IPMA Home | IPMA News IPMA News : July 2006

Note: At its February 2006 meeting, the IPMA Board decided to discontinue this newsletter. Board meeting summaries will continue to be published.

June 8, 2006, Board Meeting

Members Present: Mary Ellen Bradley, Sheryl Hall, Andy Hill, Andy Marcelia, Fran Muskopf, Christy Ridout, Darrel Riffe, Allen Schmidt and Shelagh Taylor. Phil Coates, CFO and Dennis Jones, IPMA Marketing Plan advisor were also present.

Andy Marcelia, IPMA Chair, opened the June 2006 meeting of the IPMA Board of Directors at 7:30 a.m.

Approval of Minutes: Phil Coates noted that the May Board Meeting Minutes needed to be changed to show that the Registration System project was rolled into the Web-redesign project. The minutes from the May 2006 Board meeting were approved as corrected.

Secretary/Treasurer’s Report: The Board approved the May 2006 financial status and activities reports.

Committee Reports:

2006 Executive Conference: Darrel Riffe presented the Executive Conference status report.

1. Speakers have been difficult to get and we have had cancellations. At least one day time slot is open and two dinner speaker slots are open.
2. Gary Robinson cannot attend and a meeting is scheduled with Gary and Jim Albert to determine what DIS will do.
3. Bob Monn has been contacted to begin setup of a web page for registrations.
4. The invitation letter is drafted and will mailed next week.
5. Potential topics for the empty speaker slots are:
   • Russian Mafia in Seattle - Agnes Kirk on point
   • FBI topic - Darrel Riffe on point
   • Seven deadly sins of project management - Phil Grigg on point

2006 Forum: Fran Muskopf presented the Forum 2006 status report:

1. Corporate Sponsors:
   • Twenty-two of 27 sponsors have paid.
   • Does the Board wish to increase the sponsor limit to 28 if the opportunity arises? A discussion of this item was postponed until the July meeting.
2. Vendors:
   • All available vendor booths were sold.
   • Two of the 43 sold were unused sponsor booths.
   • Free booths were provided to PMI, DRS, DOP, OMUG and food vendors.
3. Executive Lunch: There was great turnout to hear State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s presentation. There were 155 registrations, 140 lunches were guaranteed and 135 guests attended. A letter of appreciation has been drafted for chairman Marcelia’s signature.
4. Espresso stand and other food options: The Mudd Bay Coffee Espresso stand was a success. The owner was happy with his business. Meconi’s business was about 35 subs per day. It appears offering another food option may not be justifiable.
5. St. Martin’s catering service: The lunch boxes provided by Sodexho food service worked out well. One hundred-fifty lunch boxes were served on Tuesday and 160 on Wednesday.
6. Forum registrations: The registration process seemed to work much better this year. We registered 645 attendees on Tuesday and 278 on Wednesday for a total of 922. Approximately 12% of the attendees printed out the registration form from the web site and used it for registration. A good sign that an online pre-registration will work next year. The registration data has been forwarded to Ann Marie Coates for processing by month end.
7. Forum support staff: Dave Sugarman and his support staff did an excellent job at the registration desk. The staff worked well with attendees and did a great job of getting attendees to complete evaluation forms, etc. Their efforts were a great help to Jim Andersen.
8. GES: GES caused some issues because their staff did a poor job of laying the carpet. There may be some insurance issues between GES and St. Martin’s. As usual, we had several complaints about price gouging by GES. However, most vendors and attendees did like the new carpet and booth colors.
9. Forum Planning committee: There will be a debriefing meeting July 11, 2006.
10. Forum gift: The black portfolios were a success. We handed out about 890 of the 920 reserved for the Forum. An additional 180 are in storage for upcoming events. A couple of sponsors want to add their name next year. Not sure we want to give out portfolios every year.
11. IPMA booth: It seemed to work well thanks to Fran’s organization.
12. Breakout session evaluations: The Forum and breakout session evaluations have been given to Dave Sugarman for processing. Hope to have data for the Forum debriefing. The final numbers will be distributed next month.
13. Roundtable discussions: The Roundtable Discussions came together at the last minute because of the efforts of the Software Revolution Inc (TSRI), Coraxis and Xerox. The Cheney Room attendance will be distributed next month. Although the numbers were low, it was considered a success by the participating vendors.

Professional Development: Andy Hill reported that the June 29th program is ready to go. Registrations are a little light at this time. The announcements for the August 22nd program with Sandra Smith were released a couple of weeks ago. Announcements for the August event will be reissued now that the Forum is over.

LeaderPath: Allen Schmidt reported that June 15th is graduation day. The Capstone project reports have been submitted and are in the hands of the evaluators. All board members are invited to the attend any or all of the June 15th program during the day, or the dinner in the evening.

Communications: Shelagh Taylor indicated that there was nothing to report beyond what was reported under the Marketing Plan and the Web Site Redesign projects.

Budget & Finance: Allen Schmidt reported that the committee will convene to go over the IPMA business calendar and bring recommendations to the July board meeting.

Status of Special Planning Projects:

Web site re-design: As noted earlier, the Registration Process Project has been rolled into this project. A meeting of stakeholders will be convened in the next few weeks.

Marketing Plan: Dennis Jones presented the IPMA Marketing Plan review.

1. Discussion of Key Concepts of the Marketing Plan
   • Events, Stakeholders, and Infrastructure
     • Each event should have a specific strategy for reaching the target audience.
     • Each event should also be used to market the IPMA.
     • Stakeholder communications should be specific to the stakeholder and focus on an intended outcome / business goal.
     • Infrastructure to support IPMA communications, events and marketing are inefficient and insufficient.
   • Action Plan with Ownership and Accountability
     • Annually the IPMA will identify events, stakeholders and infrastructure items to focus on in the coming year (i.e., top priorities.)
     • Action Plans will identify an Owner, Work plan and Resource requirements for each priority item.
   • Measurable Outcomes and Targets
     • Use specific measure to identify current situation, targeted goals and progress.
2. Executive Summary
   • Mission Driven - partner not competitor
   • Overall Participation is not bad - room to improve
     • More CIO involvement is possible
     • Some agencies aren’t being reached
     • More agency staff can be reached
   • Critical Issues
     • Agency participation - attendance and involvement
     • Sense of Ownership of IPMA by CIO’s and managers
     • More effective and efficient two-way communications
   • Action Plan
     • Infrastructure Plan
       • Implement web site improvements as soon as possible
       • Implement automated registration process as soon as possible
       • Implement standard communication templates
       • Database / mailing list improvements should be an early 2007 action item following the implementation of the registration process.
     • Communications Plan
       • Focus on the key strategies for communications with the CIO’s
     • Events Plan
       • Focus on the marketing objectives for the Executive Conference
     • Update the Marketing Plan for 2007
       • Prior to the 2007 IPMA planning session, the Marketing Plan should be updated to establish the 2007 priorities and propose resolution to key strategy questions.
   • Measures
     
     

     Marketing Objective	Measure	2006 Goal
     Create a sense of ownership and buy-in to the IPMA by CIO’s	CIO attendance at the Executive Conference	Increase from 23 to 30
     Enhance the perception among stakeholders of IPMA’s value	Percentage of “subscribers to the IPMA ListServ”	Increase from 33% to 40%
     Increase the number of agencies that participate in IPMA events	IPMA event participation rates	Reduce from 9 to 5 the number of agencies over 1000 FTE that have a participation rate lower than average

     
     
3.  Next Steps
   • Today or next week - Assign responsibility for the Web Site Redesign and Registration projects and appoint team members. Julian Soh has volunteered to lead this effort and will convene a meeting of stakeholders in the next few weeks.
   • Today - Agree to focus on implementing marketing strategies for CIOs at the Executive Conference. Phil Grigg and Darrel Riffe will alter the conference agenda to provide one full session for attending CIOs for a discussion of how the IPMA might best help them in the future.
   • At the July meeting - Review and approve action plans and resource requirements for projects and plans for the Executive Conference.
4. The board approved the Marketing Plan as presented.

Other Business: No other business

Next Meeting: July 13th at the Shipwreck Café

The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 a.m.

IPMA, P.O. Box 1943, Olympia, WA 98507-1943