Initiation of Strategic Planning by Governments

Government leaders have become increasingly interested in strategic planning since the early 1970s as a result of the wrenching changes that have beset the public sector (Eadie, 1983). The changes have stemmed from oil crises, demographic shifts, changing values, tax levy limits, tax indexing, tax cuts, reductions in federal grants and mandates, the devolution of responsibilities, and a volatile economy. The changes have brought into sharp relief the need for important policy choices and thus have highlighted the potential usefulness of strategic planning. Indeed, strategic planning may be defined as a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that define what an organization (or other entity) is, what it does, and why it does it (Bryson, 1988; cf. Olsen and Eadie, 1982, p. 4). The deliberate attempt to produce change is probably the greatest strength and weakness of strategic planning as a process. Changes in organizations normally occur disjointed incrementalism or muddling through (Lindblom, 1959; Quinn, 1980). Any process designed to force important changes, therefore, can be seen either as a highly desirable improvement on ordinary decision making or as action doomed to failure. Indeed, whatever the merits of strategic planning in the abstract, normal expectations have to be that most efforts to produce fundamental decisions and actions in government strategic planning will not succeed. At the very least, strategic decision making in public organizations should be prone to involvements by numerous actors (especially boards, committees, task forces, and teams), variability in information, extensive negotiations, and frequent delays. Further, because of pressures for public accountability, decisions ultimately are likely to be made at the highest levels (Hickson et al,. 1986, pp.1 17, 203), while political rationality dictates that top decision makers not make important decisions until forced to do so (Benveniste, 1972, 1977; Quinn, 1980). The study reported here tracked the initiation of strategic planning by eight governmental units. All are located in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota. Each used the same basic strategic planning process (see Figure 1) (Bryson, Freeman, and Roering, 1986; Bryson and Roering, 1987; Bryson, Van de Ven, and Roering, 1987; Bryson, 1988). The process consists of eight steps: an initial agreement or plan for planning; identification and clarification of mandates; mission formulation; external environmental assessment; internal environmental assessment; strategic issue identification; strategy development; and development of a description of the organization in the future -its vision of success.