Municipal Strategic Planning
Training Workbook

First Edition (December 2001)

Developed by:

International Center for Municipal Development
Centre international pour le développement municipal

In cooperation with:

City of Portage la Prairie (Canada) / Province of Bohol (Philippines) / Municipality of Tubigon (Philippines)


Municipal Strategic Planning
Training Workbook

First Edition (December 2001)

Director, InternationalCenter for Municipal Development, FCM:

Brock Carlton

Editor:

Sébastien Hamel (FCM)

Concept and Authors:

Michel Frojmovic (Acacia Consulting & Research)

Dean Yaremchuck (City of Portage La Prairie)

Editing and revision:

Carroll Salomon (appian consulting)

Federation of Canadian Municipalities

InternationalCenter for Municipal Development

24 Clarence street

Ottawa (Ontario)

Canada, K1N 5P3

Tel: 613 241 5221

Fax: 613 241 7117

e-mail:

Internet:

Date: December, 2001

FCM Publication Number: 1039E

FCM gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for its International Programs and publications.

Acknowledgements

Preparation of this workbook would not have been possible without the cooperation and contribution of several individuals.

The inspiration for a practical guide in support of municipal strategic planning came entirely from Dean Yaremchuk, Director of Economic and Community Development at the City of Portage la Prairie, Canada. In addition to his continuous input throughout the preparation of this publication, Dean’s collaboration with the Municipality of Tubigon in the Philippines laid the groundwork for much of its content.

Another important contributor to this publication is Noel Mendana, Planning and Development Coordinator at the Municipality of Tubigon, who provided very useful insights and comments on the planning process that was implemented in his municipality.

Both the City of Portage la Prairie in Manitoba and the Municipality of Tubigon in the Philippines should be congratulated for their exceptional participation in the FCM Partnership Program as shown by the success of their partnership since 1994.

Finally, the Canadian municipalities of Kingston, Peel, Saskatoon and Grand Prairie each contributed valuable information necessary for the preparation of the Canadian case studies.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities also gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canadian International Development Agency.

Preface

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities
International Centre for Municipal Development (ICMD)

Municipal Partnerships Program

ICMD serves municipal government internationally, to promote their power of action, to foster their economic opportunities, and to direct local energies in pursuit of sustainable development. ICMD’s priority is the empowerment of municipal government as the preferred means to achieve effective governance and sustainable development.

ICMD programming is designed and implemented within a framework for municipal capacity development. The framework identifies seven ‘key result areas’ for programming – strategic leadership, services, operations management, governance links, public-private links, policy, and municipal associations. The programming mechanisms for achieving these results are the Municipal Partnerships Program, the Bilateral Program, and the Special Initiatives Program.

Financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Municipal Partnerships Program links Canadian and overseas municipalities with a goal of improving the quality of life in participating municipalities through improvements in services, operations, leadership, and community participation in municipal development. The program provides opportunities for municipal administrators, technicians, professionals and leaders to address common issues by sharing experience, working together, and applying their knowledge in practical situations.

At present, the International Centre for Municipal Development supports more than 30 partnerships in targeted countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

FCM Municipal Partnership: Portage la Prairie, Canada – Tubigon, Philippines

The City of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada and the Municipality of Tubigon, Bohol, Philippines, have participated in the FCM Municipal Partnerships Program since 1996. The Partnership included support for the preparation of a Community Development Strategic Plan. The goal of this component was to prepare a Strategic Plan as a tool for accelerating the municipality’s growth and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their current operations. This included the development of a 30-year vision statement for the Municipality of Tubigon, formulation of a mission statement and preparation of strategic action plans linked to the budgeting process. The Municipal Partnership also supported training of local trainers and the development of a Strategic Planning model appropriate to Tubigon municipality.

As a result of this five-year collaboration, the two municipalities are entering a new phase of project activity, to focus on strengthening the capacity of selected Bohol Province municipalities in the area of strategic planning and the critical linkage of this process to the municipal budgeting system.

This workbook builds on the experiences of this partnership and is intended to support the expansion of this acquired knowledge to other municipalities in the Philippines.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Part 1. Introduction

Purpose of the Workbook

What is Strategic Planning?

Why Plan Strategically?

Critical Success Factors

Part 2. The Methodology

Overview of Strategic Planning

Phases of Organizational Change

Step 1. Assessing Organizational Readiness

Step 2. Planning to Plan

Step 3. Situational Analysis

Step 4. Ideal Future State

Step 5. Key Performance Areas

Step 6. Strategy Development

Step 7. Action Plans

Step 8. Implementation

Step 9. Monitoring and Evaluation

Step 10. Continuous Improvement

Part 3. Case Studies

Case 1. City of Kingston Community Strategic Plan, 1998-present

Case 2. City of Grand Prairie Strategic and Business Planning, 1993 – present

Case 3. City of Saskatoon Corporate Business Strategic Plan, 1992 – present

Case 4. Peel Region Corporate Performance Measurement, 1990 – present

Case 5. Municipality of Tubigon, Philippines Community Development Strategic Plan

Part 4. Resources

International Centre for Municipal DevelopmentPage 1

Part 1. Introduction

Part 1. Introduction

Purpose of the Workbook

This Strategic Planning Workbook is intended as a hands-on training tool for Municipal Stakeholders, including elected officials, municipal staff and community leaders.

The workbook is meant to advance several long-term objectives, in particular:

  • Enable municipal stakeholders to take full ownership of the process, developing a methodology appropriate to the municipality;
  • Enable municipal stakeholders to deliver a strategic planning process on an on-going basis;
  • Ensure that the strategic planning methodology is successfully integrated into the municipality’s decision making and budgeting framework; and,
  • Gradually introduce more challenging techniques and tools into the Strategic Planning Process.

The workbook is based on two principles:

The first is the view that a Strategic Plan is of limited value if not integrated into a municipality’s decision making and budgeting process. Rather than being satisfied with the production of a Strategic Plan, a municipality must strive to integrate the Strategic Planning Process into the organization’s decision making and budgeting framework.

Second, the workbook recognizes that each municipal government has different capabilities and operates under different constraints. The workbook does not propose a one-size-fits-all approach to strategic planning. Instead, it presents a range of tools available to a municipality and allows for a gradual approach to introducing more complex or challenging tools over time.

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic Planning is a system of processes to help people at all different levels of an organization to produce fundamental decisions and actions that guide its future and achieve the best fit between the organization and its environment.

The Strategic Planning process establishes short- to long-term directions focusing on action and results with a preferred future in mind. The process follows a prescribed methodology involving a series of steps. Each step requires the people at various levels to discuss, analyze and negotiate the process as a whole[1].

Strategic Planning emphasises an ongoing process as much as a final product. While the product serves as an important guide to municipal decision making, the process is equally important to ensuring priorities reflect a consensus.

Why Plan Strategically?

The experience of the Municipality of Tubigon highlights several direct benefits to the municipality of supporting a strategic planning process:

Strategic Planning provides a framework to think strategically, establish priorities for action, and develop effective solutions. This has proven particularly invaluable in a context of rapidly changing circumstances:

  • The Strategic Plan has served as a more objective decision making tool to identify priorities, enhancing the capability of local policy makers and managers to prioritize concerns related to management and delivery of basic municipal services.
  • The strategic planning process has allowed for a fuller consideration of the range of appropriate interventions available to the municipality to respond to priority issues. As a result, the planning process influences the Municipality’s elected officials to support interventions where they are most needed.

Strategic Planning establishes a common, transparent framework for resource allocation and strengthens the budgeting process:

  • Tubigon’s budget cycles now involve funds being directed to issues prioritized by the strategic planning process. This has helped to minimize inappropriate allocation of resources to departmental budgets.
  • Strategic planning has also provided the municipality with an effective and objective tool for departmental evaluations, with accomplishments based on target plans and programs. Similarly, it has served as a tool to evaluate performance among municipal staff.

Strategic Planning improves organizational performance through improved communications and more objective performance evaluation:

  • Tubigon’s strategic plan has provided its staff with an objective and empirical presentation of business information to Council. It has also served as an important source of improved communications to the public.
  • The Strategic Planning process has provided an opportunity to enhance employee skills and empower employees by including them in the process.
  • The Planning Process has also contributed to organizational team building by providing municipal departmental managers with lateral communication linkages. This has resulted in increased cooperation and improved service provision.

Strategic Planning can increase a municipality’s credibility, profile and stature:

  • The Provincial Government of Bohol now considers Tubigon as a recognized leader in municipal governance and an organization with vision. The Provincial Governor has expressed interest in extending the strategic planning model to other local government units in Bohol.

Critical Success Factors

Each strategic planning process takes on its own unique character, reflecting the particular culture and dynamics of the organization. However, certain factors are present in all successful strategic planning processes. These factors of success are critical to ensuring a successful outcome to the planning process:

  • Leadership: Top leadership support for a strategic planning process is essential to its eventual success. While elected officials may not initially support the use of strategic planning, the process must begin by winning over their support. A successful planning process should also enjoy the support of key departmental heads. Top management support is critical to ensuring that a strategic planning process is actually implemented at the operational level.
  • Stakeholder Ownership: Strategic planning is about far more than just the final plan. A central principle is the need to build the commitment of the full range of stakeholders relevant to the process. These include elected officials, senior managers, front-line staff, and community leaders. Simply presenting a completed strategic plan to Council for approval and to managers and staff for implementation is unlikely to result in any measurable change. The process of consultation, communication and education used to develop a municipal strategic plan is as important as the final product.
  • Inclusiveness: The greater the level of staff involvement in the planning process, the greater the legitimacy and ease of the plan's implementation. The process must make individuals feel part of the process. Similarly, the involvement of key decision-makers inside and outside the municipality will also facilitate the eventual implementation of the process. To be successful, the planning process must rely on continuous and effective communication in order to actively identify organizational stakeholders and engage them in the planning process.
  • Openness/transparency: Successfully transferring ownership of the process to those individuals who will be responsible for the execution of the plan requires a strong degree of openness in decision-making. Building confidence and trust requires that decisions made regarding the strategic planning process are clearly understood. Appearances of a hidden agenda, or confusion over the purpose of the process, will undermine the willingness of other stakeholders to participate in a strategic planning process.
  • Long-term planning horizon: The effects of a strategic planning process require considerable time to materialize. A long-term planning horizon requires that a municipality have realistic expectations about and appreciate the limitations of a strategic planning process. This perspective also implies the need for City Council to invest in the organization’s strategic planning capability.
  • In-house training capability: Because it requires continuous learning and adaptation, the municipality should develop effective in-house trainers capable of reaching staff from each department involved in the development and implementation of each strategic plan.

International Centre for Municipal DevelopmentPage 1

Part 2. Methodology

Part 2. The Methodology

This second section of the workbook provides:

  • an overview of the strategic planning process,
  • a discussion of the phases of organizational change involved in building capacity for strategic planning, and
  • a step-by-step guide to the strategic planning process.

Each of the ten steps in the strategic planning process includes:

Basic Tools & Techniques that provide a municipality with a relatively simple method for incorporating strategic planning.

Advanced Tools & Techniques that describe more challenging tools for those municipalities in a stronger position to incorporate strategic planning. Some of these more sophisticated tools are at the frontiers of Strategic Planning and Municipal Organizational Improvement.

A Municipal Profile that provides an example of how this strategic planning step was implemented in a real municipality.

Overview of Strategic Planning

The methodology for municipal strategic planning (see Table 1) is a 10-step process that occurs in three stages:

  • Where we are now,
  • Where we want to be,
  • How we get there.

Table 1 The Strategic Planning Process

STEPS / TOOLS / PARALLEL
Basic / Advanced / PROCESSES
WHERE WE ARE NOW / Step 1.
Assessing Organizational Readiness /
  • Organizational Assessment Checklist
  • FCM Municipal Self-Assessment Guide
/ TRAINING – train the trainer to build in-house training capabilities / CONSULTATION – with stakeholders to build consensus, link to decision making
Step 2.
Planning to Plan /
  • Planning to Plan Checklist
  • Strategic Planning Team
/
  • Introductory Training Course
  • Community Initiating Committee

Step 3.
Situational Analysis /
  • SWOT Analysis
/
  • Stakeholder Analysis
  • Community Scan

WHERE WE WANT TO BE / Step 4.
IdealFutureState /
  • Brainstorming
  • Mission Statement Questionnaire
/
  • Community Visioning

Step 5.
Key Performance Areas /
  • Analysis of Earlier Steps
  • Brainstorming Critical Issues
  • Goal Identification
/
  • Priority Setting

Step 6.
Strategy Development /
  • Strategic Objectives Identification
/
  • Alternative Strategies Assessment
  • Community Task Force
  • ZOPP Project Planning Matrix

HOW WE GET THERE / Step 7.
Action Plans /
  • Action Planning Template

Step 8.
Implementation /
  • Implementation Committee
  • Integrating Planning & Budgeting
/
  • Linkages with Other Planning Processes

Step 9.
Monitoring and Evaluation /
  • Annual Plan Review
/
  • Performance Measures
  • Benchmarking
  • Community-Based Performance Reporting

Step 10.
Continuous Improvement /
  • Train the Trainer
/
  • Performance Incentives

The 10 Steps of Strategic Planning

The first three steps allow a municipality to determine where it is now. This includes determining whether the municipality is ready to undertake a strategic planning process (step 1), making the necessary preparations for initiating such a process (step 2), and reviewing the municipality’s current context and condition (step 3).

Having developed a good understanding of where it is today, the second stage of the process focuses on defining where the municipality would like to be. This includes the preparation of mission and vision statements (step 4), identifying priority issues requiring action (step 5), and formulating basic strategies that more clearly define where the municipality would like to be (step 6).

The final stage involves defining the ways in which the municipality will reach its intended destination. This involves a combination of preparing detailed actions plans (step 7), setting up systems for implementing the plan (step 8), as well as systems to ensure the process remains on course (step 9). Because strategic planning is a dynamic and long-term process, this final stage includes implementing various tools to ensure broader organizational improvement (step 10).

Tools and Techniques for Strategic Planning

Table 1 also identifies a series of tools that can be used to implement each of the ten steps. Two types of tools are presented for each step: Basic and Advanced. These reflect the different levels of readiness of different municipalities to take on a strategic planning process.

Continuous Activities of Strategic Planning

Finally, Table 1 includes two dimensions of the strategic planning process that take place in parallel with all three stages and ten steps.

  • In-house training is a continuous activity that should be taking place throughout the planning process. The strategic planning process is a learning process that potentially affects all staff in the organization, and will require an in-house trainer capable of reaching those key staff required to deliver the strategic plan.
  • A second parallel activity involves consultation with key stakeholders. Because a successful strategic plan will be “owned” by those individuals responsible for its implementation, the results of each of the ten steps must be clearly communicated to key stakeholders.

Phases of Organizational Change

Table 2 illustrates the broader organizational development framework for Strategic Planning. As indicated earlier, the purpose of Strategic Planning is not simply to produce a Plan. To be successful, the process must take place within a context of Strategic Management for Organizational Change. This broader framework is characterized by three distinct phases to building organizational capacity for strategic planning. While these three phases are presented as part of a four-year time frame, the time-frame may be longer or shorter depending on the particular circumstances of a municipality.