In preparation for the AY 2023-2024 planning session of UTAS-Al Musannah, Dr. Nihad Al Zadjali, the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs (ADAA), in coordination with the heads of departments and sections, organized a workshop on action planning for the academic departments’ QA and committee coordinators. The workshop titled “Revisiting the Fundamentals of Action Planning,” which took place at CC 106 from 9 AM to 12 noon on 25^th May 2023, was delivered by Dr. Annie Bangtegan Domede, an ELC lecturer and Quality Assurance Coordinator.

The event started with an opening message from Dr. Nihad Al Zadjali, where she highlighted the primary function of an action plan (AP), among others. She shared that action plans should articulate the tasks required of a member or committee, set a timeline and implementation steps, and identify the resources required to achieve the goal or set of objectives assigned to the person or committee. This was followed by Dr. Annie Bangtegan Domede’s presentation, where she explained the basic principles of action planning and action plans. She shared that revisiting the fundamentals of action planning will allow the heads and coordinators to review their planning practices to ensure that their plans are fit for purpose.

In the three-hour workshop, Dr. Domede also expounded on the Continuous Improvement Process, the PDCA Quality Cycle developed by Shewhart and popularized by Deming, the KAIZEN Approach, and ADRI, the four-phased model used to analyze a PDCA-based quality assurance system. She also introduced an Improvement Planning template for the heads and coordinators to use in identifying improvement actions based on audit recommendations. The participants were then grouped according to their department and committee and drafted their improvement plans in response to the recommendations they received during the internal audit. In the last segment of her presentation, Dr. Domede shared some guidelines for writing action plans. She reiterated that implementation actions should be well-written and logical. In addition, she also said that committee APs should have a clear link to the department AP and should be guided by the committee Terms of Reference (ToR), guidelines, and procedures. Dr. Domede also pointed out that committee APs should include possible risks and mitigation steps. She also shared with the participants some guiding questions in conducting their own AP review and evaluation so that they can revise their action plan when and where necessary.