Order joins BSA's Journey to Excellence program
With the launch of its new strategic plan the Boy Scouts of America transitioned to a new program for unit, district, and council performance measurement and recognition – Journey to Excellence (JTE). You may have heard about it as the process is already underway.
Designed to encourage and reward success as well as measure the performance of units, districts and councils, The Journey to Excellence program replaces the old Centennial Quality Unit, Quality District, and Quality Council programs. JTE differs from those programs in that it focuses more on outcomes than processes and is designed to replace the old fixed performance standard represented by the Centennial Quality program with one that encourages continuous performance improvement. Ultimately, JTE is intended to encourage excellence at in providing quality program at all levels of the BSA.
The Order of the Arrow will transition to Journey to Excellence at the end of this calendar year. 2011 will be the last year of the Quality Lodge program. Information regarding the OA's JTE program will be released in the late November – early December timeframe. At this time, information on three complementary OA JTE programs will be released: Section JTE, Lodge JTE and Chapter JTE. Coincident with the release of this information we will announce the dates of webinars that will provide background information and amplifying instructions on OA JTE implementation as well as allow chapter, lodge, and section leaders to ask questions of the national leadership related to the Journey to Excellence implementation.
You may ask, why the change in lodge recognition programs. There are several reasons, three of which come immediately to mind:
- First, as stated in our purpose we are an integral part of the BSA and as such should measure our success in a manner aligned to that used by the BSA as a whole.
- Second, the JTE program incorporates current best practices in performance measurement by adopting a balanced scorecard approach.
- Third, we believe the focus on outcomes and continuous improvement has the potential to significantly enhance the performance of our chapters and lodges and the support they provide our councils.
Remember, for 2011, we will still operate under the Quality Lodge program. We will also use 2011 to gather baseline data for implementation of the Journey to Excellence program. Stay tuned for the rollout of information on OA JTE implementation in the late November/early December timeframe and the webinars that will follow. You can also expect many resources to assist chapters, lodges, and sections with the transition to Journey to Excellence at the 2012 National OA Conference.
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