What’s Missing From Your Board’s Operations Playbook?

Build an Agenda With Strategy in Mind

Another key to board optimization: Start with strategy. That doesn’t mean rigidly adhering to a predetermined course. Sometimes, it helps to allow room to adapt, noted Dea, who said that SCAI leans on a strategic framework of five guiding principles, each with five distinct objectives.

“Each year, there is a drill-down on the tactical, practical pieces of things that we should be doing to help us get to that longer-term goal,” she said.

This framework sets the annual agenda while also creating strategic touch points for in-person meetings. Recently, the board adopted a policy that ties each discussion on the meeting agenda to one of the guiding principles.

“We highlight what objective on the framework it’s related to and what we have achieved on that framework, so as to focus conversations even more specifically around that,” Dea said.

Another way SCAI ensures fidelity to its strategy is with Minutes Solutions, which assists in tracking the minutes of every meeting so users can properly follow up on each discussion after the fact—and which can be used to drive future discussions.

“We can actually look at them, refer to them relatively easily, and find out what’s going on without wading through pages and pages,” Dea said.

This has proved so valuable that all of SCAI’s committees use Minutes Solutions. Dea added that the consistency of keeping everyone on the same tool “makes our governance a lot more efficient.”

Use Technology to Be Efficient and Effective

Having too many tech tools can get in the way of a board’s work. But when used strategically, tech can be a major value-add.

For example, in recent years, SNA has moved toward a discussion-oriented approach for its in-person board meetings, allowing for deeper conversations about challenges in school nutrition.

“We don’t spend a lot of time during board meetings going over reports,” Montague said.

But board members still need the value that those staid, information-heavy meetings provided. So SNA integrated the board management platform OnBoard, allowing information to be efficiently delivered to board members ahead of time and freeing in-person meetings to focus on high-level issues.

“It’s helped streamline our processes, not just for us but for our board members in terms of being able to find the information,” Montague said. It also helps protect sensitive data by eliminating the need for file transfer issues.

“Whenever you make a change, you can easily email the board and let them know that a change or something new has been updated or posted—very intuitive,” she said.

When trying to uncover the right approach for your board’s needs, finding the pain points, and mitigating them, is key. After all, it should make your board’s life easier—not get in the way.