Ala Costa Centers
Strategic Planning and Team Building Process

Initial Situation—August 2005

Ala Costa Centers (ACC) are an after-school program providing services for children and youth with developmental disabilities. They opened a second program site successfully in 2004, hired a new Executive Director in May 2005 and a new Site Director (for the original site) in September 2005. The Executive Director wanted a strategic planning process that would engage all the relevant stakeholders and build teamwork among the staff and Board of Directors (which includes several parents). He also wanted to create more communication and collaboration between the two sites. He was particularly attracted to the AI approach because of its focus on engaging the entire system and building relationships at the same time.

Inspiring Results' Response

We designed and facilitated the following strategic planning process, working with the Executive Director, Chair of the Board of Directors, and the two Site Directors:

• Classroom teachers gathered input from their students on their high point experience at the Center and their biggest hopes for its future, either through discussion or by having them draw pictures.
• We facilitated two evening sessions for parents and teachers where pairs completed appreciative interviews and identified key aspects of the center’s strengths and their hopes for its future. Input from both of these processes was incorporated in the strategic planning process itself.
• We facilitated a 4-D process with the Board of Directors, Executive Director, the Development Director and the two Site Directors over two consecutive Saturdays. The first day, participants conducted appreciative interviews in pairs and then worked in small groups to create images of the Center’s positive core. They also created images of the future they most want to create for the Center. On the second Saturday, they identified relationships and structures they needed to have in place to move toward their dream, and then developed specific implementation plans for the next year, 3 years, and 5 years.
• We wrote a five-year strategic plan based on the group’s work.

Results

ACC has consensus on challenging and doable strategic priorities for their next five years and a great start on detailed implementation plans. All the relevant stakeholders are committed to the process of making those priorities real, and clear on their own roles and responsibilities.

The AI process enabled people from different stakeholder groups to have conversations they’d never had before about their appreciation of the Center’s strengths and their hopes and dreams for its future. They discovered their common commitment to meeting the needs of current and future students, and they explored their different perspectives through careful listening. This exchange built relationships and teamwork among individuals and between the two sites in ways that will serve the Center well as they move toward their dreams for the future.