Gathering insights for PSI's strategic plan

Population Services International is a large international health organization that markets and delivers health products in 65 countries to the people who need them most.

As PSI set out to craft its next 3-year global corporate strategic plan, the strategy team hoped to gather insights in an inclusive, meaningful way. I was selected to work with 4 other people from across PSI to create a system for gathering input from PSI's staff across 65 countries so that frontline staff had the opportunity to share their unique perspectives on where PSI should be heading next.

The challenge 

• How might we gather meaningful insights from PSI staff around the world to shape PSI's next global corporate strategy?
• How might we make all staff, regardless of their location or level, feel included in the strategic planning process?

Research approach

• Focus groups: Senior leadership in each country office had the opportunity to participate in facilitated focus group discussions to gather their perspectives on four key topic areas.
• Survey: Our team sent a qualitative survey to all PSI staff globally. 
• Photo stories: We invited staff to share their visions for the future through images.

Impact

We created PSI2020.org, a place where all PSI staff around the world could see progress and how the strategic planning process was evolving in real time. Users could watch as responses came in, and upload photos of themselves for the "PSI We Want" photo campaign, which allowed them to share visuals of their context and their vision for the future.

Ultimately, this design research approach allowed us to gather insights from over 700 people across 45 countries.

Here are some visuals to give you a peek into the PSI2020 website: