We Have a Dream

Working with Fran Trant and Dawna Vann of the Service Excellence team, a group of IS managers and staff recently met to brainstorm a vision of their "preferred future" for Information Systems. Building on the concepts of communication, innovation, and customer service (which they identified as core values in a previous work session), the group agreed on the following statement as an accurate reflection of their dream:

We engage our customers and colleagues as we channel innovation and harness technology to create a postive customer experience.

In future working groups, IS will expand on this vision statement to create a set of core principles that exemplify Service Excellence in Information Systems. Based on those principles, IS will then define concrete "behavioral competencies" -- measurable performance objectives that can be used to evaluate an individual's success in bringing service excellence to her or his job. Eventually (after a suitable trial period during which staff becomes accustomed to the new requirements) these competencies will be incorporated into employees' annual performance appraisals.

An IS team employs kinesthetic techniques to help solidify their vision.