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1.0 Introduction
The purpose of this strategic plan is to institutionalize, via a living guidance document, the future direction of the NWA. From an overall statement of NWA purpose, a set of broad goals have been established. Through the establishment of these goals, the Association can then set specific achievable objectives to follow. This plan sets out goals in two categories, defined as follows:
Long-term. Goals of a longer term nature, over a 5-10 year period from today. Short-term. Goals of a shorter term nature, over the next 0-5 years from today. Some goals transcend both periods; that is, they necessitate both short-term and long-term actions.
This Strategic Plan has been developed by the NWA Strategic Planning Committee, composed of past NWA presidents. It was conceived and initiated during 1996, with a major upgrade at the Strategic Planning Committee meeting, in session, December 2, 1996.
2.0 Purpose of the NWA
The established purposes of the NWA are today detailed in its guiding artifact, the National Weather Association By-Laws. Those By-Laws state these purposes as objectives, as follows:
3.0 Long-Term
The National Weather Association shall establish a set of goals that ensure long-term fulfillment of the Association's purpose. As its strategy to achieve those goals, the NWA will also establish a set of objectives, each contributing in some way to the fulfillment of those goals.
GOAL Ll. Infrastructure. The NWA must establish and maintain, at a high priority, a robust infrastructure through which it will continue to grow and perform its activities.
OBJECTIVE L1.1 Office. The NWA shall work to establish and maintain a permanent office, with an incrementally-growing, resident, permanent staff. This will ensure a viable central base of operations, with minimum dependence on one or two individuals.
OBJECTIVE L1.2 Officers. The NWA shall maintain its practice of electing officers and councilors for the governing of the Association. The current Council shall ensure only the most qualified and experienced members are considered for elective office.
OBJECTIVE L1.3 Committees. The NWA needs to strengthen its framework of committees, in order to ensure the work of the association is carried out, and to provide experience and growth for future NWA leaders. This is a basic infrastructural issue about which the Strategic Planning Committee feels very strongly; there needs to be strong emphasis on this area.
OBJECTIVE L1.4 Staff Compensation. The NWA needs to develop a formal plan for staff compensation, to include a salary structure for the Executive Director, special travel or stipends, office assistants, and other potential salaried employees. This plan should include direct salary, indirect benefits, and other fringe expenses. This plan will allow improved long-term planning and a basis for revenue generation requirements.
GOAL L2. Revenue. The NWA must ensure a stable, growing stream of revenue is available for its operations and educational outreach.
OBJECTIVE L2.1 Budget. The NWA shall maintain a detailed budget of its activities each year, with oversight from the Council, as well as periodic audits, in order to assure operations within the existing sources of revenue.
OBJECTIVE L2.2 Revenue sources. The NWA needs to investigate additional ways of increasing its revenue, beyond the core dues basis.
OBJECTIVE L2.3 Extreme measures. The NWA needs to avoid extreme revenue generation measures, such as excessive dues increases over short periods of time.
GOAL L3. Membership. The NWA should evaluate its growth potential to determine the optimum growth pattern over time, until it achieves a steady state at some number that analysis shows to be achievable and maintainable. The Strategic Planning Committee membership believes this number to be in excess of 3,000, and we recommend this number as the initial long-term membership goal.
OBJECTIVE L3.1 Demographic analysis. The NWA should undertake an analysis of functional groups, through data collection, survey, or other appropriate means, to determine the population of different functional groups from which the NWA would draw members. It should then establish objectives for membership within these groups and target recruitment efforts against those objectives.
(For example, it is known that military officer and enlisted forecaster membership is a very low percentage of that which is possible; this contrasts against a very different percentage of NWS forecaster positions. This analysis should also include broadcasters, hydrologists, climatologists, private sector, students, and more.)
GOAL L4. NWA Activities. The NWA has a history of taking a stand on issues of importance, and it should continue to do so. This is in keeping with service to its membership and the cause of operations. These activities should be carefully weighed to ensure efforts are not aimed at political or special interest group objectives.
OBJECTIVE L4.1 Continue to monitor operational issues and consider taking an NWA position on those that are deemed worthy, and of interest to, or representative of NWA membership.
OBJECTIVE L4.2 Continue to monitor privatization issues and how they may impact the NWA mission statement and customer base, and the evolving association.
4.0 Short-Term Goals and Objectives
The NWA shall also establish a set of goals that ensure short-term fulfillment of the Association's purpose, and the achieving strategy shall be through a set of objectives.
GOAL S1. Committees. The NWA must ensure its committees are active and properly defined.
OBJECTIVE S1.1 Scope. The NWA needs to review its current committee structure to ensure it is representative of the general direction of its members' functional interests.
OBJECTIVE S1.2 Viability. The NWA should relook its committee chairs and members to ensure each committee is active and working on behalf of the NWA's long-term goals. The Council should examine methods for increased regular oversight of the committees, and make changes as necessary to ensure committee effectiveness.
OBJECTIVE S1.3 Connectivity. The NWA should work to establish a stronger link between its committees and the annual meetings. Committees should be a pipeline for topics and papers into the annual meetings.
GOAL S2. Membership. The NWA must increase its membership, and should guide its efforts on the basis of distribution of current operational skills throughout society.
OBJECTIVE S2.1 Growth. The NWA needs to take stronger measures to increase and grow its membership population, in order to (1) offset losses, and (2) grow the organization.
OBJECTIVE S2.2 Targeted groups. The NWA should assess the ratios of available population across major groups, then target membership recruitment goals against those percentages. (This would include cooperative observers, military, schools, AWRA, AOPA, etc.)
OBJECTIVE S2.3 Advertising. The NWA should advertise. Consider trading advertising space with other related publications, such as Weatherwise or newsletters from other similar organizations. It is likely that traded advertisements can result in no cost to NWA.
OBJECTIVE S2.4 Periodicals samples. Consider sending copies of Newsletters and Digests to targeted groups to solicit membership. Accompany these with letters of endorsement from leaders.
GOAL S3. Training. The NWA should continue to place high priority on training, through every available avenue.
OBJECTIVE S3.1 Workshops. The NWA should continue its practice of conducting training workshops at each Annual Meeting. These workshops contribute to the overall NWA purpose, and are well received by the membership. Target private meteorologists and broadcasters as well as overnment forecaster groups.
OBJECTIVE S3.2 COMET Modules. Consider use of COMET modules in training workshops or other venues in order to make greatest use of this valuable asset. Disseminate information to the membership regarding newly available modules.
GOAL S3. Meetings. The NWA needs to continue its current emphasis on increasing the quality and self-supporting nature of its meetings.
OBJECTIVE S3.1 Presentation quality. The NWA needs to continue to identify ways to increase the quality of its papers presented at meetings. Each year to date has shown strong improvement.
OBJECTIVE S3.2 Vendor participation. The NWA should increase vendor and other organizational participation at its annual meeting.
OBJECTIVE S3.3 Teleconferencing. Make plans to use teleconferencing more in future meetings. Sudden unavailability of speaker travel to meetings, training opportunities, or availability of historical figures for keynote talks suggest that teleconferencing would contribute greatly to meeting success.
OBJECTIVE S3.4 Cosponsoring. The NWA should consider co-sponsoring as many meetings as possible, in order to gain further name recognition and provide attendance cost savings to its members.
OBJECTIVE S3.5 Carefully consider whether concurrent sessions are in the best interest of the annual meeting, and employ this method only when necessary.
OBJECTIVE S3.6 Adopt a method of providing annual meeting lessons learned to the upcoming year's annual meeting committee.
OBJECTIVE S3.7 Provide earlier notification to members of papers approval and meeting schedule for the NWA Annual Meeting.
OBJECTIVE S3.8 Involve the committees in the annual meeting plans. For example, the 1997 NWA Annual Meeting might feature aviation, satellite, and weather and forecasting topics. The applicable committee chairs would then be asked to support papers generation, review, and session hosting. This would then be followed up with committee efforts to gain publication of the best session papers.
OBJECTIVE S3.9 Plan to upgrade meeting presentations to provide an opportunity for a venue of softcopy, such as PowerPoint presentations, rather than plastic overhead slides.
GOAL S4. NWA 25th Anniversary. The NWA should begin planning for a significant 25th anniversary year and annual meeting during the year 2000.
OBJECTIVE S4.1 Meeting Location. The meeting should be held in the Washington, DC area to afford maximum opportunity for high-level keynote speakers and guests.
OBJECTIVE S4.2 Planning Committee. The Council should establish a special committee, chaired by a past president (Steve Harned is a volunteer), to begin to conduct the necessary planning for the year and the event.
5.0 Recommendations to the Council
Each year at the NWA Annual Meeting, and at other times as desired by the Strategic Planning Committee, the committee shall file a report to the NWA Council, detailing its recommendations and forwarding the current plan.
6.0 Publishing the Strategic Plan
Each year, the NWA shall publish at least the highest levels of the NWA Strategic Plan in a appropriate NWA publication, thereby providing the membership an opportunity to comment on its content and direction.