On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Performance and Planning Exchange (PPX), I want to invite you to attend the Sixteenth Annual PPX Symposium: From a Compliance Mindset to a Performance Culture.

The up-coming symposium will build on past success and introduce new innovations.  Again this year, PPX is inviting its members and stakeholders to submit ideas and topics for workshops related to four streams:

1.) Results-Based Strategic Planning
2.) Risk Management
3.) Integration of Planning, Risk, Reporting and Program Evaluation
4.) Use of RBM in Decision Making

More evidence-based information is now available to decision makers. Professionals engaged in strategic planning, external and internal audit, risk assessment, performance management and program evaluation have made, and continue to make, significant progress in providing reliable, fact-based information.

Over the last five years, increased resources have been dedicated to reporting on a number of fronts: reporting on planned activities, reporting on projects, reporting on risk mitigating measures, reporting on the use of financial and human resources, reporting on performance indicators, etc.  Reporting on these various facets of management is very important. However, these exercises are done mostly because of imposed reporting requirements with very short deadlines.  The reporting of these activities is done in silos and is not conducted in a holistic way.  Furthermore, the use of these various reporting activities is not used collectively to make informed, results-based decisions. A culture of performance in any organization would account for all of these reporting “pieces” and use them collectively to do strategic planning, set priorities and make program/organizational decisions based on the performance of the various facets of management (plan/program management, risk management, project management and resource management).

There are many benefits in driving a “performance culture” across an organization. Firstly, performance management is the foundation for Results-Based Management and decision-making. Performance information provides all managers the ability to “manage by fact”. Secondly, an increased focus on performance helps align organizational thinking, processes and resources around achieving shared goals and objectives. Finally, all managers can speak the same language and as a result, have more effective exchanges of performance requirements and information.

Presentation submissions are being accepted until November 15, 2011. Our symposium planning committee will review these submissions and select the most topical and relevant.  I encourage you to think about the your own and your colleagues’ experiences and make proposals that will be of benefit to the wider community of practice.   We are also seeking to expand our trade show and increase opportunities for networking and discussion based on participants’ feedback from our last symposium. 

The next Symposium will, I believe, be an exciting blend of vision, leading edge thinking, information essential to your work, lessons learned, best practices and practical applications.  I hope to see you in May as we take to the opportunity again to engage, share and exchange with others who are facing similar challenges in using results information to manage.

Yours truly

Murray Kronick, FCMC
Co – President, Performance and Planning Exchange
Chair, PPX Symposium Planning Committee