"Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions shaping the nature and direction of governmental activities within constitutional bounds" (Olsen and Eadie 1982). The purpose of this paper is to describe in detail the process of creating and implementing a strategic plan in the public sector (Dougherty County School System). The steps and approaches taken for strategic planning in a public sector assists organizations with the constant changes to their environments. The public sector strategic planning process provides a useful framework for review of the private sector approaches to strategic planning in the public sector; the efficiency and effectiveness of the government is also an outcome of strategic planning
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The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires that all federal departments in the US update or develop a strategic plan and report the data to the government. Surveys also indicate that strategic planning has been widely adopted by state agencies (Berry 1995; Brudney, Hebert, and Wright 1999), and that many local government jurisdictions have been undertaking strategic planning efforts as well (Poister and Streib 2005). Hatry (2002) observes, for example, that the efforts of many public agencies that are nominally engaged in strategic planning are not meaningful because they fail to meet even minimal criteria such as identifying desired outcomes and developing strategies to achieve them. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (2004, 2005) report that even though strategic planning developed by federal agencies have gotten better with increased efforts, federal managers still dealt with challenges with addressing issues that spread across federal agencies, obtaining the necessary key stakeholders in the strategic planning process, relating annual goals to long-term goals, and identifying the budgetary, human resources, and other resources needed to achieve these …show more content…
“Strategic Planning is a means to an end, a method used to position an organization, through prioritizing its use of resources according to identified goals, in an effort to guide its direction and development over a period of time” (Bryson, 1995). Many public sector organizations have found that a model system has not been utilized before; the model of strategy development used should point out any differences that may exist in that specific sector. The following models give organization alternatives when approaching their strategic plan. Organizations may choose to create scenario models to help identity their strategic issues and goals. The 1st model is basic strategic planning; this process is utilized mostly by organizations that are small in size, fast-paced, and that don’t have much experience with strategic planning. Within the first year a strategic plan may be implemented, then revised with more thorough details and goals in the upcoming years. The basic strategic planning process includes: Identify the purpose (mission statement); Select the goals the organization must reach if it is to accomplish its mission; Identify specific approaches or strategies that must be implemented to reach each goal; Identify specific actions plans to implement each strategy; and monitor and update the
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires that all federal departments in the US update or develop a strategic plan and report the data to the government. Surveys also indicate that strategic planning has been widely adopted by state agencies (Berry 1995; Brudney, Hebert, and Wright 1999), and that many local government jurisdictions have been undertaking strategic planning efforts as well (Poister and Streib 2005). Hatry (2002) observes, for example, that the efforts of many public agencies that are nominally engaged in strategic planning are not meaningful because they fail to meet even minimal criteria such as identifying desired outcomes and developing strategies to achieve them. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (2004, 2005) report that even though strategic planning developed by federal agencies have gotten better with increased efforts, federal managers still dealt with challenges with addressing issues that spread across federal agencies, obtaining the necessary key stakeholders in the strategic planning process, relating annual goals to long-term goals, and identifying the budgetary, human resources, and other resources needed to achieve these …show more content…
“Strategic Planning is a means to an end, a method used to position an organization, through prioritizing its use of resources according to identified goals, in an effort to guide its direction and development over a period of time” (Bryson, 1995). Many public sector organizations have found that a model system has not been utilized before; the model of strategy development used should point out any differences that may exist in that specific sector. The following models give organization alternatives when approaching their strategic plan. Organizations may choose to create scenario models to help identity their strategic issues and goals. The 1st model is basic strategic planning; this process is utilized mostly by organizations that are small in size, fast-paced, and that don’t have much experience with strategic planning. Within the first year a strategic plan may be implemented, then revised with more thorough details and goals in the upcoming years. The basic strategic planning process includes: Identify the purpose (mission statement); Select the goals the organization must reach if it is to accomplish its mission; Identify specific approaches or strategies that must be implemented to reach each goal; Identify specific actions plans to implement each strategy; and monitor and update the