President-Elect’s Notebook
MASTER APEGA
Shaping the Future of Our Professions
BY CONNIE PARENTEAU, P.ENG., FEC, FGC (HON.) APEGA President-Elect
As you receive this edition of The PEG , the one-month process to elect a new APEGA Council is imminent or just underway. Actually, “new APEGA Council” is something of a misnomer. Never are your Council and Executive completely replaced through the annual election. Rather, the election ensures that the governing body of APEGA is in a continual state of replenishment. This planned overlap brings a balance of fresh ideas and sound experience to decision making, and it’s a foundation of good governance. That’s particularly important
during this unique transition, I can say with confidence that being your President will be a great honour and an extraordinary privilege. One of the major roles of your next Executive and Council will be strategic planning. The current plan ends in 2016, but we’re not waiting until then to get started. In fact, the groundwork began last year and continues this year, and we’ll complete the plan in early 2016. I can’t tell you yet what the new strategic plan will look
like. And trying to foresee what the future holds is no easy task. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once spoke about known knowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns. He was criticized for his semantical choices, but what he said does contain some insight when applied to our planning process. To paraphrase Mr. Rumsfeld, there are things we know, things we more or less know, and things we won’t know at all until they happen. What we’re doing is, to the best of our ability, shaping the future of APEGA and our role in Alberta, with the interests of the public, government and Members in mind. We can assume some constants about the future, but a good strategic plan has to
right now, as APEGA embarks on the process of creating the APEGA Strategic Plan 2017-2019 . This is an exercise, really, in shaping the future — even though the future is something none of us can actually see. A great example is the path I’m taking to your presidency. This is my second column in The PEG . If things had unfolded according to plan, you wouldn’t have been reading my words until the summer edition arrived at your home or office. However, as you are all aware, I was unexpectedly, as President-Elect, called upon to assume the responsibilities of the presidency. I cannot deny this was initially somewhat intimidating. That being said, the support I’ve received
“I’m excited about my upcoming presidency and what Members and Council can achieve together… I can say with confidence that being your President will be a great honour and an extraordinary privilege”
has been amazing, from within APEGA and beyond. Members, APEGA Council, the APEGA CEO and staff, the public, MLAs, MPs, municipal leaders — I’ve received encouraging words and input from many quarters, and I can’t say thank you enough. About four months have passed and I now have some perspective. Reacting to this unforeseen circumstance has allowed me to develop my vision, learn more than I had known about the amazing people who make up our membership and regulatory community, and immerse myself in my new role. I was empowered, in other words, to start the conversation early about my presidency and how it will influence the future of APEGA. I’m excited about my upcoming presidency and what Members and Council can achieve together. Because of what I’ve learned
be ready for the unexpected. I’m a Six Sigma-trained analyst, a Black Belt, so I bring that discipline to this process. Although Six Sigma encompasses a wide variety of techniques and tools, it is very much about the study of variation. To do this, you look to reduce the variation experienced by identifying the defects that result in failures. Reducing defects through root cause analysis offers us learnings. Can you take those learnings and make improvements to your own systems? Can you prevent failures from repeating? Wouldn’t it be helpful if we had some real-life experiences in other jurisdictions to help guide us? As it turns out, we do. Three of our sister associations have dealt with major failures that have shaken the public’s confidence
4 | PEG SPRING 2015
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