Written by Saul Carliner and reprinted with permission from TIELINE, the
newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, Arlington, VA, U.S.A.

Tips for Managing Committees
Planning--The Key to an Effective Year

Before starting this new venture

You're the new leader of your community organization. Your enthusiasm is high. So is your desire to make your mark in this new position. But you might be wondering how you can channel this enthusiasm so that you can make your mark, In a word,

Plan!

By spending the first month as a leader planning for the coming year, you can translate your enthusiasm into practical tasks that you and your committee members can reasonably accomplish. In the process, you also anticipate deadlines, costs, and assistance that you'll need, so you're less likely to be caught short on a project. As a result, you're likely to accomplish more with less effort than you might if you did not have a plan.

What does a plan involve?

• Concrete goals
• Milestones and deadlines
• Budget
• Committee

Following is a six-step process you can use to plan for the coming year. Note, however, that you cannot plan forever. Your plan should be in place no later than six weeks after you start your new leadership position.

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Step one: Set three or four key goals for the year.

These goals should be focused on deliverables¾ such as brochures, membership levels, newsletters, and monthly meetings¾ rather than processes.

Deliverables are things that last long after the committee's life and that add value to the Chapter. Your colleagues can point to a deliverable and say, "Here's what Joan's committee produced." More importantly, you can point to the deliverable at the end of the year and feel a sense of accomplishment.

In contrast, processes usually fail to produce results. Processes are a means towards achieving results. For example, forming a committee only provides a pool of labor and knowledge. Holding meetings only helps committee members determine which tasks need to be completed. Not surprisingly, a focus on processes frustrates your committee members as well as your colleagues in the Chapter.

If you are assuming management of an ongoing committee, you might not realize the deliverables that you are actually producing. For example:

• If you are managing an Employment Information Committee of a professional organization, you are actually responsible for producing a regular listing of jobs available. You might establish goals of producing the listing on the same schedule as before, but increasing the number of jobs listed or the number of people who receive the list.
• If you are managing the Program Committee of a religious organization, you are responsible for organizing several monthly meetings and, perhaps, a few special meetings, such as a lecture. You might establish goals for arranging the meetings, as well as increasing the attendance and the satisfaction with meetings (as measured on evaluation forms).
• If you are editing the organization's newsletter, you are responsible for publishing and distributing several issues of the newsletter and for including certain types of information in it. You might establish goals for publishing the same number of meetings, as well as increasing distribution to other professional organizations and of increasing the breadth of the editorial content.

As you consider your goals, review the organization's annual report¾ a formal report on your organization's activities for a given year that is filed by the organization president or executive director¾ to better inform yourself of past successes and challenges in your area of responsibility. This information can also provide you with a general background on your chapter and its goals, helping you ensure that your plans are consistent with the long-term activities of your chapter.

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Step two: Recruit committee members.

The work of most of the committees in your organization is probably too broad for a single person to handle, so you need to appoint committee members to assist you. Your first impression might be to work with someone you know, because the you have always worked well together and the other people are nearby and you can find them.

But chapter committees represent the entire membership of the chapter. Members represent a spectrum of locations, cultures, and industries. You should also strive for a diversity of experience (a mix of experienced and less experienced people), demographics, and geography.

But how do you find these people? Your own networking is a good place to start. Also ask other chapter leaders to suggest names.

Similarly, how many people should serve on your committee. Following are some suggested targets:

• Program: include at least two additional people. One should be a senior member of the chapter, who can provide ideas for programs that might appeal to experienced members. Another should be less experienced and can provide ideas about programs that might appeal to people who are newer to our field.
• Newsletter: try to recruit at least two reporters and a copyeditor, so you have a variety of sources of information and help with key tasks.
• Membership: try to recruit at least two members. One can assist with recruiting and following up with prospective and new members, another can manage a membership renewal campaign.
• Competition: try to recruit a primary committee of at least two people, one to assist with recruiting and training judges, one to assist with the awards presentation and banquet. You will also need a large secondary committee of judges.

When choosing committee members, find out about their other commitments, starting with commitments within the organization. If a person already serves on several other committees, they might be over committing themselves¾ even if they don't realize it.

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Step three: Working with your committee, develop a schedule and budget for the committee.

Merely stating that your committee will produce one or more deliverables is not the same as actually producing them. Consider these issues:

• When will the deliverables be ready?
• Who needs to review them first and when will the reviews occur?
• What intermediate assistance is needed, such as publicity to the chapters and press releases to the general public?
• How much funding does the committee need to produce its deliverables?

Calling on the collective wisdom of your committee, develop a plan that addresses these and similar issues. Specifically, the plan should include:

• A list of all final deadlines and milestones needed to reach the deadline. For example, if you are planning:
• Chapter newsletters, you should not only choose publication dates, but also dates on which articles are due, on which camera-ready copy is due, and on which mailing occurs.
• Chapter programs, you should not only list meeting dates, but also dates for scheduling speakers and meeting spaces, when confirmation and follow-up letters should be sent to the speakers and meeting locations, when press releases announcing the meeting must be sent to the area press, and when the chapter newsletter editor needs an article about the upcoming meeting.
• Membership programs, you should determine a target response time between receipt of inquiry about the organization and the time membership information is mailed. You should also determine a target response time between receiving payment of dues and the time your committee sends a new member packet. If you are planning a renewal campaign, you should determine the dates of phone-a-thons and follow-up calls for membership renewal. You might also plan the production schedule for the chapter's membership directory.
• Resources needed to produce your deliverable. How many people do you need? How much money? Which information and other source material do you need? Whose approvals do you need¾organization president? parent organization (such as the national office, if any)? What other issues can you anticipate, such as competing events and work and vacation schedules that might conflict with the needs of the organization?

Formally prepare this plan so that you have a written record of it. Review the plan with your committee to make sure that the written plan matches everyone's understanding of it.

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Step four: Provide each committee member with a well-defined assignment.

Divide the work into manageable units among the members of the committee. Ask each to volunteer for an assignment. The assignment should be a deliverable, just as the goals of your committee are deliverables. But the deliverable for a volunteer is usually much smaller in scope than a deliverable for a committee. The committee might be responsible for publishing a newsletter; a volunteer might be responsible for writing a regular column. By asking committee members to volunteer for tasks rather than assigning tasks, volunteers are more likely to be working on tasks that interest them. As a result, they are more likely to accomplish them.

Try to avoid asking committee members to just attend meetings or provide advice. As committees usually feel frustrated when their only product is a process, committee members usually become frustrated when their only contribution is process-related and not reflected in a product of the organization.

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Step five: Present your plan to the Chapter's administrative council.

After your committee has reviewed the plan, prepare a version to share with your chapter's administrative council. Because the administrative council has a different view of the chapter than your committee, expect it to have suggestions. For example, the executive board might identify an overlap in plans between yours and another committee. For example, the education committee and program committee might both be planning seminars but the chapter can only support one seminar. Through this review, you can clear up such situations before serious work has begun.

The executive board can also approve any funds you need. (Ideally, your chapter has a formal budget and the funding request is included in that budget. The executive board can approve a change in the budget.)

After the plan is approved by the executive board, it becomes a sort of contract between your committee and the chapter. The plan becomes a contract in that it states what you intend to do and when you intend to do it. As a result, your fellow chapter members know what to expect from you.

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Step six: Follow the progress of your plan and use it as a basis of your regular reports to the chapter executive board.

Use your plan to measure the progress of your committee. For example:

• Track the dates on which events actually occur against those on which you planned for them to occur? Are you meeting or beating the deadlines? Or are you often late? If you are late two or three months in a row, find out why and resolve the problem before this short-term pattern becomes a chronic problem.
• Track expenses and revenues. Are you spending what you intended to spend? If not, are you spending more or less? If you're spending more, will you run out of money before the end of the year? Address the issue now by either finding new sources of funds or controlling your costs before you receive a bill that your chapter cannot afford to pay.
• Track participation. Are volunteers continuing to participate on your committee? Are people still coming to events? If not, ask them why before the situation worsens.

Also use your plan as a basis for your regular report to the boardl. For example, you might do the following:

• List your goals in every written report to the board and state your progress against them. For example, if your goal is to increase attendance at monthly meetings by 15 percent, you might state the average change in attendance since you started in the position.
• If you are the program or education manager for the organization, you might include the schedule of monthly meetings and their speakers, identify attendance targets and explain how actual attendance compares to the targets, report planned and actual revenues and expenses (if your chapter charges for meetings), and report the overall evaluation score of each meeting (if your chapter evaluates meetings, as it should).
• If you are the membership manager of the organization, you might include the names of new members and compare the number of new members against the target, and¾ in the winter, during membership renewal time¾ report the status of membership renewals.

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(c) Copyright. Saul Carliner. 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. All rights reserved.