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PRESIDENT'S LETTER

JAMES R. EVANS, President, Decision Sciences Institute,
University of Cincinnati
I don't have a degree in business; all my academic degrees come from industrial engineering programs. However, I was fortunate to enter the job market in the mid-70s when many business schools were developing strengths in quantitative disciplines and hired this expertise from engineering. As such, I did not have the opportunity to learn about the Decision Sciences Institute as a graduate student.

I joined the Institute and began attending annual meetings a few years after joining the faculty at the University of Cincinnati, primarily because the meetings were being held in some really neat places like San Francisco, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. (People still think I'm kidding about this.) However, I soon learned that DSI had much to offer in all aspects of professional development. Even more satisfying, I found the members to be a great group of people with whom to work, more than any other association I had been involved with. In short, DSI became my organization of choice, and I am honored and proud to have the opportunity to serve as president.

Being in my fourth year as an examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program and focusing at least two-thirds of my teaching and scholarly activities on the subject of total quality, I suspect that many of my colleagues would expect me to "walk the talk." And that's precisely what I intend to do. This year, the Baldrige criteria have moved even further away from a perceived narrow focus on "managing quality" to a comprehensive framework for improving overall organizational performance excellence. Thus, it seems natural to attempt to assess the Institute from this perspective. As a personal exercise, I decided to do a quick-and-dirty evaluation of the Institute from the Baldrige perspective, perhaps a first for an organization such as ours. This exercise supports one of the major priorities that were affirmed by the Board of Directors several years ago -- continuous improvement -- and has validated my feelings that, as a professional organization, we have some enviable "role model" strengths. But it also points to some areas in which we can improve, and these formed the basis for many of the Board of Directors' objectives I proposed as president-elect. So let me turn to each of the seven categories in the criteria, and present my views of how we measure up to world-class standards.

Leadership

The Leadership category seeks information on how the organization's leaders create and sustain values, directions, expectations, customer focus and an effective leadership system that promotes excellence. This has clearly been one of the key strengths of the Institute. The leadership system is well-designed, with a broadly-represented Board of Directors, an Executive Committee, regional vice-presidents, at large vice-presidents in staggered terms, and three-year Board commitments by elected presidents. The president-elect and Board establish committee charges annually. Leadership in the Institute is developed through committees, coordinator positions, and progressive appointments. A strong regional organization exists. Board members personally attend regional conferences. Fellows are encouraged to actively participate in various Institute leadership activities. Three annual board meetings establish direction and set future opportunities. The leadership communicates to the membership extensively through Decision Line and the Internet. The Board reviews performance through committee reports and the objectives-setting process.

Also included in the Leadership category is Responsibility and Citizenship. Our principal responsibility is to the public in terms of educational advancement. We are accomplishing this by developing partnerships with organizations such as AACSB and our sister societies, and by understanding and developing the professional talents of our members to further serve their institutions and our ultimate customersþstudents. Moreover, DSI practices are based on high ethical conduct through double blind reviews for Decision Sciences, its financial reporting practices, openness about room rebates, an investment advisory committee, and a nominating process that provides objectivity and opportunity for all members.

One area for improvement that I perceive is that the roles of vice-presidents, which constitute an important component of the Board, are not clearly defined. Thus, I have developed a new category of charges for regionally-elected vice-presidents that lead to closer alignment and support of regional initiatives with Institute objectives, strengthen the communication between regions and the Institute, and provide for visible accountability.

Strategic Planning

The Strategic Planning category seeks how strategic directions are set and how key action plans are developed. Historically, Institute planning has been carried out somewhat informally, through a process of developing and reviewing sets of committee objectives charges at the Board level, generally based on previous year's actions and recommendations, and reviewing new committee reports and recommendations at the end of the year. Several years ago, the Board developed a set of Institute priorities to focus some of its activities. While we have informally benchmarked competing organizations and searched for new opportunities such as the MBA and curricular issues programs at the annual meeting, the Institute had no formal mission or vision, or a systematic strategy development process similar to those of leading business organizations. Last year the Development Committee for Excellence in the Decision Sciences drafted a mission statement which has been critically examined and revised by the Board. In working with the Development Committee, I proposed a new strategic planning process by which the Executive Committee would act as a strategic planning council to propose a plan for Board approval that is consistent with the Institute's mission and which would be deployed through the traditional objective and committee structure, with oversight by the Development Committee. The process is designed to include a better focus on our customers, competitors, risks, and capabilities. This represents one of the most fundamental changes in Institute operations in some time, and I am confident that it will help to direct our efforts to achieve much higher levels of performance in meeting the needs of our stakeholders. I will have more to say about the Institute's Strategic Plan and planning process in the July Decision Line.

Customer and Market Focus

The Customer and Market Focus category looks at how an organization determines requirements and expectations of its customers, enhances relationships, and determines satisfaction. This is a critical area for effective strategic planning, and one of my top priorities during the coming year. We know our "market segments" as large universities and small colleges, with a growing international segment; our customers include faculty, graduate students, deans, and department chairs. However, our processes for understanding and differentiating their needs is at best informal. The Membership Services Coordinator and Committee gathers information, but we don't necessarily use it to our full advantage. We need better processes for listening to our customers, analyzing the information, and using it to improve our programs and services. We need to manage the Campus Representative program better, develop better understanding of membership retention. Finally, we need to continue to move forward in our current initiatives in the Information Technology area to improve member services.

Information and Analysis

The Information and Analysis category relates to the selection, management, and use of information and data needed to support key processes and improve performance. The Home Office maintains a variety of useful data and information, including membership data, financial data, meeting statistics, publications data, and placement services data. We have extensive financial and budget reporting that drives key Board decisions and initiatives. We have an excellent process of reviewing committee reports and recommendations to assess progress and develop priorities for improvement. However, I don't believe that we fully use all of the information available in an integrated fashion. Also, we have been struggling, although making considerable progress, in applying information technology to our data management activities.

An important part of this category is the use of comparative information. We have always used comparative information for setting such things as conference registration rates, member dues, and Home Office salaries, and have benchmarked some processes with other organizations. In many areas, such as placement services and conference management, we are the benchmark in the eyes of other organizations. However, we can improve our approaches to seeking better and best practices outside of the Institute in other important areas such as Doctoral Student Affairs and Programs and Meetings.

Human Resource Development and Management

The Human Resource Development and Management category seeks to understand how the "work force" is enabled to develop and utilize its full potential, aligned with the organization's objectives, and how we build and maintain an environment conducive to excellence, participation and personal growth. The committee and consortium structures are key strengths in meeting these goals, as are the annual meeting and regional meetings. The "work" of the Institute is accomplished through strong cross-functional committees, which ensure individual initiative and self-directed responsibility, thus improving professional development of faculty. Individuals are recognized through the Fellows, and with various awards at the annual and regional meetings. Other programs, such as the Doctoral Consortium and New Faculty Development Workshop, aim to develop our members. A Home Office review is conducted periodically to identify improvements in work design for full- and part-time staff. The Home Office is a benchmark of efficiency and effectiveness, and one of the key strengths of the Institute.

Process Management

The Process Management category focuses on how key processes are designed, effectively managed, and improved to achieve better performance. I see this as one of the major areas for improvement and a focus for many of the Board of Directors' objectives. Like any organization, we have many processes. Those that involve the annual meeting, such as site selection and conference management, are managed very well by Carol Latta, the Executive Director. Other processes, particularly those that are under the purview of committees, generally are not clearly understood. Thus, I have charged most committees with developing, documenting, and implementing repeatable processes that will better support committee succession and institutional memory. Also, we seem to do little evaluation and improvement of our processes. Therefore, a key charge for all committees is to review and improve the Policies and Procedures Manual in light of the Institute's Mission Statement and Strategic Plan.

We also have several key suppliers and partners: schools, hotels, Georgia State University, staff insurance providers, the AACSB, Alpha Iota Delta, and book publishers. These are coordinated closely by the Home Office. However, we have several opportunities to develop closer partnering relationships.

Results

Finally, in the Results category, we have solid financial results. However, we have not been reporting, trending, and analyzing results in other key categories, such as membership, to form a basis for actionable decisions and really know how effective we are.

Would we win a Baldrige Award if one existed for "non-profit professional academic organizations"? Speaking as an examiner, probably not. It's a tough standard to measure up against. Nevertheless, I believe that we would score very high in some categories. By striving toward implementing some of the management practices that have led to excellence in industry, we can further distinguish ourselves from other professional organizations, and be recognized as a world-class leaderþand the organization of choice among business school faculty. I look forward to the coming year, and encourage you to contact me (evansjr@email.uc.edu) with any items of concern about the Institute.