Chapter 3: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning Chapter 3: Strategic Planning Key Ideas in Chapter 3: • If prepared correctly, strategic plans have the potential to be importan...
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Strategic Planning

Chapter 3: Strategic Planning

Key Ideas in Chapter 3: •

If prepared correctly, strategic plans have the potential to be important assets and beneficial for an organization by focusing on results as opposed to activities, providing a framework for decisionmaking, emphasizing action over reaction, limiting crisis-driven decisionmaking, and increasing employee involvement and communication.



Although Mississippi requires each agency to complete a five-year strategic plan that is included as an addendum to the budget request, the state does not have a statewide strategic plan.

Opportunities for Change: Strategic Planning •

The Governor, in cooperation with the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, should develop and implement a strategic plan for the State of Mississippi. As included in the State of Texas’s strategic plan, Mississippi’s strategic plan should include a statewide vision, mission, and philosophy and statewide goals and benchmarks. Once developed, state agencies and institutions should be required to conform their individual strategic plans to the state’s strategic plan to ensure cohesion and uniformity of effort in accomplishing the state’s goals.

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Chapter 3: Strategic Planning Strategic planning is the foundation of an enterprise approach to government. A state-level comprehensive plan informs the planning processes at both departmental and program levels. As will be discussed later in this report, strategic planning draws on a comprehensive management information system that monitors progress toward goals and informs decisionmaking during both good and lean times. If prepared correctly, strategic plans have the potential to be important assets and beneficial for an organization by focusing on results as opposed to activities, providing a framework for decisionmaking, emphasizing action over reaction, limiting crisis-driven decisionmaking, and increasing employee involvement and communication.

Strategic planning has been recognized as a potentially important part of state government operations for years, whether it is at the program, agency, or statewide level. Also utilized in the private sector, strategic planning can be an effective tool used to forecast multiple years in advance what consequences today’s decision will have on the entity.13 If prepared correctly, strategic plans have the potential to be important assets and beneficial for an organization by focusing on results as opposed to activities, providing a framework for decisionmaking, emphasizing action over reaction, limiting crisis-driven decisionmaking, and increasing employee involvement and communication. 14 For a strategic plan to be useful to decisionmakers, it must cover the entire organization (in this case, state government) and must include a time frame in which to measure success and progress, as well as a defined mission and vision in which to establish the agency’s purpose and standards for success. It is the strategic plan that allows government to adjust appropriately to the need for change without fragmenting its efforts or losing its focus. The “hierarchical” process that should be used in strategic planning, according to the Urban Institute, begins with a statewide strategic plan, or agency strategic plans if a statewide plan does not exist, and ends with program and project plans. This hierarchical structure, called vertical alignment, means that “the goals or benchmarks set forth in the state plan drive the agency strategic plans, and the goals set in the agency strategic plans drive division plans, and so forth through program and project planning.”15

13 Blaine Liner et al., Making Results-Based State Government Work (Washington, D. C.: Urban Institute, April 2001), 5.

14

Robert Kreitner, Management, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 143.

Blaine Liner, Pat Dusenbury and Elisa Vinson, State Approaches to Governing-for-Results and Accountability (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, December 2000), 11.

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Due to the relationship between strategic planning and performance measurement, the two processes are more effective when completed together.

As PEER noted in its recent review of the Department of Mental Health’s strategic planning (Report #511, Planning for the Delivery of Mental Health Services in Mississippi: A Policy Analysis), a strategic plan lays out an organization’s vision, mission statement, critical success factors, core competencies, values, goals, strategies, and actions for objectives (i. e., a means by which to achieve the organization’s mission, vision, and goals), prioritized implementation schedules, and reliable measures with which to determine the success of the organization in achieving its goals. The strategic plan should also address the following key factors identified by the Baldrige National Quality Program’s Criteria for Performance Excellence: •

the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats;



early indications of major shifts in technology, markets, customer preferences, competition, or the regulatory environment;



long-term organizational sustainability; and,



the ability to execute the strategic plan.16

In addition, “[m]easures and indicators of projected performance might include changes resulting from. . .new legislative mandates, legal requirements, or industry standards.”17 Strategic planning can be used at the program level for areas such as workforce development in human resources and is the first step in performance-based budgeting. As stated by the Urban Institute: . . .[s]trategic planning looks ahead toward desired goals; performance measurement looks back at achievements. . . .The strategic plan defines the performance to be measured, while performance measurement provides the feedback that keeps the strategic plan on target.18 Due to this relationship between strategic planning and performance measurement, the two processes are more 16

Baldrige National Quality Program, Criteria for Performance Excellence, 10-11.

Baldrige National Quality Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology, U. S. Department of Commerce, Criteria for Performance Excellence (Washington, D.C.: 2008), 12. 17

Pat Dusenbury, Governing for Results and Accountability, Strategic Planning and Performance Measurement (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, August 2000), 1.

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effective when completed together, as opposed to when they are performed separately or when only one is utilized.19 Strategic plans identify the key areas of concern for each agency and performance should be measured in these areas to determine whether the desired outcome has been achieved. In order to attain results, strategic planning and performance measurement must be integrated.20 Mississippi does not have a statewide strategic plan.

Currently, Mississippi requires each agency to complete a five-year strategic plan that is included as an addendum to the budget request (see discussion beginning on page 56). These plans do not conform to an overall state vision and the agency’s goals and benchmarks are set by the agency itself, with little input from the Legislative Budget Office or Department of Finance and Administration. Strategic planning and performance-based budgeting are fragmented processes in Mississippi and therefore this state is not taking advantage of the potential benefits that these processes have to offer.

Opportunities for Change: Strategic Planning The Governor, in cooperation with the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, should develop and implement a strategic plan for the State of Mississippi. As included in the State of Texas’s strategic plan,21 Mississippi’s strategic plan should include the following components: 1.

Statewide vision, mission, and philosophy: Vision—an inspiring view of the preferred future; Mission—a concise statement of the basic purpose and role of Mississippi state government; and, Philosophy—a statement of the core values and principles underlying Mississippi state government service.

2.

Statewide goals and benchmarks: Statewide goals—general ends toward which the state directs its efforts; and, Statewide benchmarks—specific performance indicators and targets used to assess progress at the statewide level in achieving statewide goals.

Once developed, state agencies and institutions should be required to conform their individual strategic plans to the

19

Dusenbury, Governing, 7.

20

Dusenbury, Governing, 7.

21 Texas Governor’s Office of Budget, Planning and Policy and Legislative Budget Board, “Instructions for Preparing and Submitting Agency Strategic Plans, 2009-2013” (Austin, 2008), 5.

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state’s strategic plan to ensure cohesion and uniformity of effort in accomplishing the state’s goals.

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