Virginia Correctional Enterprises - Operational Meeting - August 2006.

International Consulting Service (ICS) was engaged by Virginia Correctional Enterprises to assist with their two day operational meeting held in Lynchburg, VA on August 30 & 31 2006.  The operational meeting consisted of approximately 100 participants from all locations across the state that very rarely have the opportunity to come together and meet their peers.  ICS’s mission was three fold, first have all the participants become acquainted with their peers and to start the process of team building for each table, second, to educate the participants in strategic planning and third, to conduct a “Cost of Quality” workshop.  All sessions were designed to be very interactive with participants creating deliverables that could be taken away and worked by the organization at some point in the future.

Getting To Know You:

Teams worked together around their tables to discover things they have in common.  This allowed the participants to explore any avenue in getting to know each other.  They had to document their best common item and from this derive a team name that they would use for future exercises over the next two days.

Strategic Planning:

John Wheatley set the strategic planning scene by taking the participants through a standard strategic planning model explaining the elements, how they are used and giving examples.  Participants were quizzed on these elements before being given a group activity to develop a goal, objectives and measures.
Participants worked in their individual groups to develop their goal, objectives and measures and reported out to the remainder of the group on what they had developed.  This allowed the participants to experience the development process, gaining a better understanding of how elements of a strategic plan are used and relate to one another.

Cost of Quality:

Facilitated by ICS’s Jackie Anderson the group worked in teams to first identify areas of waste within specific lines of business.  They then developed potential solutions to reduce the waste or utilize it to the organizations benefit.  They then reported out to the whole group who supplied further input on their ideas.

Commonwealth of Virginia's Strategic Plan for Information Technology.

In July 2005 the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) sponsored a project to develop a Commonwealth enterprise information technology strategic plan.  International Consulting Services (ICS) with its extensive background in Virginia state government planning models was engaged to support the client in this project.  The engagement started by conducting a series of 14 stakeholder working sessions to gather input data.  These workgroups consisted of state government agency leaders both business and I.T., Higher Education, Citizens and Virginia businesses.  Also consulted for input were a number of key legislators.  In total approximately 150 people gave input to the plan.  The data gathered at these workgroup sessions was analyzed and compiled to develop the Stakeholder Workgroup document that was used as input at a planning retreat.

In January 2006, ICS facilitated a two day strategic planning retreat where key leaders from across Virginia state government came together to develop the Commonwealth’s Strategic Plan for Information Technology.  Attendees included the Honorable Aneesh Chopra, Secretary of Technology, Lemuel C. Stewart, Commonwealth CIO, Jane Kusiak , Council on Virginia’s Future, members of the Information Technology Investment Board, state agency business and I.T. leaders and representatives from Northrop Grumman.

Lem Stewart, Commonwealth CIO listening to a group report out.

	Retreat group in deep discussion.		Honorable Aneesh Chopra, Secretary of Technology in a retreat workgroup.
	Post retreat a workgroup subset of the retreat participants worked for a number of weeks to refine the plan and in April 2006, the completed strategic plan was unanimously approved by the Information Technology Investment Board.  ICS continues to work with the Commonwealth on the next phase of the project, to develop an implementation model.  A draft model was developed and with the assistance of a workgroup consisting of agency representatives the model was completed.  In July 2006 the model was presented to the Information Technology Investment Board and approved unanimously.  ICS is currently assisting with the implementation of the model within the Commonwealth.		John Wheatley (ICS) and Fred Duball (VITA) working with a group.
	For more information on the Commonwealth’s Strategic Plan for Information Technology go to www.vita.virginia.gov/docs/pubs/covStrategicPlan/index.cfm or contact International Consulting Services.

International Consulting Services LLC attends the DGS/DPS VA Institute of Procurement, Forum 2005.

Pictured below at the expo is John Wheatley the President of International Consulting Services who has personally worked with many state agencies in Virginia on Strategic Planning and Technology Investment Management.