Leading Change

As engineers, we are accustomed to measuring the results and outcomes of our work. Measurements allow us to gauge the progress we have made in the direction we want to go.

ASME's Continuity and Change Initiative, now in its Phase II: Transition, is designed to provide our organization with the greatest opportunity to meet the challenges of the future and take advantage of the opportunities. Our work using the Balanced Scorecard and the Strategic Marketing Report provided us with the roadmap. Now our efforts to build a vibrant and valuable organization are moving forward.

In March 2004, the Board of Governors accepted the recommendations from the Core Team that included a new organizational structure. The new Continuity and Change structure will help ASME maintain its position as the premier professional engineering organization.

We are identifying, through a consensus-based method, those critical functions that we will need to ensure our future success. Concurrently, we are identifying those programs, functions and activities that no longer align with our strategic objectives. Eliminating them, while difficult, is necessary in order to ensure the success and future growth of ASME.

The Project Management Task Force (PMTF), appointed by Past President Reginald Vachon, is leading the charge in this process. Their work, overseeing this transition to the new ASME, continues. Existing councils, boards, project teams and focus groups have been charged with identifying those functions that are vital to ASME and which must continue; determining the synergies within existing functions, programs and activities and consolidating them to optimize their effect; and identifying the functions, programs and activities that no longer add value to ASME.

You, our members, through project teams and focus groups that are responsible to parent councils, are doing this work together with selected staff. The PMTF is charged by the Board of Governors (BOG) to monitor and coordinate these projects and make necessary recommendations to the BOG for their implementation within the new structure by July 1, 2005.

As Continuity and Change goes forward, we must not overlook a significant financial measurement: the FY06 budget will be approximately $6 million dollars — or nearly 10 percent, less than the current one. Why?

The BOG made the fiscally prudent decision to remove projected investment earnings from our operating budget. This places ASME in a mode of budgeting and spending only what is actually available. Project teams and focus groups will devote time and energy toward recommendations that can be implemented within the available resources in FY06. We must continue to be prudent in our fiscal management and discerning in setting our objectives.
The new structure provides for and promotes new interest groupings that present greater opportunities for member participation and are more cost effective.

Realistically assessing and prioritizing our projects and programs will allow us to keep building the body of knowledge and setting the standards for which ASME is internationally recognized. This is a time to align our programs and activities with our strategic objectives while recognizing our constraints. It is a time of challenges and a time of unique opportunities for change and growth. We are moving forward, building a solid foundation for the future.

— Harry Armen
ASME President

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