Every summer, credit unions gear up for annual strategic planning processes that result in new financial targets and budgets by the fall. These planning exercises result in the creation of lofty goals that often go unrealized years later. With an extended low rate environment, weakening economic fundamentals and continued regulatory burden, credit unions will need more than bright-eyed optimism to succeed in 2017.

As the financial services industry becomes more dependent on niched knowledge, digital delivery and leveraging customer information, credit unions must recognize that the disciplines of design and organizational development are equally important to the strategy process. The strategy process must identify the "what" and "how" in regard to the organization's future.

For most credit union professionals who began their careers in finance, lending or branch operations, the discipline of design is a foreign concept. Yet, looking at the success of technology companies such as Apple and Google or retailers like Amazon or Target, it's clear that value is created when companies take an obsessive, user-centered approach to their businesses. Most credit unions have strategic goals to grow lending, improve member loyalty and drive greater operating efficiencies, but high-performing credit unions are better at boiling strategic goals down into the design of new organizational solutions to support these objectives. For instance, a large credit union with the goal of increasing mortgage production undertook an extensive review of its end-to-end digital lending experience that resulted in more than 20 specific process improvements. The credit union employed a formal journey mapping process to ensure that the experience was not driven by compliance or back-office preferences but by what was important to the member. With these improvements in mind, the institution began to experience 50% greater mortgage production.