Pilot Outputs - Monitoring
The institutional experience - Beaumont College
"We seek to build a system of continuous review that is built into the operational framework used by managers so that actions flow right from the College wide Strategic Plan via individual senior managers annual quality improvement plans, individual managers work programs and 'down' to the work programs of individual members of staff and their work programs or 'smart' targets. We want to assure that feedback flows back 'up' this chain, ultimately to inform the future development of the college wide strategic plan. This approach aligns very much with this section of the infoKit"
"Ensuring that Leadership Team members properly cascade the strategic conversation down to members of their teams is an important part of monitoring the process of strategy informing operation, it is an area that we are still working on. We feel the monitoring should not be seen as an extra or imposed step but integral to the process. If it feels imposed it will be resisted and the whole endeavour will fail. If it is integral to the new mode of operation it will be a success, we aim to achieve this in the medium to long term."
"We feel that the most important part of the InfoKit is the section on monitoring because it resolved the potential difficulty that an excessive investment in planning can be ultimately defeating in that such an emphasis can create monolithic structures and prevent organisations from responding flexibility. For us the insight of the infoKit monitoring section is that it highlighted the necessity to monitor direction and means as well as progress against targets. If this practice was widely performed across the organisation at all levels then it would counter rigidity and inflexibility in delivery. It is the feedback loops between strategy and operation and the external environment that bring an organisation to life."
