Accreditation excellence: Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

This is the fourth in a quarterly series spotlighting stories of achievement from accredited agencies. These spotlights will show the importance accreditation is making in many communities. For information on accreditation, contact Tara Fitzpatrick-Navarro at [phone] or [e-mail].

The Commission for Accreditation of Parks and Recreation agencies (CAPRA) process can seem like watching the instant re-play of a batter's swing. Was it a strike? Was it a ball? The slow-motion replay allows you to examine every detail. Sometimes what you thought was surely a ball was in fact a strike. Did the batter correctly anticipate the pitch? Did the pitcher accurately size up the batter? Did the umpire make the right call?

The CAPRA process affords the opportunity for you to see the overall structure of your agency with a skybox perspective. All of the supporting detail is presented in a logical order--as if the entire game were filmed in slow motion. This meticulous, constructive and balanced examination allows the strengths and weaknesses of your organization to become self-evident. Sometimes you even find the unexpected.

Prior to CAPRA accreditation, The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) viewed strategic planning as an organizational strength--an obvious home run. The accreditation process, particularly the self-assessment, was a reality check. Strategic planning at M-NCPPC was not providing full value, despite a long and successful history of strategic programming and budgeting.

The CAPRA accreditation process not only puts a spotlight on organizational soft spots, but it points the way toward workable solutions. At M-NCPPC, all of the hallmarks of good strategic planning were in place--mission, vision, goals, objectives and strategic initiatives. The problem was that strategic thinking was being done along with the annual budget instead of preceding and complementing it.

The CAPRA team at M-NCPPC designed a "spring training" improvement process that gradually builds an organizational culture for strategic thinking and planning. Each year, the team presented the entire staff with a discussion topic of relevance to the mission as a way to stimulate strategic thinking. For 2005, senior management selected "changing demographics;" next year the discussion topic will be the impact of "aging infrastructure."

The shared experience of developing an action plan for the year's topic is a great team building exercise. It fosters an enhanced climate of resource sharing and collaboration that translates into greater overall organizational efficiency and effectiveness. The strategic plan process is a flexible and dynamic tool to facilitate systematic and holistic thinking about the organization.

Like a snapshot, the strategic plan document records at one moment in time the status of an ongoing process. The net result of this collaborative effort is a greater awareness of the environment in which the department operates and an enhanced capacity to deliver park facilities, recreation programs, and leisure services to our customers and communities.

Without M-NCPPC's investment in and commitment to the CAPRA process, we would not have been able to achieve this renewed commitment to strategic thinking and planning. Just as that slow motion replay informs and educates baseball players, alerts them to their surrounding and helps them prepare for the next big game, the CAPRA experience is proving to be invaluable as we strive to provide our customers with facilities, programs and services of the highest quality within an environment of constant change.

Last year was one of serious reflection, team building and conditioning that make us stronger and wiser. Strategic planning at M-NCPPC provides a forum for bringing new ideas to the table for collective deliberation, it incorporates a process for reaching a collective consensus and it recognizes the need to acknowledge and meld differences of opinion. Senior management must ultimately make tough decisions; the fortified strategic planning program enriches those decisions by providing a framework for employing our resources to attain the depth of knowledge and acquire the raw talent to maintain high standards for current facilities, programs and services. In our playbook, that equals a grand slam.