Strategic planning includes taking care of people

  • Published
  • By Brig. Gen. Richard Devereaux
  • 82nd Training Wing commander
Last week I discussed some of the specifics of our 82 TRW strategic planning effort called the Balanced Scorecard. I mentioned our new mission statement is "To Deliver Technically Superior, Highly Motivated Warrior Airmen." To achieve this mission requires supporting objectives in two main mission drivers--Tech Training and Airmen Development--both are intertwined and important to ensure our graduates have the skills and knowledge/values that their gaining commanders insist upon.

Our mission doesn't happen by accident. It takes the hard work and dedication of approximately 7,500 permanent party and instructor personnel to make it happen. And in order for our people to take care of our mission, we need to take care of the people. As a result, our strategic planning "balanced scorecard," establishes seven underlying strategic objectives focused on developing and supporting our permanent party personnel. These seven objectives are:

- Reward excellence and innovation - with a robust awards, recognition, and feedback program. 

- Balance mission, individual, and family demands - time off and leave. 

- Prepare airmen to deploy and fight - prevent deployment-related discrepancies. 

- Recruit and develop exceptional, operationally experienced staff - hire instructors with relevant field experience and educational levels. 

- Develop an efficient transitional organization - re-organize the wing for a post-A76, BRAC, and PBD 720 environment. 

- Provide world-class facilities - both new construction and repair/renovation of our existing infrastructure. 

- Leverage technology and innovative capabilities - to drive AFSO 21 smart processes and efficiencies

You might think that some of these objectives may be hard to measure. While that may be true, we are working hard to establishing specific measures for each objective to help us determine if we are making progress in each area. Ultimately, we'll need meaningful metrics to determine whether we are in fact taking care of the people so that they are able to take care of the mission.

Please know that this strategic planning effort is serious, and is intended to help us improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our wing. We are working hard on the underlying objectives and measures. In fact, our wing's senior staff has a 3-hour meeting today to further refine our strategic plan!

Is all this strategic planning necessary? I suppose we could just continue executing our mission without a concerted effort to plan and improve, but in the end this attitude might lead to mission failure especially in an era of declining resources and aging infrastructure. I appreciate your support as we continue to plan and look forward to rolling out this "strat plan" for all of you to see and participate in once it's complete.

Thanks for reading, and have a safe weekend!