Guest Blog by Sinead McGartland, Director of Planning and Projects

In the summer of 2017, with much of what was laid out in The Way Forward accomplished, our college began developing a new strategic plan. This was a time to unite and engage a large audience for input, design and approval of our 2017-2022 strategic plan. With more than 200 people participating, the process was very successful. We came together and proudly articulated why we exist and how we will deliver our plan—reiterated here to remind you. I also share with you information on what happens next.

Why do we exist?

Our vision is that we are leaders in improving the health and well-being of the people of Saskatchewan and the world.

How will we deliver?

As a socially accountable organization, we improve health through innovative and interdisciplinary research and education, leadership, community engagement, and the development of culturally competent, skilled clinicians and scientists. Collaborative and mutually beneficial partnerships with Indigenous peoples and communities are central to our mission.

What will we do?

We are confident that by focusing on seven priorities we will deliver on our mission: research, Indigenous health, health system alignment, social accountability and community engagement, faculty engagement, distributed medical education and quality education. We will also focus on enabling components, such as our people, processes and structures, to ensure our priorities are effectively supported.

How will we know we have accomplished our plan?

The final component is execution.

We need to find the right balance in delivering on each priority while supporting integration and opportunities for synergy across all initiatives. Our leadership team, through senior leadership council, is accountable for the progress of our entire plan. They are the plan’s executive sponsors, and will complete ‘wall walks’ to assess short-term progress as well as formal bi-annual progress checks, and will report outcomes to the college on an annual basis.

For each of our priorities, committing to clearly stated activities will move our high-level plan to a concrete and actionable plan. It’s been statistically shown that simply by writing and sharing our plan, we are 60 to 80 per cent more likely to deliver! Since the high-level strategic plan was shared with the college last spring, work has been completed across each strategic priority, including a vision statement for each, identified objectives, and activities sequenced over the five-year period. For each priority, key indicators that we track to demonstrate progress on delivering our plan are being identified.

At this stage, integration is critical to our success. Some of the specific activities that have been identified benefit other priority areas and some require the same people to complete the work.  Achieving the right balance of moving forward and integrating our work means we can comprehensively and confidently accomplish what we’ve agreed to in our 2017-2022 plan.

As we implement our CoM plan, we are also ensuring alignment with the university’s planning process. Our plan fits nicely into the U of S “weave” identified through its planning processes, where we are aligned with the core areas of curiosity, collaborations and communities.

Contribute to the objectives/activities under the CoM plan:

• Share what you have been doing or plan to do that contributes to our plan priorities! Send a short paragraph to communications@usask.ca on your activity or achievement, which priority it contributes to, and how it contributes to that priority.
• Join the many opportunities that will occur over the next few months to inform and influence the next iterations of the plan, including joining the dean for a wall walk to learn about our progress. Watch for more information!

The success of our strategy will come down to the strength of our execution—our past accomplishments tell us we are on the right path for a great future together!

“It is not truly a ‘shared vision’ until it connects with the personal visions of people throughout the organization.”  – Senge (1990)