to: Mayor and Town Council
from: Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager
subject: Strategic Planning Update and Exercise to Identify Key Assumptions for Testing
date: June 4, 2008
This memorandum is intended to:
In response to the Mayor and Council’s expressed interest in developing a strategic planning process that would clarify the Council’s vision for the community and provide a clearer and more focused course of direction to the staff, the Manager proposed a process for the Council’s consideration on February 11, 2008 which included the following steps:
Subsequent to the Council’s approval of this proposal, the Manager and staff arranged a Strategic Planning Work Session on February 27, 2008. The Work Session was facilitated by Margaret Henderson and Lydian Altman from the University of North Carolina School of Government and was designed for two related purposes:
At the February 27, 2008 Work Session, the Council identified a number of working assumptions that relate to the strategic prioritized goals targeted by the Council during their planning retreats in 2007 and 2008. The six strategic prioritized goals are as follows:
At the conclusion of the February 27, 2008 Work Session, the Council asked the Manager and staff to identify additional assumptions and to incorporate the full list of these assumptions into the strategic planning document for the Council’s consideration.
On May 23, 2008, the Manager provided a copy of the revised strategic planning working document to the Council. This version of the document included a list of the assumptions identified by the Council and staff, as well as a list of example indicators for each of the six strategic prioritized goal areas.
One way for the Council to continue the process of identifying the working assumptions for additional study and evaluation is to proceed with an exercise to identify key assumptions. As part of this process, each Council member can express their preference towards testing or not testing one or more of the identified assumptions based on their use of different colored dots. A green dot placed next to an assumption will indicate a Council member’s interest in proceeding with a more detailed evaluation of an assumption, whereas a red dot will indicate a preference not to proceed with the testing of the targeted assumption.
Before the exercise begins, staff will provide large-format printouts of the identified assumptions listed under each of the six strategic prioritized goals found in Attachment 1. Council members will have an opportunity to review the full list of assumptions, many of which are duplicated throughout the six strategic prioritized goal areas as noted by an asterisk. Additionally, Council members can add new assumptions to the list of assumptions under any of the six goal areas before the test preference exercise begins.
Upon completion of the exercise, staff will analyze the information and use it as part of an effort to work with the Council to design a process for testing the targeted assumptions.
A possible next step in the development of a Strategic Plan could be the Council authorizing the Mayor to appoint a Council Committee tasked with the design of a process for a future course of action. Such a process would likely involve the development of a method for testing the assumptions identified in the exercise. We envision that this Committee would meet as necessary during the Council’s summer recess to develop this process and report back to the full Council in the fall.
I recommend that Council undertake the following at your work session: