What is wrong with Advice on Strategic Planning?
substantial literature in the field of public administration has advocated the use of strategic planning in government at all levels in the united States and elsewhere . There is also a great deal of empirical research on strategic planning and related management tools, especially performance measurement. Whether strategic planning will strengthen or improve governance at the managerial or institutional levels of government will depend on the extent to which it is used, its effectiveness in helping government develop and implement good strategies, and the capacity of government to execute strategic planning and adapt the process and outcomes to different circumstances. The important question for the field of public administration is, what advice can research give to practitioners about these not so mutually exclusive areas to improve strategic planning and enhance its role in governance? Sound advice depends on careful study of the use, implementation, and impact of strategic planning in many settings, with a particular focus on what has been useful, focus on what has been useful, not worked.
We may need to confront the underlying assumption that strategic planning in the forms advocated is even desirable. Will strategic planning actually improve management or governance? Mintzberg (1994), one of the field’s foremost authors on strategic management, argued that strategic planning does not lead to and often prevents businesses from thinking strategically. Maybe the same is true for government.
The prodigious amount of empirical evidence collected thus far on strategic planning in government is fairly conclusive that the tool is widely used. we also know some things about the conditions under which it is likely to occur for instance, we know that strategic planning is more likely to be implemented when government leaders become champions, initiating the process and shepherding it through government or its subunits. We also know that strategic planning is less likely to occur when government is too comfortable, too stressed, or experiencing too much change. However, we are less certain about the level or extent to which it is implemented, how it is used, and whether it is effective. We know even less about how its implementation, use, and electiveness are likely to change under different governing circumstances, and we know nothing about its negative effects. Learning more about these events is critical if research is to advise governments on how to adapt strategic planning to their particular situation and the conditions of 2020. After all, it is unlikely that one-size strategic planning will fit all governments or circumstances.
Two related reasons that so little is known about strategic planning in government are that the process is complex and that our methods of study are limited. Strategic planning is not just planning like long-term financial planning or capital planning, but involves a thorough assessment of the environment and organization to develop broad strategies for resolving important issues facing the government. Methods of studying strategic planning consist primarily of surveys and case studies. Though surveys, we gain a little information about strategic planning in lots of governments, and through case studies, we learn a lot about strategic planning in far fewer governments.
By their very nature, surveys do not yield precise or nuanced understandings of strategic planning, with all of its complex features and subtle variations that are likely to exist in different settings. Accurately measuring these attributes with surveys is also problematic because of misinterpretations and inherent biases