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Association Toy or Tool?

Using Technology to Improve Board Performance

An Association Case Study

Vital Stats:

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is the largest organization in the world dedicated to promoting the art, science and practice of mechanical engineering world wide.  ASME has a membership of approximately 120,000 in over 130 countries.  Founded almost 125 years ago, the Society, and its ASME Foundation, has a staff of over 400, with headquarters in New York City, and regional offices in ten other locations.  Annual budgets are approximately $70M USD, plus $17M USD for the Foundation.  ASME is one of the leading worldwide standards development organizations (SDO), in the area of technical codes and standards.  ASME is governed by a Board of Governors of thirteen individuals, who meet in regularly scheduled business meetings four times a year, and once in an annual strategic planning retreat.

The Challenges: 

There were several interrelated challenges: 

• How to free the Board of Governors from spending inordinate amounts of time on routine reports and operational issues, at the expense of key strategic priorities? 

• How to eliminate paper filled three-inch thick, three-ring agenda binders, numerous last-minute addenda, and begin implementation of a new paperless, electronic agenda for business meetings? 

• How to make Board of Governors meetings more productive, enriching and fulfilling?

The Solutions:

A time analysis was conducted of the agendas of the Board of Governors for 2001.  It clearly showed that substantial Board meeting time was being spent on routine reports and other non-strategic issues.  Little time had been made available for significant strategic issues—their identification, discussion and decision-making.  At one of the four meetings for 2001, for example, not a single minute had been scheduled for strategic issues!  This meeting, representing 25% of the time available for Board business meetings, was fully occupied with routine reports and other non-strategic issues.

The Board agreed that the “highest and best value” of a governing body was as a strategic body, focusing on strategic priorities for the Society.  The Board took the position that their proper role was the exploration, deliberation, and decision-making for key strategic issues, together with monitoring of operations designed to execute approved strategy. 

As a result, the Board unanimously agreed to consider reorganization of their agenda, as an annual calendar, and using a standard template approach, commencing November 2002.  They agreed to the use of an electronic format, incorporating a consent calendar, which would include all reports and other routine matters (unless “pulled” for discussion during contingency time), with the goal to maximize “air time” for exploration of key strategic issues, and subsequent deliberation and action.

New Standard Agenda Template:

A new standard agenda template was developed to simplify organization of contents, the handling of reports and routine matters, and to maximize critical exploration of and action on important strategic issues. 

Electronic Agenda:

The standard agenda template was developed into a completely electronic model, including all supporting materials.  All paper-based agenda and materials, together with related collating and distribution logistics, were eliminated.  

The Process:

Standard Agenda Template:

ASME built upon recommendations advanced by respected association consultant Glenn Tecker, Tecker Associates, and transitioned to an agenda template consisting of:

• Welcome, Announcements & Formal Adoption of the Agenda

• Consent Calendar—Routine Items for Receipt

• Consent Calendar—Routine Items for Action

• Move to “as if in committee of the whole”

• Discussion Items

• Return to Formal Session

• Action Items

• Contingency Time

• Adjournment

Electronic Agenda:

The web site for ASME Board of Governors was expanded to include a specific page for agendas and minutes.  The URL for the new page is: http://www.asme.org/bog/minutes.html

The web page for agendas and minutes is an unsecured link, but specific confidential or proprietary agenda items are password protected.  This approach has the advantage of general access and transparency concerning the Board’s agendas, supporting materials and minutes, while allowing protection of specific materials where appropriate. 

Since introduction, continual meeting-by-meeting improvements have resulted in an electronic agenda model currently composed as follows:

• Agendas and all meeting materials are hosted on ASME Board web site

• Agenda contents are dynamic, with meeting materials continuously added until cut-off date, generally 10-14 days prior to the meeting

• At their choice, Governors may download agenda and files to the hard drive of their portable computer for use at business meetings, burn them to a personal CD-ROM, or print off their own materials to individually bring to the meeting

• A CD-ROM of the full agenda and all materials is prepared by ASME and available to all Governors at the meeting site, for use in Governor’s portable computers

• A limited number of fully printed agendas and all materials are available for Governors at the meeting site for those that prefer this media onsite

• No printed materials are pre-assembled for or pre-mailed to Governors

Unintended Consequences:

After initial introduction of the electronic agenda, some Governors expressed negative reactions to the time that it took to download agendas and files to their computers or printers.  The issue was traced to low bandwidth connections by some individual Governors.  Those with high speed DSL or cable connections to the Internet have not experienced negative delays.

A few service providers, notably AOL, makes it difficult to receive email with large attachments, thus making it difficult to establish an alternative transmission method for files located on the Board’s website.  High speed access to the ASME Board website for direct file access proved to be the most reliable solution.  

Measurements & Results:

Governors have assessed the electronic approach as a highly successful project.  The Governors appear to appreciate and use the options for access to agendas and supporting materials.  The model continues to be refined, based on assessment comments after each meeting.  There have been no requests to return to three-inch, three-ring binders.

Lessons Learned:

Approximately 60% of the current Board bring their portable computers to meetings (not all current Governors have portable computers, and/or not all apparently feel comfortable using electronic documents and files at meetings).

Since two of the four annual meetings (plus the annual retreat) are located at hotel locations that differ, year to year, the required technology, plus connection costs for live, Internet-hosted agenda connections for the Board of Governors, plus supporting staff and visitors, have not yet proven to be economical and reliable.  Live, Internet-hosted agendas, and live access to materials, may be more cost-effective for a group the size of the ASME Board for the meetings held twice each year at ASME headquarters, where live connection logistics may be accomplished more economically and reliably.  Either LAN or Wi-Fi systems may prove to be viable in the future. This presumes that 100% of those participating will be computer literate, equipped and comfortable, which has not yet proven to be the case.

New York corporation law, where ASME is incorporated, does not yet allow for full, off-site distributed electronic meetings and voting, as is currently the case in some other U.S. states and perhaps Canadian provinces.  Nevertheless, the Board of Governors is considering future scheduling of at least one meeting a year using an asynchronous teleconference/Internet-hosted meeting, supported by Raindance, Web-X or similar service provider.  At present, in order to comply with New York law, any action items at such an electronic meeting will have to be formally reconfirmed, using the consent calendar, at the next onsite meeting of the Board.

The success of the new agenda model is predicated on key principles, which have been demonstrated to work effectively for the ASME Board.  These include:

1. “Air-time”, the greatest asset of a governing body, should be protected for important discussion and action items.  Accordingly, reports are to be written, strictly limited to consent calendar, and receive no airtime, unless a Governor has a specific request to “pull” the report from the consent calendar for further explanation during contingency time.  Governors are expected to have read reports and be familiar with them prior to the meeting. 

2. Reports, and other items of routine nature, are segregated into “receipt” and “action” categories of the consent calendar.  The consent calendar is acknowledged (items for receipt) or approved (items for action) en masse, subject to a request by a Governor for a specific item to be pulled.  Such items are marked for contingency time, if available, or scheduled for the next meeting, if contingency time is unavailable.

3. Moving to “as if in committee of the whole” allows the Board to discuss and explore key agenda items as Governors see fit, without the pressure of recorded minutes, and without the limitations imposed by introduction of specific motions whose parliamentary requirements limit discussion to the motion on the floor.  Equally important, separating discussion from action allows Governors to focus on “exploration” of the issue, through preliminary discussion with their colleagues.  Separating discussion from action also allows Governors to avoid the predictable effort to convince others to a particular point of view which, in turn, results when a formal motion is introduced, and when subsequent comments are limited to “for or against” the motion.

4. Initial discussion, separated from any proposed action, often encourages the widest range of early Board exploration and commentary.  It often yields some of the richest Board experiences for individual Governors and for the Board, working as a whole.

5. At the close of discussion of the discussion portion of the agenda, after all items scheduled for either discussion and/or subsequent action have been explored, formal session resumes, the action part of the agenda commences, and standard parliamentary processes are used to introduce, deliberate and act on formal motions. 

6. The time spent in action items is remarkably brief and focused, when sufficient initial time has been previously spent in exploratory discussion.

What's next for ASME?

Good question.  We are very much involved in organizational and strategic change to become a more nimble, agile and more valuable global organization, providing greater leadership and benefits to our 120,000 members in over 130 countries.  Our vision includes continuing growth to 400,000 members worldwide.  Moving to electronic agendas, and virtual knowledge and community relationships with members, customers and sister societies throughout the world seems essential to our vision.  I'd love to hear about your related experiences. 

Virgil R. Carter is the executive director of ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), a New York City-based global organization with 125,000 members around the world. Virgil can be contacted at carterv@asme.org.

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