Setting Strategic Priorities October 2009

1. Setting Strategic PrioritiesOctober 2009 Nancy Dubois Jodi Thesenvitz

2. Introductions • Facilitators • Bios at www.thcu.ca • The Technology • mood • questions • Webinar Courtesy • mute (music) / quiet • Screen Display • Visible? • access slides from our blog at: http://www.thcu.ca/blogs/lc/?cat=22 • Size on screen • Participant s • Anyone not on LM? • Groups of people?

3. Agenda • Introduction to the topic • Objectives • Overview of four priority-setting techniques • Additional resources • Q&A • Closing Remarks

4. Objectives • To increase participant awareness, comfort and skill about using structured, strategic group processes for setting priorities and making decisions

5. The Healthy Communities Partnerships Context • Setting strategic priorities for a comprehensive community plan, across the spectrum of health promotion strategies, with a particular emphasis on policy • Members from many more sectors at the table, therefore, potentially a more complex process • Locally funded initiatives will eventually align with community priorities (Phase IV), therefore, there may be some “turf” or “agendas” associated with which priorities are set

6. The Healthy Communities context (2) Potentially setting priorities regarding … • Types of situational assessment data gathering to undertake • E.g., Consultations – focus groups vs. Key Informant Interviews • Population(s) to focus on • Policy option(s) to mobilize around • Relative emphasis in community plan across the 6 risk factors

7. Poll • How are decisions usually made in your ‘real world’? • A binding voting process in a large group of stakeholders • Gather ideas from all kinds of stakeholders, then a few key people discuss the options, and make their best choice • All options are vetted through specific review criteria – highest score wins! • Other?

8. The real world • These processes will help you be more structured and strategic • They will help you narrow a larger list to a short-list • But, in the end, some judgment calls may still be required. For example, if two or three options ‘tie’. • So be clear from the outset about who has ultimate control of the decision process

9. Introduction to structured, group processes for setting priorities

10. Setting priorities:The FINAL step in a process

11. Generate ideas: • Ideas about what? • Audiences/populations to focus on • Objectives • Broad strategies • Specific activities • Anything really………which dress to buy, who to invite to your party…….

12. Generate ideas: How • By looking at many types of data: • Evaluation results • Good/better/best/recommended practices • Community stories • Environmental scan • Research findings • Stakeholder agendas • By using methods such as: • Consultation with stakeholders • Literature searches and reviews • Surveys

13. Analyze Ideas

14. Make decision about strategic priorities

15. Links to THCU’s planning model

16. Overview of four priority-setting techniques Dotmocracy Paired comparisons Quadrant analysis/decision box Grid analysis

17. Dotmocracy

18. When to use • Works well for large groups • Works well with ‘less analytical’ groups – e.g., mixed community stakeholders • Is active, energizing, fun • Works in situations where more subjective judgment calls are acceptable (vs. quantifiable, very specific analysis procedures).

19. 1. Post the options on the walls.

21. 2. Establish voting criteria • How will people decide how to vote? • Often fairly subjective in dotmocracy • Up to individual to determine ‘importance’ based on their expertise and preference • But you can suggest considerations to make it more strategic • For example, need, impact, capacity, potential for partnership / collaboration • But how people weight, and determine their overall ‘score’ is still subjective

22. 3. Establish the voting scale. • Usually the scale is a straightforward “in or out” • i.e., Want (gets a dot) vs. Don’t want (no dot) • Some processes give people both green and red dots (support, don’t support) • Other versions of the process include a range of choices for each option being considered • i.e., strongly support, moderately support, don’t support, strongly don’t support, etc. • In this case, results provide more information, but are less conclusive and possibly more difficult to interpret

24. 4. Establish the voting process/rules • How many dots does each person get? • base this, in part, on how many options you are willing to consider in the results • Can you give more than one dot to a given choice to show a heavy preference? • Is there a time-limit for the exercise? • Can you abstain? Conflicts of interest?

25. 5. Confirm decision-making process • Is the vote binding, or will it be considered ‘advice’ for further discussion, perhaps by a smaller group of decision-makers? • Sometimes, there may be a two-step voting process. One vote to whittle the list down, the second vote to make the final decision • Delphi Technique

26. DotmocracyOverview of Procedure • Post the options on the walls. • Establish voting criteria (how will I decide?) • Establish the voting scale. • Two choices: Want (gets a dot) vs. Don’t want (no dot) • Multiple options: Strongly support; support; neutral; etc. • Establish the voting process/rules • How many dots does each person get? Can you give more than one dot to a given choice? Is there a time-limit? • Do you assign a dot for each choice (if using multiple options) • Confirm decision-making process • Most votes wins? • Results go to a subcommittee or secondary process for discussion/interpretation?

27. Dotmocracy limitations • How people weight, and determine their overall ‘score’ is subjective • Therefore, in certain situations, justifying the ‘why’ of the decision may be difficult • Can be time consuming for people to make up their mind, or to tally the results • Excludes people who are not present at the time of voting

28. When I would use it … • You have several policy options under consideration but know you cannot tackle them all first • Post all options • Each voter (e.g., organization), gets one green dot for the “go” choice and as many red “don’t go” dots as they need to indicate those they would NOT support

29. Dotmocracy:Additional Resources • There are many resources – Google It! • One source: • The Dotmocracy Handbook, Jason Diceman • www.dotmocracy.org

30. Paired Comparisons

31. When to use (1) • Like dotmocracy, works well when there is only one criteria, (i.e., overall ‘importance’) • But has an increased degree of rigor; helps participants to go past their initial ‘gut’ reaction • Usually provides a more quantifiable ‘winner’

32. When to use (2) • Better with slightly smaller groups than dotmocracy • Like dotmocracy, appropriate for use with groups of mixed sophistication and understanding of planning processes/evidence based decisions (e.g., broad community groups) • When you are not able to meet in person & need a method to use virtually

33. 1. List the options you will compare. Assign a letter to each. • A – Subsidies to offset facility program fees • B – Buses with bike racks attached • C – Workplaces with flex hours to allow for workouts during the day • D – Mandatory training for teachers in DPA activities

34. 2. Mark the options as row and column headings on the table.

35. 3. Block out the cells where you will compare an option with itself

36. 4. Block out the cells where you will duplicate a comparison

37. 5. In remaining cells compare the option in the row with the one in the column • For each cell, decide which of the two options is more important. • You may enhance the process by giving people certain criteria to reflect on to help them determine ‘importance’ or ‘best fit to criteria’. • Write down the letter of the more important option in the cell. • Score the difference in importance • From 0 (no difference) to 3 (major difference).

38. 5. Compare. Write down letter of most important + the score.

39. 6. Add up the totals. • A = 3 (37.5%) • B = 1 (12.5%) • C = 4 (50%) • D = 0 • You may want to calculate percentages of total ‘votes’. • In this case, ‘c’ is the favoured choice.

40. Paired Comparisons Overview of Procedure • List the options you will compare. Assign a letter to each. • Mark the options as row and column headings on the table. • Block out the cells where you will compare an option with itself. • Block out the cells where you will duplicate a comparison. • Within the remaining cells compare the option in the row with the one in the column. For each cell, decide which of the two options is more important. Write down the letter of the more important option in the cell, and score the difference in importance from 0 (no difference) to 3 (major difference). • Finally, consolidate the results by adding up the total of all the values for each of the options. You may want to convert these values into a percentage of the total score.

41. Paired Comparisons: Using in a Group Context • Each individual does their own scoring • Each pair is discussed separately as a group • Using a spreadsheet, the facilitator enters each individual’s score, for each pair • In that way, a total, or average (either one can be used) score can be quickly computed for use in the overall paired comparison grid • When a wide range of scores is received, discussion is needed to ensure everyone is comfortable with the total or average being entered in to the master grid

42. Paired ComparisonsLimitations • Like dotmocracy, how people weight, and determine their overall ‘score’ is subjective • Therefore, in certain situations, justifying the ‘why’ of the decision may be difficult

43. How I would use it … • Dotmocracy identified 2-3 finalists and they need to be ranked in terms of priority

44. Further resources on paired comparisons Mind Tools: Excellent Skills for an Excellent Career http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_02.htm

45. Quadrant Analysis/Decision Box

46. When to use • Two clear criteria • Medium level of expertise/sophistication of participants • One degree up in terms of rigour, from paired comparisons • In our demo today, we are moving to increasingly more ‘strategic’ decision making, thus building more quantifiable cases for why you have made your choice.

47. 1. Choose and explain your 2 criteria and response categories • Examples of criteria pairs • Supply/demand • Cost/benefit • Effort/impact • Internal environment/external environment • Mandate/community need • Examples of response categories • Yes/no • Good/bad • High/low

48. 2. Assign each choice to a quadrantExample: effort/impact

49. Another example:Cluster of SWOT Results From Kevin P. Kearns, “Comparative Advantage to Damage Control: Clarifying Strategic Issues Using SWOT Analysis.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 3 No. 1 (Fall 1992).

50. Paired ComparisonsLimitations • May still need a further process to prioritize among a number of items that end up together in ‘desirable’ quadrants