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EIT Retreat: 17 Years Old and Newly Refreshed
Refreshing the FM Strategy Map

Jeanne Semura

Do you know the difference between a pine and fir cone? Or, the original name of the UW football team? If so, you would be a winner at the speed scavenger hunt and UW Jeopardy hooplas. The 17th annual EIT retreat at Pack Forest near Eatonville took place September 13th through the 15th and included hours of hard work along with short spurts of creative fun.

The hardy ones arrived early enough on the first day to take a two-hour hike up the Rainier mountain side to stand among old growth trees. The facilities reminded me of times past, at summer camp, where we shared cabins, ate our meals at pre-scheduled times, cafeteria-style, and participated in planned events.

Work began at 7:15 PM, with us learning about our Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, Step 2 scores and how the five facets in each of the 16 personality types affected our communications with each other and decision-making styles. While EIT has broadened the mix of personalities on the team, the majority of us are still introverted thinkers.

We spent most of the next day and a half discussing proposed changes to the existing FM Strategy Map, definitions for the new or revised bubbles, and performance measures. Defining the strategy bubbles and figuring how to measure them required a lot of work. Fortunately, EIT had the foresight to charter the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Refresh Team to do the needed pre-work and to hire Ryan Englund, a consultant from Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc. In addition to Ryan, the BSC Refresh Team members included: Shari Spung, Tom Phillips, and Vincent Lau who were joined by EIT members: Cindy Gregovich, Charles Bennett, Jeff Follman, Ruth Johnston, V’Ella Warren, and me. Our mission was to interview key internal and external FM customers and to develop a straw model for new strategies, definitions, measures and initiatives.

By the end of our time together, we had adopted the new strategy map in concept, assigned follow-up responsibilities, and agreed to share the information at staff meetings by the end of October, as well as with all of the external customers we interviewed.

As a first timer, I was very impressed with the commitment of each team member to define and understand what each strategy bubble means and how we plan to move forward. I was also enlightened about the many hidden talents and interests of our team members beyond our daily work life.