New development: Strategic planning in interesting times—From inter-crisis to intra-crisis responses

IMPACT

As an intensive, long-term oriented and deliberative process, strategic planning is generally viewed as an essential practice in the public sector, yet mostly in relatively stable or non-crisis contexts. However, emerging crisis types (such as ‘creeping crises’) come with a novel mixture of features that disrupt conventional norms of public administration, crisis governance and policy-making. Drawing on the theories of creeping crises, strategic planning and empirical observations, the author explains how such crises create windows of opportunity for intra-crisis strategic planning. In such crisis conditions, practitioners should dedicate sufficient time to undertake intra-crisis strategic planning to drive crisis policy-making and crisis governance, rather than engaging in ad hoc and stopgap crisis responses.

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how emerging types of crises provide opportunities for strategic planning as a form of intra-crisis response. The article supplements existing literature and approaches to strategic planning that conventionally emphasize its value in relatively more stable conditions or mostly as a platform for pre-crisis preparedness.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid 19
• crises
• creeping crises
• intra-crisis strategic planning
• Ukraine
• strategic planning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bishoy L. Zaki

Bishoy Louis Zaki is a visiting professor at the Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University, Belgium. His research and teaching activities focus on strategic management, policy theory with particular attention to policy learning, evidence-based policy and policy advisory architectures. He has over 14 years' experience as a practitioner in strategy and public policy with international development organizations and governments.