IFMA Renews Commitment to Strategic Facility Planning

by Eileen McMorrow

While facilities managers are adept at practicing strategic planning, the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) is revisiting the concept and the condition of Strategic Planning by elevating its importance as a professional undertaking and its impact on the profession and the corporation or organization.
 
The need for a structured business strategy and strategic facility planning becomes increasingly important to organizations, according to Gary Broersma, Chairman of IFMA. “Strategic planning is a leadership tool. As with any tool, it is used to help us do a better job. It helps focus our energy, to ensure that we are all working toward the same goals; and it helps us assess and adjust our direction in response to changes in the industry, the environment, and business in general.”

IFMA’s Strategic Plan describes the ways in which the Association will implement its mission and achieve future goals. The Plan articulates where the Association is going, and why. It also provides a common platform for the IFMA board, volunteers and staff to make decisions regarding the roll-out of programs and the deployment of resources needed to turn the Plan into reality.

IFMA’s Strategic Planning Oversight Team, the research and forecasting team, IFMA staff, and the board of directors, work to ensure that its Plan is grounded in the reality of what can and cannot be accomplished. IFMA asks:

• Are we providing value to our membership?
• What do we use to bring professionals into the membership fold and keep them there?
• And how do we best support and elevate the profession?

“IFMA is recognized as the leading authority on facility management,” says John McGee, First Vice Chair of IFMA. “That’s a powerful position to be in; but it also means that we are not only accountable to the 19,000 members we represent; but also to the hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide that comprise the facility management community; and to the millions of people who occupy the workplace. That is a great responsibility.

Radical change and innovation in the built environment affect our profession more directly than almost any other; and IFMA is positioned to guide its members through those changes.”

IFMA’s challenge is to not only identify the issues affecting its future; but also to provide appropriate and accurate responses to its global community of professionals.

IFMA strives to meet that challenge, guided by the Association’s Strategic Plan. “Our plan for the future directs the choices we make about programs and activities we currently offer the profession. It also directs our decisions about developing forthcoming educational programming, research and career resources,” says McGee.

IFMA’s strategic planning process is all-inclusive and participatory for its members. The board, volunteers and staff take on shared ownership of the Association’s direction. IFMA encourages all levels of staff to contribute to the process, according to Broersma.

IFMA employs the Balanced Scorecard—a system of measurement that helps organizations to align activities with goals. Says Broersma, “It is a blueprint for turning ambition into action.”

“Within the Balanced Scorecard methodology, the Strategy Map is a visual description of an organization’s overall strategic priorities,” offers McGee. “Put simply, it is a diagram that clearly and succinctly illustrates an organization’s strategies for creating value. IFMA’s Strategy Map places the Stakeholder Perspective at the highest position. Our priorities, responsibilities, goals and objectives are focused on members’ needs and expectations. The value of strategy for its stakeholders is in IFMA’s efforts to provide them with opportunities that expand and leverage their collective knowledge and experiences,” says McGee.

More education will be offered

IFMA believes future facility professionals will be required to posses a wider range of skills and have a greater understanding of areas spanning technology, sustainability, global standards and practices.

As facility professionals are given more responsibility, they will need to set professional development as a priority. “It is IFMA’s obligation to ensure that the courses and information we deliver are both timely and useful,” McGee declares.

In addition to on-site courses and events held throughout the year, IFMA’s Online Learning Center allows those with time and budget concerns to participate in self-study course modules.

The Board’s role

For almost seven years, IFMA has had a strategic board—evaluating where IFMA has been; where IFMA is now; where IFMA wants to go; and how to go about getting there.

IFMA’s Board of Directors works with its Senior Management Team to look at the future. IFMA’s Strategic Planning Oversight Team, the research and forecasting team, IFMA staff, and the board of directors, work to ensure that its Plan is grounded in the reality of what can and cannot be accomplished. To evaluate the relevancy of its measures, targets and initiatives, IFMA asks:

• Are we providing value to our membership?
• What do we use to bring professionals into the membership fold and keep them there?
• How do we best support and elevate the profession?

Explains Broersma: “Successful organizations must willingly and objectively review and assess operations. It is a healthy process, and acknowledges the ever-changing face of business practices. An organization that remains stagnant has difficulty creating momentum. If IFMA intends to remain a valuable resource to the future of facility management, it must also modify and adjust its processes and procedures to not only keep pace with, but also to lead the industry it serves.”

Planning for future leaders

Succession Planning is another area of focus for the board this year. This process identifies and prepares future volunteer leaders for IFMA’s chapters and councils. Through mentoring and training programs, chapters and councils will have the ability to establish a pool of candidates with high leadership potential; thus ensuring the longevity and vitality of local and industry-specific member communities. Staff and volunteer leaders are currently exploring methods for delivering succession planning models for IFMA’s chapters and councils to employ. 

“Strategy lies in the ability to make decisions about what is most important to achieving success…through our commitment to our stakeholders; through internal operations; through learning and growth, and through sound financial management,” explains Broersma. “It is IFMA’s task to define challenges facing the profession, evaluate how those challenges affect the facility management community, and determine how IFMA can both effectively anticipate and address those issues.”

Strategic Facility Planning

The third area in which the board is focusing its attention is Strategic Facility Planning.

IFMA’s 2007 Forecasting Report indicates that the number-one trend affecting the future of the profession is “Linking facility management to strategy.”

Many facilities are designed as a reaction to shorter-term business requirements; however, businesses are gaining a better understanding of the impact that facilities have on productivity, employee and customer satisfaction, and public perception of the organization, according to IFMA. As awareness of the facility manager’s value as steward of the built environment increases, the FM is faced with providing long-term business strategies that ensure that the facilities one manages support the overall business culture and provide a measurable return on investment, the Association decrees.

IFMA intends to assist its members in better understanding strategy. “We need to visualize long-term corporate goals, rather than relying only on short-term tactical action,” says Broersma. “We need to continue communicating the importance of facilities as an effective component of business, which requires the ability to self-market. We need to be a part of the budgeting process, which requires a certain degree of financial acumen. We need to speak the language of the C-Suite. What is the bottom line for the leaders of your enterprise?

SFP gets a task force

IFMA has a new Strategic Facility Planning Task Force. Members of the Task Force represent IFMA staff and board members, as well as practitioners and consultants. This team is working to define Strategic Facility Planning, and develop a plan of action to deliver appropriate and comprehensive training to the profession. “It is our goal that by the time you’re asked to provide a strategic facility plan, you’ve already begun addressing a two-to-five-year plan for the needs of your facility,” says Broersma.

IFMA is challenged by an increasingly competitive environment, in which it must seek and leverage business opportunities, without sacrificing its position as an altruistic institution. In order for IFMA to meet the objectives laid out in its Strategic Plan, IFMA is investigating partnerships that will forward the Association as a strong and dependable voice in the industry, according to its management team.

The Association currently collaborates with other institutions within and outside of the industry to both promote its cause, and to bring the most complete and current information to its members. Additionally, Corporate Sustaining Partners share IFMA’s objectives in providing professionals with the education, information and interaction.

“With the support of our Corporate Sustaining Partners; the assistance of chapters, councils, and Recognized Degree Programs; and IFMA’s partnerships with other industry organizations, we have the opportunity to not only increase visibility for the Association, but also provide our members with high-quality programs and resources,” says Broersma.

More information is available at www.ifma.org

Eileen McMorrow is a member of IFMA’s Board of Directors since 2005.