program has been in existence for more than ten years. The new director convened a faculty retreat to explore the future of this multi-disciplinary program. The faculty examined the nature of information science and considered alternatives to the program's decentralized, distributed, multi-disciplinary model.
Twenty-four Korean government executives spent three weeks with us to learn about information policy issues and practices in New York State. Topics ranged from the development of specific systems such as The Civil Service Department's Accident Reporting System, to system-wide issues such as The Impact of Technology on the Freedom of Information Law, and from long-standing topics such as Archives and Records to new topics such as e-Government.
IT priorities appeared to be the core issue for the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, Division of Information Technology, which has responsibility for over 200 systems and sub-systems. However the history of the organization and a variety of other issues loomed large. The top 50 managers and team leaders of this 400-person division constructed a five-decade, graphically-annotated, 30-foot time line that put the history of the organization in perspective and helped them identify the critical issues they face today. In a series of meetings they established a framework for communicating information about their systems to agency executives and gained their approval to jointly assess IT priorities. In addition they identified six major issue areas internal to the division and formed workgroups to address each one.
The NY State Office for the Aging implemented a variety of strategic information efforts such as:
The Community - St. Lawrence Cement Forum was established to create a dialogue about the St. Lawrence Cement Company's proposed $300 million cement plant project in the Town of Greenport and City of Hudson in upstate New York. Working with the 15‑member Forum and its Planning Committee we organized a series of 13 public meetings each focusing on a different set of topics such as: regulations, permitting, and enforcement; mining and blasting; recreation and waterfront development; combustion, air emissions, and emission control; epidemiology and toxicology; economics and jobs; transportation; wetlands; visual impacts; and noise implications.
With a team of facilitators brought together by the NYS Facilitators Exchange we worked with the Quality Communities initiative, headed by the NYS Lieutenant Governor. This was the first joint meeting of the Task Force, comprised of agency executives, and the Advisory Committee, comprised of community and business leaders. They reviewed the comments received at public meetings and explored how to best to move ahead to "promote both economic development and environmental protection."
The United States Postal Service continues to expand its Resolve Employment Disputes Reach Equitable Solutions Swiftly (REDRESS) program. This year I mediated two workplace conflicts involving Postal employees and their supervisors.
The NYS Department of Public Service is strengthening its team approach to regulatory issues. We facilitated a workshop for them to explore the needs, requirements, and implications of collaboration and team functioning.
A new state law transformed the New York State Science and Technology Foundation into the New York State Office of Science, Technology & Academic Research (NYSTAR) and required the creation of a strategic plan. In a series of meetings NYSTAR staff created the plan, which included the purpose, criteria, and schedules for five grant programs with over $120 million in funding for the current fiscal year.
The Political Science Department convened a series of focus groups to gather input to its strategic planning effort. The focus groups involved political science majors as well as students who had taken courses in political science but chose not to make it their major.
Extended learning staff identified issues critical to the future of the University at Albany Extended Learning Program. Recognizing its highly decentralized nature, key proposals and an implementation plan were developed.
The Strategic Planning Steering Committee of the Hebrew Academy of the Capital District is comprised of lay leadership as well as professional staff. Five subcommittees were created to address academics, culture, community relations, facilities and finance. A computer model will enable the leadership to examine the long-term implications of various policies.
For the International Association of Facilitators Conference 2000 I organized a session entitled "Critical Incidents: How do our values and principles guide us?" The session led to the formation of the "IAFEthics and Values Think Tank." The think tank has been meeting electronically since June and aims to present a draft "code of ethics" or "statement of values" at the next IAF conference. To support this effort I coauthored a "Compendium of Professional Ethics." (View the Statement of Values and Code of Ethics for Group Facilitators.)
I have continued to serve as moderator for Grp-Facl, which completed its sixth year. We averaged 862 subscribers in 31 countries and 6 posts/day. Visit the Electronic Discussion on Group Facilitation.
Just as I assumed my role as Editor-in-Chief we encountered a series of staff and budget crises! But not to worry, Issue Number 3 should be published this spring and Number 4 is well on its way. Visit Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal.
Sue Barone, Ingrid Bens, Debbie Berg, Jeannine Carpenter, Ik Jae Chung, Jennifer Depew, Dana Hart, Audrey Hoffman, Tom Justice, Kevin Kuhne, Rick Johnson, Katy Jordan, Tony Nash, Maureen Nyilis, John Rohrbaugh, Roger Schwarz, Steve Walter, and Jennifer Webb.