Strategy consultations with staff – feedback on ILRI ‘success’ as well as ‘likes and dislikes’

Wordle tagcloud: what does success look like for ILRI?

During the visit of George Levvy as consultant to the strategy task force, we organized as series of face to face and virtual conversations with staff. We asked two main sets of questions:

1. what would success for ILRI look like in the future?
2. What do you think we should keep and change about our research, and our workplace? The ‘likes and dislikes’!

In July and August, we organized three follow-up internal staff consultations on the new strategy (July 25; August 17; and August 21) where participants were asked to re-look at the ‘likes and dislikes’ to suggest what could be done to address the various issues.

Below is some feedback on what the groups said:

Addressing the questions “Ten years from now, what would success for ILRI look like? What must we do to be able to say we have delivered on our purpose? What would make us feel good about our achievements, in 10 years’ time” – the main points emerging included:

ILRI as a key, ‘go to’ global player on livestock: On the map when it comes to markets, policies, technologies, and research linked to livestock; a key institute providing directions, more connected to policies; seen as a reference point; donors eager to fund our projects because we deliver beyond expectations; a leader in livestock research and a reference point on matters of livestock; organizations keep coming to us for our information and to work with us, etc.

Addressing development challenges, such as: people lifted out of poverty; facilitated a significant number of people moving out of poverty; created a way to help people to protect their environment; no more poor livestock farmers, etc.

Achieving Impact ‘on the ground’: A ‘real impact’ on getting people out of poverty, especially smallholders; greater use of our research for development – linking with our partners on the ground; actual products and solutions are delivered to farmers; carrying out science that has an impact of the ground; more impact at the grassroots; etc.

Influencing others to take action: Others influenced to take actions to get poor people out of poverty; having a track record/reputation to be able to have influence; playing more advocacy roles; partnering with high profile partners in critical areas where we are working; getting livestock high on the political agenda; etc.

Through innovative science and research:Helps control a major infectious disease, introduces a new breed of livestock and significantly; technologies, BecA, vaccines, diseases, etc specific to ILRI show more impacts and improve the health of poor people; ECF is eradicated (thanks to the ECF vaccine); well-articulated gender incorporation in research; high technology development components: Nobel prize type science; graduate fellows of today are the ILRI scientists/directors/research leaders in 10 years’ time; etc.

Working in partnerships: Closer engagement with the national agricultural research systems (NARS); research much more relevant to people with much more clout – big development players who would do things with our research (eg NGOs); having a strong development networks, a good rapport with various partners,; etc.

From a strong institutional base: Ability to respond to crises and quick opportunities; seen as a great place to work; gender balance at all levels and in all departments Attracts and retains good staff (including scientists); a workplace of choice; one ILRI, no NRS-IRS divide; people (ILRI staff) feel happy and clear about their being part of a greater whole, their role in it and the overall ILRI mission; a USD200-million institute with the best scientists in the world knocking on our doors; our size (income, staff) has doubled and we receive 100’s of applications for each job posting; full utilization of ILRI research facilities; efficient internal support processes (HR, finance etc.), etc.

See the discussion notes

Discussing the ‘likes and dislikes’, what to keep and what to change, in our research we value: Our global scope and focus, our approaches to research, the quality and skills of our staff, our facilities and infrastructure, the ways we communicate and our commitment to partnership. In the workplace we seem to also value our facilities, employment conditions, and generally attractive and open working environment.

What areas do we need to work on, to improve? In the research area – more teamwork, more ‘cohesive’ research and structures, even more effort to partnerships, greater impact focus and especially much more and better communication. In the workplace, communication is again an area for improvement, ‘management’ style and organization culture, HR benefits and rewards and organizational efficiencies are also identified as needing improvement.

See the discussion notes / download a document with all the feedback

You can follow and still contribute to the conversations – http://ilristrategy.wikispaces.com/engagement links to all the various activities.

See responses to other ‘internal’ questions:

See feedback and comments from external people (mainly): on the storyline; and on some ‘tough issues’: