Strategic Planning as a Tool for Managing Organizational Change

Abstract

This article surveys primary definitions and models of strategic planning used in state and local government. Two models of strategic planning are discussed in length:

a.	an eight step agency model, with attention to how managers can use each step to manage change in the organization, and
b.	an alternative approach for community-based strategic planning.

Finally, comments on made on the development of strategic planning in the 1990s and its integration into broader quality management reforms. We conclude by laying out some of the lessons we are learning from these broader strategic management approaches to managing change.

Keywords:

• strategic planning
• organizational change
• strategic management
• performance measurement

Notes

4. Moore, 1995; 23.

5. Ring, P.; Perry, J. L. Strategic Management in Public and Private Organizations: Implications of Distinctive Contexts and Constraints. Academic Management Review 1985, 10(2), 276–286. Klay, Wm. Earle. The Future of Strategic Management. In The Handbook of Strategic Management; Rabin, Jack Miller; Gerald, Hildreth, Wm. Bartley, Eds.; Marcel Dekker: New York, 1989.

6. Ring and Perry, 1985; 284.

7. See, for example, Bryson, 1995; Nutt, P; Backoff, C. The Strategic Management of Public and Third Sector Organizations; Jossey-Bass Publishers: San Francisco, 1992; Kemp, R. Strategic Planning in Local Government: A Casebook; American Planning Association Planners Press: Washington, DC, 1992.

8. Berry and Wechsler, 1995.

11. Bryon, 1995, p.35.

12. See, for example, Wechsler, B; Berry, F; Park, W. S.; Jill Tao, J. Determinants of Strategic Choice: Proactive, Political and Defensive Models. Paper at the Fourth National Management Research Conference at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, October 29, 1997.

16. See, for example, Robert, B. Leadership Count; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1991; Osborne, D; Gaebler, T. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector; Addison Wesley: New York, 1992.

18. Bryson, 1995, p. 90.

19. Bryson, 1995.

21. See, for example, Nutt and Backoff, 1992; Eden, C; Ackerman, F. Making Strategy: the Journey of Strategic Management; Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA, 1998.

22. Southern Growth Policies Board, 1997.

24. Southern Growth Policies Board, 1997.

26. Mintzberg, 1987; 73.

29. Kemp, 1992.

32. Osborne and Gaebler, 1992.

34. Brudney, Hebert, and Wright, 1999.

35. For example, Wilson, I. Strategic Planning Isn't Dead—It Changed. Long Range Planning 1994, 27 (4), 12–25.

36. For example, see Wilson, 1994; and Kotter, J. P. Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review 1995, 73(2), 59–67.

40. See Huang, J. The Effects of Strategic Planning: Perceptions of the Florida State Managers, doctoral dissertation, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 1997; Huang, J.; Berry, F. Strategic Planning in the Florida Department of Corrections; FL Department of Corrections: Tallahassee, FL, 1995; Brudney and Wright, 1999.

41. Mintzberg, 1987.

42. Berry and Wechsler, 1995; Huang and Berry, 1995.

43. Huang and Berry, 1995.

44. Huang, 1997.