4

A Process for Strategic Planning

On pages 67–70, the reader will find a step-by-step guide to the strategic planning process. The process described on those pages has been used successfully by many communities throughout the United States but is by no means the definitive process. Themes can vary, and one must adjust the process to the individual community and the individual players. This chapter describes a general approach to strategic planning; it includes the critical steps that will be common to all effective planning processes. The step-by-step guide provides a practical outline that can be applied in communities that conduct an actual strategic planning exercise.

The process is in many ways as critical as the final plan itself. The process engages stakeholders and creates enthusiasm for both the plan and the future of the community. In short, the process can be regarded as one means of generating community spirit.

Locating responsibility

Broad community support does not necessarily imply shared management of the process. Although it is feasible that a broad spectrum of interests could be responsible for the oversight of the process and the preparation of drafts, it is more often the case that those duties fall to the executives of local government. In most situations, a senior staff member is assigned the primary direct responsibility for the conduct of the process and the preparation of the plan.

A note about terminology

In this and subsequent chapters, terminology will be used that may be different from terminology used in other texts and in some local governments.

What are here referred to as goals, objectives, and strategies may in other publications be termed vision, targets, and action steps. Environmental scans have also been called alternative approaches to the future or needs assessments. Stakeholders might be called role players, and core values may be referred to as guiding principles or inherent beliefs.

This should not concern the reader. The important thing is the universal concepts behind the terms.

In addition to the in-house manager, who assumes managerial responsibility to ensure a smooth process and a timely and successful outcome, it is typical to also use an outside facilitator—a consultant, a professor from a local college, a local business executive, or an experienced local government administrator from another area. An impartial facilitator can create numerous advantages because that person can

To determine if the county environment was suitable to proceed with a strategic plan update, the pre-planning committee evaluated costs and benefits of strategic planning, discussed barriers to a successful strategic plan and ways to overcome them, and identified key stakeholders. The committee also focused on key issues facing county government, internally and externally. Ultimately, the pre-planning committee agreed that the county should proceed with the strategic plan update.

—Step 1, St. Louis County, Missouri
2003–2004 strategic plan

Finding the stakeholders

In the same way that strategic planners in the private sector conduct their processes within the context of their stakeholders—whether stockholders, workforce, or customers—so must planners in the municipal context be aware of the interests and needs of their stakeholders. The stakeholder groups are the parts of the community from which the actual planning committee participants may be drawn—for example, the various demographic groups, citizens associations, and other interest groups. To develop a plan without their input is to run the risk of rejection of the vision and the tactics for achieving that vision. In the private sector, feedback is measured in sales and profits; in the public sector, the metric may be election results.

Decision making in the public sector often reflects politics and emotions. Those who manage and implement strategic plans for local governments need to uncover the dynamics of local issues in the environmental scanning process. To do this, they must include a comprehensive array of local perspectives in the strategic planning process. Strategic planning in the public context is not as simple as the return-on-investment-driven analyses of private sector planning.

To assemble the stakeholders in the plan, first identify the key stakeholders in the community so they can be represented in the planning exercise and review. A broad-based group of stakeholders who are involved in the process will enable the resulting plan to be regarded not simply as one “owned” by the government or the politicians but rather by the community as a whole.

The following list of potential stakeholders is not intended to be exhaustive but should provide a starting point for most communities:

1.Elected officials

2.Other government representatives

3.Beneficiaries of public services

4.Other organizations and individuals

In many communities, the planning committee includes the senior staff from the agencies of local government that are critical to the key issues of the day: directors of agencies relating to public education, public safety, public works, information services, human services, community services, and personnel, for example. Because each community is different, the planning group is constituted in the way that is most effective locally.

[Our process] provided opportunities for community members and groups to begin to identify networks that exist in the community…so that these networks can be tapped to help resolve the major issues in the community.

—Amelia Reitzel, office of the city manager
Santa Clarita, California

Engaging the community

Stakeholder representatives who are drawn into the planning process become the link to other citizens in the community groups they represent. Involving these representatives is essential, but the ultimate goal is to reach the entire community.

To make sure that the entire community had a chance to contribute to the planning process, Medford, Oregon, held a kick-off for the community that attracted more than 300 residents and engaged high school students as well through a “free-flowing town hall” on the city’s Web site.

Getting the word out to the community about the strategic planning process can be done in many ways. When St. Louis County, Missouri, began the process of updating its strategic plan, it used a variety of media and meetings to keep the community informed and to invite community input (see below).

Nearly everyone signed up to participate on one of seven technical advisory committees…Arts, Culture, and the Environment; Cultural Diversity and Human Services; Economic Development and Telecommunications; Housing and Growth Management; Parks, Recreation, and Open Space; Public Safety; and Transportation.

—Web site, Medford, Oregon, www.ci.medford.or.us

Networks for strategic plan information and input—St. Louis County, Missouri

Preparing to plan

After the group is constituted, its members should be trained on the coming process and the time frames.

The planning group will begin to examine the community, its institutions, its needs, and its future directions. It must undertake a comprehensive study of the hard data and other information that will help participants gain the clearest picture possible of current economic, demographic, and social conditions. The purpose is to discover the issues that confront the community, see where they overlap, and address them concurrently.

Strategic planning participants should also study

Finding consistent themes—Grand Junction, Colorado

The strategic planning group in Grand Junction, Colorado, reviewed sixteen local plans at the beginning of its strategic planning process. The group wanted to explore overlapping interests of various planning groups as well as identify consistent themes. The plans that Grand Junction reviewed were

Many communities conduct additional research specifically as preparation for the planning process. A wide range of surveys has been reported to deliver valuable information to the planning participants. St. Charles, Illinois, conducted a priorities survey that indicated issues of primary concern to residents; a business retention survey to help establish pro-business ordinances and policies; an employee survey to gauge staff satisfaction with their employment situations; an internal customer survey; and a police incident follow-up survey. The returned information provided valuable input to members of the strategic planning committee about the reactions and preferences of their constituencies.

Some communities take great care to outline the process in significant detail in the plan in order to demonstrate that the plan belongs to the entire community. Consider, for example, the following summary from Santa Clarita, California.

It was discovered [in 1997] that there were 54 different strategic plans developed throughout the county by various departments and committees—all in their own way trying to guide the county’s decisions and resource allocations. The process began by forming a cross-functional team of employees to review all 54 plans and search for common themes, customers, and concerns.

—Introduction, Chesterfield County, Virginia,
strategic plan FY 2003

Images

Comprehensive planning process—Santa Clarita, California

The process includes three components: outreach, data analysis, and action planning.

Outreach

The goals of this phase were to get the word out, generate invitations to community meetings and attendance at two large community meetings sponsored by the city, and motivate people to either return the postcards sent to them or visit the city’s Web site to participate in the process. Activities in this phase included

  1. Advertising in local news media, radio, and a 15-second movie theater spot
  2. Sending more than 100 letters to local community groups requesting a place on their monthly meeting agendas in January or February 2004
  3. Mailing more than 60,000 brochures and postage-paid postcards to every residence in the valley through the local Magazine of Santa Clarita
  4. Creating a big-picture Web page on the city’s home page for data input and updates
  5. Providing online surveys for people to fill out in lieu of the postcard
  6. Providing up-to-the-minute information on the Web site about which issues were getting the most mention from people participating in the process
  7. Providing a telephone hotline as a voice version of the postcard.

The outreach and advertising resulted in the following accomplishments:

  1. Attendance—more than 2,600 people—at more than 61 community group meetings that presented information about the effort and…gained information about the impact of major issues on the day-to-day lives of people in the community
  2. Receipt of more than 1,700 responses through the following input opportunities:

Data analysis

Data were reviewed in order to categorize the responses and identify key themes that repeat in the data. Data were housed in a database established at the outset of the process to assist in data collection, analysis, and reporting. Once the data were analyzed, they were used in an all-day retreat with staff members from across the city to develop action plans to address issues. Community partners would also be identified.

Action planning

A group of approximately 40 staff members took a full day to analyze data and develop action plans and community partners to address issues identified by the community. The staff group comprised the city manager, assistant to the city manager, department heads, division heads, and other staff representatives from each department. This group was divided into five multidisciplinary teams (one representative from each department) to provide action plans for a variety of issues.

The city council received a report regarding the preliminary data analysis before the action-planning day with staff. Once action plans were completed, the draft plan was taken to the city council for review and comments. All participants in the outreach process were given a draft of the plan as well and would have an opportunity to make comments at a city council meeting.

Focusing on the future, working in the present

Once the strategic planning group has been impanelled and trained on both the process and the available background information, it is time to initiate a process that will encourage not just strategic planning, but the strategic thinking described in Chapter 3. This is one of several organizational considerations that must be addressed.

Strategic thinking is a state of mind. It requires that one remove oneself from the day-to-day considerations of how to handle the most pressing needs. It initially demands that less attention be paid to questions of how, and a far greater focus be given to what and why. Strategic thinkers take themselves out of the current reality in order to consider what the future could and should be like.

For a moment, forget what the community is like today. Concentrate on what it can become. What could we be if we could control the future? What should our community be like? What would make this a great place in which to live or work or play? Strategic thinkers focus on the ideal; they’re dreamers first.

Double feedback loop—Olathe, Kansas

To ensure that their stakeholders had repeated opportunities to understand and comment on the plan as it was being devised, as well as a chance to approve the plan before it was finalized, the planners in Olathe, Kansas, introduced a double feedback loop in the 2000 planning process.

In the first phase, that of issue identification, the planning committee framed the key issues into seven strategic areas for further review. The most influential stakeholders in the community were then given the opportunity to have input into and amend that structure. In the second phase, initial stake-holder input, 13 focus groups were held, allowing input by more than 700 individuals. Television call-in shows and surveys solicited input from 3,000 more. In phase three (June 2001), stakeholder validation, people were allowed to grade the plan on its completeness and accuracy.

The actions of the planners in Olathe were intended to obtain the greatest possible acceptance by the community for the final plan. Another outcome, perhaps unanticipated, was that, when the process was initiated again two years later, there was a new dynamic. In 2000, the council struggled to find community members willing to volunteer for the effort, knowing that it would be a significant commitment of time. In 2003, the council opened recruitment to the public and received more than 50 applications.

Imagine the power of 10 or 20 people on a planning committee, each thinking about what the community’s ideal future would be like. The consensus of the group then defines a vision for the plan. There will be ample time later in the process to scale back to interim phases that can realistically be achieved.

Each of those interim phases may constitute a three-year or a five-year plan, but they must have a general direction to pursue. That is the vision.

The next six chapters describe discrete tasks that are crucial to the success and effectiveness of the planning process: