Facilitative Strategic Planning

Situation
Faced with close public scrutiny from many diverse interest groups, a large (1+ million) city council was challenged by a tenuous relationship with its city manager.  It needed an objective method of prioritizing goals and assessing performance.  In addition, the council was faced with various high-profile growth and maintenance problems threatening the city.

Solution
An ESP partner facilitated a retreat which provided a collaborative environment for the council to identify a clear picture of the priorities (and their relative importance) that needed to be addressed by the city manager.  At the same time, an objective performance evaluation for the city manager was to be defined.

Outcome
The session and its follow up resulted in the identification and ranking of five goals for the City for the following two years (business development, staff accountability, public safety, neighborhood quality of life, and a major public works project).  Additionally, 6-10 initiatives supporting each goal were prioritized and weighted as to importance.  From this work, a “performance scorecard” was developed for the city manager.