Strategic Planning Update June 2023

IAAP Partners with Essentiam Strategy

From Prof. Lori Foster, IAAP President

Dear IAAP Members,

Earlier in the year I announced IAAP’s plan to embark on strategic planning in 2023. Over the past months, President-Elect Pedro Neves and I have been working to put the foundation in place for IAAP’s strategic planning process by hiring a strategic planning consultant. With the assistance of our Operations Center, we distributed a request for proposals to 30 entities across three continents to identify a company to help lead IAAP through strategic planning. We received four proposals, which were closely reviewed. From there, we shortlisted and interviewed two candidates.  

After careful consideration, we decided to partner with Essentiam Strategy, who we have begun working with. Essentiam has significant experience not only with membership-based organizations, but also with international groups, and psychology groups specifically. Essentiam led the last strategic planning process for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the Principal is a Director on the board of the International Association for Strategy Professionals. 

Essentiam has been busy reviewing a range of publicly available documents pertaining to IAAP’s mission, history, governance, and activities. More interactive aspects of the process will kick off later this month and next. For example, we will utilize some of our Board of Directors meeting in Brighton, UK in July for a visioning exercise. Interviews, focus groups, and workshops are also being planned. And in September, we will be sending out a member survey so each and every member of IAAP has the opportunity to provide feedback on your experiences as a member and your hopes for the future of the organization. The aim is a highly collaborative process, and a complete strategic plan in place in early 2024. 

If you volunteered to help with this process, Pedro and I will be reaching out to you in June and July to involve you. Thank you for your willingness to contribute to the future of IAAP. 

You can expect to continue to receive updates as we move forward. I look forward to sharing the completed plan with you all in early 2024, and being in touch about this along the way.