After your Board has its summer retreat and you begin preparations for the next school year, streamline and enhance your Board’s functionality by compiling selected strategic documents. Store them in a specific container (e.g., a large binder or a hanging-file storage box) that is easily accessible for reference by Trustees as needed for committee work or during regular sessions. Of course, many of the documents can be stored and distributed digitally.
Form a small ad hoc committee to take on the tasks involved.
Step One
Create a list of relevant documents that should be included (see Step Three for some guidance) and check off those items that exist and can be easily included; a question mark may be used to indicate uncertain existence and/or location, and an asterisk may indicate an omission to bring to the Executive Committee’s attention.
Step Two
Locate hard (and electronic) copies of the documents; make sure they are legible.
Step Three
Sort the documents into the following six categories.
- Standing Documents—those that change little, if at all, year to year. These documents typically include the Board-level mission statement, Board policy manual, and the set of bylaws.
- Preplanning Documents—those that were created some months prior to formal planning sessions, primarily to inform planning. This group may include your school’s self-scoring on the ISM Stability Markers™, constituent survey reports, and market analysis reports.
- Planning Documents—those that serve as core referents for current Board activity, including the strategic plan, strategic financial plan, long range plan, and components of an accreditation report.
- Secondary Strategic Documents—those that derive from the plan and represent strategic Board decisions and actions that are underway, such as the long range property/facilities plan, endowment policy, and the Board profile.
- Facilitative Documents—those that directly guide day-to-day Board activity. This set of documents may include charges to various committees, the annual Board agenda, and the annual Board/committee calendar.
- Archives—out-of-service documents from the recent past that may be needed as reminders or as preservers of “strategic memory.” Certainly the previous planning documents and the full set of minutes from last year’s Board meetings could be included.
Step Four
Inform the full Board of the newly compiled set of documents. Direct Committee Chairs to review the documents that are most relevant to their respective Board leadership responsibilities.
The Board President also conducts a review of the contents of your centralized document file. This is particularly important if the Board President is new to the position. (Every year, ISM runs The Board Presidency workshop during our Summer Institute—this year, the workshop is being held in Stowe, VT, on July 12-13. Consider attending if you are new to the position.)
The combination of the broad perspective and detailed reminders this review provides yields two benefits. Having this information compiled and accessible avoids wasting time and can prevent Trustees from repeating previous Boards’ missteps.
Once the Board has established the centralized documents, include the process of updating them as an annual agenda item for early next summer. This will be a relatively easy task for your Board Secretary (or another ad hoc committee).
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for Trustees Vol. 12 No. 3 Enhance Future Strategic Planning Efforts
ISM Monthly Update for Trustees Vol. 11 No. 8 Your Due Diligence as a Trustee
ISM Monthly Update for Trustees Vol. 11 No. 2 Five Steps to Creating Your Board’s Strategic History
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 38 No. 2 Strategic Continuity: The Importance of Board Memory
I&P Vol. 35 No. 5 The Board Policy Manual
I&P Vol. 28 No. 4 A Due Diligence Checklist for Board Trustees
