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Part VI: The Past
as Prelude: Were
the Predictions of
Classic Scholars
Correct?
John M. Bryson is the McKnight
Presidential Professor of Planning and
Public Affairs in the Hubert H. Humphrey
School of Public Affairs at the University
of Minnesota. He works in the areas of
leadership, strategic management, and the
design of organizational and community
change processes.
E-mail: jmbryson@umn.edu
The Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning S255
John M. Bryson
University of Minnesota
Th e Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning
in the United States
Strategic planning is now a ubiquitous practice in U.S.
governments and nonprofi t organizations. Th e practice
has become widespread for many reasons, but the chief
one is the evidence that strategic planning typically
works, and often works extremely well. Improvements
in strategic planning practice are likely to come as it is
seen and researched in its full richness as a practice, or
set of practices. Several predictions are off ered about the
future of strategic planning practice and research.
Guest editors note: In 1942, the University of Chicago
Press published a book edited by Leonard D. White titled
Th e Future of Government in the United States. Each
chapter in the book presents predictions concerning the
future of U.S. public administration. In this article, John
M. Bryson examines John Viegs predictions on the future
of government planning published in that book, comments
on whether Viegs predictions were correct, and then looks
to the future to examine public administration in 2020.
Over the last 25 years, strategic planning has
become a ubiquitous practice in U.S. governments and nonprofi t organizations (e.g.,
Berman and West 1998; Berry and Wechsler 1995;
Brudney, Hebert, and White 1999; Poister and Streib
2005; Stone, Bigelow, and Crittenden 1999). While
there is a dearth of large-sample studies demonstrating its eff ectiveness one way or the other (Poister, Pitt,
and Edwards 2010), there are numerous in-depth
case studies indicating its usefulness at diff erent levels
of government, in nonprofi t organizations, and for
collaborations. Experience demonstrates that strategic
planning can be used successfully by
Public agencies, departments, or major organizational divisions (e.g., Barzelay and Campbell 2003;
Bryson 2004a)
General purpose governments, such as city,
county, state, or tribal governments (e.g., Hendrick
2003; Kissler et al. 1998)
Nonprofi t organizations providing what are essentially public services (e.g., Stone, Bigelow, and
Crittenden 1999; Vil and Canales 2008)
Purpose-driven interorganizational networks
(such as partnerships, collaborations, or alliances)
in the public and nonprofi t sectors designed to
fulfi ll specifi c functions, such as transportation,
health, education, or emergency services (e.g.,
Burby 2003; Innes and Booher 2010; Nelson and
French 2002)
Entire communities, urban or metropolitan
areas, regions, or states (e.g., Chrislip 2002; Wheeland 2004)
Th e benefi ts can be of many kinds, including,
Promotion of strategic thinking, acting, and learning (e.g., understanding context, clarifying mission,
fi guring out what strategies are best, negotiating
performance measures and standards, building
needed coalitions of support)
Improved decision making (e.g., making decisions tied to organizational purposes and in light of
future strategic consequences)
Enhanced organizational eff ectiveness, responsiveness, and resilience (e.g., meeting mandates, fulfi lling mission, improved overall coordination and
integration, better performance control, satisfying
stakeholders according to their criteria, adapting to
environmental changes)
Enhanced eff ectiveness of broader societal systems
(e.g., collaborating with others, often across sector
boundaries, to address broad public problems)
Improved organizational legitimacy (e.g., based on
satisfying key stakeholders and creating real public
value at reasonable cost)
Direct benefi ts for the people involved
(e.g., human and social capital building,
improved morale, fulfi llment of job responsibilities, improved competency, enhanced job prospects, reduced anxiety)
Of course, there is absolutely no guarantee that any
of these potential benefi ts will accrue to individual
organizations or collaborations, but there is certainly
considerable evidence that many organizations have
S256 Public Administration Review December 2010 Special Issue
garnered some signifi cant fraction of the benefi ts of strategic planningand continue to do so as they gain more experience with it.
Th e remainder of this essay is in fi ve parts:
First, I off er defi nitions for strategic planning and the broader concept of strategic
management, as well as discuss their functions and approaches to their fulfi llment.
Second, I describe how and why I think
strategic planning has become standard
practice for most governments and nonprofi t
organizations. Th ird, I argue that in order to
improve strategic planning in both practice
and theory, it is important to view it as a
practice. Fourth, I make some predictions
about how strategic planning practice may
change in the next decade. Finally, I off er
concluding thoughts.
Strategic Planning and Strategic Management:
Defi nitions, Functions, and Approaches
As strategic planning became more widespread, the world of
practice began to focus on eff ective strategic
management, which embraces strategic planning and implementation. Strategic management may be viewed as the appropriate and
reasonable integration of strategic planning
and implementation across an organization (or other entity) in an ongoing way to
enhance the fulfi llment of mission, meeting of mandates, continuous learning, and
sustained creation of public value (see table
1). I defi ne strategic planning as a deliberative, disciplined eff ort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and
guide what an organization (or other entity)
is (its identity), what it does (its strategies
Table 1 Strategic Management, Strategic Planning, and Implementation: Defi nitions, Functions, and Approaches
Strategic Management
The appropriate and reasonable integration of strategic planning and implementation across an organization (or other entity) in an ongoing way to
enhance the fulfi llment of mission, meeting of mandates, continuous learning, and sustained creation of public value.
Strategic planning: a deliberative, disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization (or other entity) is,
what it does, and why it does it (Bryson, forthcoming).
Implementation: the ongoing effort to realize in practice an
organizations mission, goals and strategies, the meeting of its
mandates, continuous organizational learning, and creation of
public value.
Functions Designing and integrating kinds of work that have to be done in an a reasonably
formalized way, for the sake of clarifying organizational purposes, mandates, goals,
issues, strategies, and requirements for success; the work includes design and use
of deliberative settings to foster collective strategic thinking, acting, and learning
around key issues
Developing an appropriate formal strategic management system
in practice and the placement and role of strategic and operational planning within it
Addressing the kinds of work that should be done in a reasonably formalized way,
for the sake of building the enterprises capacity for, and delivery of, success over time;
the work includes designing a strategic management system linking purposes,
people, structures, processes, resources, political support, and learning in productive ways
Linking budgeting, performance measurement, and performance management to meet mandates; achieve agreed mission,
goals, strategies, and requirements for success; allow for desirable changes in ends and means to emerge over time; and
achieve signifi cant public value
Clarifying the purpose and placement of the strategic planning function within a
governmental or nonprofi t organizational design
Making use of forums and formative evaluations to tailor and
adjust strategies during implementation to increase chances
of success
Making use of forums and evaluations to help judge the
degree to which success has been achieved, and whether new
ends and means should be pursued
Approaches to
Fulfi lling the
Functions
A strategic planning approach is a kind of response to circumstances recognized
as challenges that people judge to require a considered, collective, and often
novel strategic response.
There are several approaches to, or kinds of, strategic management systems (Bryson,2004a):
Layered or stacked units of management, including use of
cascaded balanced scorecards to help with alignment
Strategic issues management, including PerformanceStat
systems (Behn 2008)
Guided incrementalism (Barzelay and Campbell 2003)
Contract models
Value chain management
Portfolio approaches
Collaboration models (Provan and Kenis, 2005):
O Lead organization
O Shared governance
O Partnership administrative organization
Goals or benchmark approaches
Hybrid models (i.e., combinations of two or more of the
above)
Such responses are part of complex social problem solving, inseparableand
in many ways indistinguishable fromother parts of the same thing. Still, for
purposes of discussing enterprises in which planning plays a role, it is advantageous to use strategic planning to characterize this part of response scenarios to
challenges.
A widely used approach is the strategy change cycle (Bryson 2004a), which
includes attending to context and developing and linking purposes, strategies,
participation, and the coalitions of support needed to adopt desirable changes
and protect them during implementation, as well as building capacity for ongoing
implementation, learning, and change
Source: Adapted in part from Barzelay and Bryson (2010).
Strategic management may
be viewed as the appropriate
and reasonable integration
of strategic planning and
implementation across an
organization (or other entity) in
an ongoing way to enhance the
fulfi llment of mission, meeting
of mandates, continuous
learning, and sustained creation
of public value.
The Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning S257
and actions), and why it does it (mandates, mission, goals, and the
creation of public value) (Bryson, forthcoming). Strategic planning
is not any one thing, but is instead an adaptable set of concepts,
procedures, tools, and practices intended to help people and
organizations fi gure out what they should be doing, how, and why
(Bryson 2004a, xii).
Implementation, on the other hand, encompasses the ongoing eff ort
to realize in practice an organizations mission, goals, and strategies;
continuous organizational learning; and creation of public value.
Both strategic planning and implementation are action oriented and
mutually infl uence each other. Th e diff erence between the two is a
matter of emphasis. In strategic planning, frame setting and guidance for subsequent decision making prevail; in implementation,
the focus is on sustained action within the constraints of mandates,
mission, goals, and strategies, while being open to new learning that
may aff ect the framework for action. In practice, there should be
feed-forward and feedback loops between the two (Crossan, White,
and Lane 1999; Poister and Streib 1999).
Th e functions served by strategic planning and implementation are
also complementary. Strategic planning at its best involves reasonably deliberative and disciplined work around clarifying organizational purposes and the requirements and likely strategies for
success. Th e process, therefore, is meant to foster strategic thinking,
acting, and learning.1
Strategic planning also should focus on the
work of fi guring out how to build organizational capacity for, and
delivery of, success over time. Th is includes deliberating on how to
link purposes, people, structures, processes, political support, and
learning in productive waysin other words, how to pursue eff ective strategic management.
Finally, a key function of strategic planning eff orts is to fi gure
out where and how best to lodge the function within an enterprise. Th e functions of implementation also encompass strategic
thinking, acting, and learning, but with more of a pronounced
emphasis on ongoing learning-by-doing in a very pragmatic way
within the constraints (which may be questioned) of established
mandates, mission, goals, and strategies (Dewey 1954; Hoch
2002, 2007; Simons 1995). Action learning (Eden and Huxham
2006) and organization development (Cummings and Worley
2008) are thus important parts of both strategic planning and
implementation, including learning focused on developing the
strategic management system so real public value is created and
sustained over time. Utilization-focused evaluation to facilitate
implementation and assess overall performance should be seen as
a complementary and necessary part of eff ective strategic management (Patton 2008).
Several practice-oriented academics and practitioners have developed distinctive approaches to strategic planning and implementation (e.g., Barry 1997; Bryson 2004a; Cohen, Eimicke, and
Heikkila 2008; Mulgan 2009; Niven 2008; Nutt and Backoff 1992;
Poister and Streib 1999). All agree, however, that there are no-onesize-fi ts all approaches. Strategic planning and implementation must
be adapted carefully to context, even though their purposes typically
include changing signifi cant parts of the context. Th e starting point,
in other words, must be things as they are (Mulgan 2009; Scharmer
2009).
Strategic planning is also just one among many responses to
important challenges; in practice, the boundaries between it (as
an adaptable set of concepts, procedures, tools, and practices) and
other approaches (e.g., muddling through, chief executive decision
making with little consultation, acting on intuition, crystallizing
emergent ideas, prototyping and experimentation) are often quite
blurred. Nonetheless, strategic planning as a reasonably deliberative,
disciplined, yet fl exible practice has characteristics and advantages
that distinguish it from other kinds of responses to challenges.
(Unfortunately, those advantages can be easily undermined if the
practice involves rigid adherence to an infl exible process that drives
out strategic thinking, acting, and learning.) Strategic management
systems in practice also often blur with other approaches to ongoing
implementation and learning.
How and Why Strategic Planning Has Become Standard
Practice
Strategic planning is typically pursued by senior elected offi cials
and/or general managers and focuses on an organization, collaboration, or community. At its best, it may be distinguished from other
kinds of planning by its intense attention to purpose, stakeholders, internal and external environmental assessment, major issues
requiring resolution, viable strategies for doing so, political savvy
and necessary coalition formation, focused action, the many aspects
of implementation (e.g., budgeting, performance measurement, and
evaluation), and ongoing learning (e.g., Bryson 2004a; Nutt and
Backoff 1992).2
Said diff erently, strategic planners at their best are
likely to think of organizations in relation to their environments as
fl ows of various kinds through time and across space, for example,
of people, resources, activities, decisions, attention, services, and so
forth. What strategic planning tries to do is inform and foster decisions and actions meant to aff ect something important about those
fl owsfor example, their direction, content, shape, size, volume,
speed, and/or integrationin order to improve their eff ectiveness, along with ongoing organizational capability, viability, and/or
legitimacy in the eyes of key stakeholders. Strategic planning of this
sort bears little resemblance to the characterizations of it by critics as
rigid, formulaic, excessively analytic, and divorced from implementation (e.g., Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel 1998, 4984). Th e
criticisms seem to be based primarily on an exegesis and critique of
historical texts and outdated private sector practice.
Planning in general has been part of public and nonprofi t management for a long time (Friedmann 1987; Graham 1976; Hall 2002).
After all, it is the P in Luther Gulicks (1937) famous acronym
POSDCORB, which stands for planning, organizing, staffi ng,
directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. Strategic planning, of the sort described earlier, got a boost in 1942 from political
scientist, public servant, and political activist John Vieg, who argued
at the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War
II that the country had seen enough of negative planning (italics in
original), by which he meant deliberately refraining from public
control over more than a few fi elds of social action in the confi dent
belief that all would then go well in the vast areas left free. He
believed that the American people were prepared to move toward
positive planning, (italics in original), by which he meant the
foreshaping of things to come and the experiment of a conscious
design of living that, at least in the essentials of existence, will leave
less to the play of chance (Vieg 1942, 63).
S258 Public Administration Review December 2010 Special Issue
Vieg saw planning as an executive function related to advising decision makers and intended to protect and promote the public interest and the general welfare (65). In order to give decision makers a
broader view, he thought that planning should be more concerned
with synthesis than analysis. In his strategic view, planning was
needed at all levels. At the national level, the recent experience of
the Great Depression and the New Deal convinced policy makers of
the necessity for economic and social planning. Moreover, the need
for massive war planning was painfully obvious and pressing. Th e
only real prior precedents for national planning had occurred during
World War I (Graham 1976) and the Civil War (Faust 2008). Vieg
clearly recognized the limits of national planning and saw strong
arguments for subnational planning at the regional and state levels.
He also saw a crying need for broader and more eff ective municipallevel planning and planning for rural areas. Drawing on arguments
in Robert Walkers infl uential book Th e Planning Function in Urban
Government (1941), Vieg asserted that municipal planning needed
to embrace all of the functions of city governments, not just the
physical functions of transportation, water, sewer, public facilities,
and parks.
Unfortunately, more strategic municipal planning of the sort Vieg
wished to see did not take hold until the 1980s. Until then, municipal planning primarily involved capital budgeting and so-called
comprehensive city planningwhich was not comprehensive at
all, but limited to physical functions (Hall 2002). Strategic planning instead had become a primarily private sector phenomenon
(Bryson and Einsweiler 1988) and did not show up on the public
sector screen until Olsen and Eadies (1982) and Sorkin, Ferris, and
Hudaks (1984) pathbreaking books. Mayors and city managers realized that strategic planning could help them gain intellectual and
practical control over their cities in a way that their city planners
could not or would not. In contrast to comprehensive planning,
strategic planning considered the full range of city functions and
stakeholders; the array of city strengths, weakness, opportunities,
and threats; strategic issues and what might be done about them,
and was very action oriented. At a time of resource shortages and
rising citizen activism, strategic planning helped senior managers
make substantively, procedurally, politically, and administratively
rational decisions (Bryson and Einsweiler 1988). Vieg summarizes
his predictions for the future by saying that planning will be far
more fi rmly established in government than it is today (1942, 86).
He clearly was propheticthough several decades premature.
Vieg also asserted that the planners should vary by organizational
level: At the top, where planning means choosing among ends,
the planners are political leaders and philosophers; below this level
planning is concerned with choices among means, and there is a
place and need for persons who make public planning a professionfor specialists who prefer to specialize in generality (1942,
67). Because of his belief in representative government and democratic accountability, Vieg clearly thought that professional planning
should always be advisory, but just as clearly, he thought that the
advice needed to be imaginative, thoughtful, practical, and linked
to decision making. Th e practice of strategic planning has evolved
diff erently than Vieg imagined. Clearly, the planners at the top
are political decision makers and managers, and the rise of strategic
planning in the last 25 years may be explained in part by its usefulness to them (Barzelay and Campbell 2003; Bryson, Crosby, and
Bryson 2009; Bryson and Einsweiler 1988; Wheeland 2004). But
strategic plannings increasingly direct links to decision making and
implementation sound less advisory than intimately entwined with
ongoing organizational leadership and management.
Successes of strategic planning at the municipal level, as well as
the desire to appear more business-like, helped trigger the use of
strategic planning by nonprofi t organizations, states, and the federal
government. Osborne and Gaeblers best-selling 1992 book Reinventing Government was also an important catalyst. Th e Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires strategic planning by
all federal agencies, and many states have similar laws. At present,
there are many possible explanations for why strategic planning is so
widespread, including coercion (many governments are required to
do it; many nonprofi ts are also required to do it by funders), normative pressures (strategic planning is seen as a sign of good professional practice and necessary to create legitimacy), and mimesis (meaning faddishness or copying what everyone else is doing) (DiMaggio
and Powell 1983). I fi nd more persuasive, however, the argument
that strategic planning is popular because in many circumstances it
seems to workin the sense of helping decision makers fi gure out
what their organizations should be doing, how, and why.
A growing number of studies indicate that it worksand often
strikingly wellin a variety of situations (e.g., Barzelay and Campbell 2003; Borins 1998; Boyne and Gould-Williams 2003; Bryson
and Bromiley 1993; Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson 2009; Bryson and
Einsweiler 1988; Eden and Ackermann 1998; Frentzel, Bryson, and
Crosby 2000; Hendrick 2003; Wheeland 2004). Assuming that
strategic planning is a key management function, these fi ndings
complement a growing body of evidence in large-N studies about
the positive eff ect of management, and especially high-quality management, on performance (e.g., Meier and OToole 2002, 2009).
Th e eff ects typically are not huge, but they are statically signifi cant
and clearly support the argument that management (including planning) is an important component of creating enduring public value.
In sum, strategic planning has now become a conventional feature
of most governments and nonprofi t organizations. A growing body
of evidence indicates that, in general, across substantial populations
of organizations, both public and nonprofi t, strategic planning does
produce positive benefi ts on a modest scale, and in some instances
produces quite outstanding positive results. My guess is that the
production of positive results will continue and that the magnitude
of the eff ects across populations of governments and nonprofi ts
likely will increase incrementally over the next 10 years as experience
with strategic planning grows, and as pertinent useful research also
increases. I also predict that strategic planning use and eff ectiveness
will increase in multiorganizational and cross-sector collaborations.
Th e process may not be called strategic planning, but, in eff ect, that
is what it will be, given the necessary focus on using deliberative and
reasonably disciplined processes for fi guring out purposes, attending
to stakeholder needs and expectations, fi nding practical strategies,
and producing public value (e.g., Agranoff 2007; Huxham and
Vangen 2005; Innes and Booher 2010).
Strategic Planning as a Practice3
Looking ahead to the next decade, what can be done to get the
most out of strategic planning? As an academic with considerable
The Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning S259
practical experience, I see a real need for better practice-oriented
theory to help guide and learn from improvements in strategic
planning. Specifi cally, I believe that signifi cant improvements in
strategic planning practice will come when
it is widely understood in its full richness
as a managerial practice or set of practices
and not as some kind of fairly rigid recipe
for producing standardized objects called
strategic plans that somehow are meant to
implement themselves. Viewing strategic
planning as a practice fi ts with what has
been called the practice turn in the social
sciences generally (Reckwitz 2002; Schatzki,
Cetina, and Savigny 2001), and in strategic
management research (e.g., Jarzabkowski
2005; Johnson et al. 2007) and urban planning research specifi cally (Healey 2006; Innes
and Booher 2010). It also fi ts with the pragmatic turn in philosophy, in which actors practical wisdom is accorded new respect
(Egginton and Sandbothe 2004; Hoch 2007; Innes and Booher
2010; Menand, 2001).
While practice has become a prominent research focus in the social
sciences recently, its intellectual roots are deep (Johnson et al.
2007; Latour 2005; Nicolini, Gherardi, and Yanow 2003; Sennett 2008). Practice theory is the term typically used to indicate
important commonalities across a range of theoretical approaches to
the study of practice. Schatzki (1996) and Reckwitz (2002) are the
most frequently cited authors, with the latter identifying Bourdieu,
Foucault, Giddens, Butler, Garfi nkel, Charles Taylor, and Schatzki
himself as signifi cant contributors. Put diff erently, until now, social
science has not had much to off er to improve strategic planning
practice. In the future, I think it can, as long as strategic planning is
properly understood as a practice.
Jointly, Schatzki and Reckwitz provide the outlines of a coherent approach to studying practices. As summarized by Shove et
al. (2007, 1214), the premises are as follows: First, according
to Reckwitz, a practice may be defi ned as a routinized type of
behavior which consists of several elements, interconnected to
one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities,
things and their use, [and] a background knowledge in the form
of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational
knowledge (2002, 249). Th e defi nition clearly entails a caution
to practitioners and researchers not to overly reify things such
as strategic planning or strategic management, that is, not to take
strategic planning and management as standardized things or
objects that can simply be adoptedmechanically installed,
as it wereand then be up and running on their own. Instead,
strategic planning and management should be understood as partially routinized behaviors intended to promote strategic thinking, acting, and learning, involving typically complex assemblies
of actors and objects held together by ordering and sense-making
principles, that are maintained and changed over time through
the way they are performed (Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson 2009;
Giddens 1984; Latour 2005). Strategic planning in practice,
while it may be represented or described simply, is thus a very
complex processas refl ective practitioners (Schn 1987) all
know.
Second, practice is a fundamental component of social existence, as
both individuality and social order result from practices (Schatzki,
1996). Strategic planning as practice involves ideas, behaviors, and
collective actions that are determined by both
individual human agency and structural and
institutional forces. Strategic choices are made
by individuals and groups who are embedded
in social structures that are reproduced and
shaped by individual and group actions. Practice theory, in Shove et al.s words, emphasizes tacit and unconscious forms of knowledge
and experience through which shared ways of
understanding and being in the world are established, through which purposes emerge as
desirable, and norms [are seen] as legitimate
(2007, 12). Th us, there is typically more going on than meets the eye.
Th ird, it is simplistic to view a practice as just what people do.
Schatzki (1996) helps clarify how much more is involved than
just doing by distinguishing between practice as a coordinated
entity and practice as a performance. As an entity, practice has
a relatively enduring existence across both actual and potential
performances, although its existence depends on its recurring
enactment by practitioners. When people have discussions about
strategic planning in the abstract, they are talking about it as an
entity. In contrast, practice as performance refers to the active doing
through which a practice-as-entity is maintained, reproduced, and
possibly changed. Th is distinction leads to the assertion that practices cannot be reduced just to what people do. Instead, as Shove
et al. note, doings are performances, shaped by and constitutive of
the complex relationsof materials, knowledges, norms, meanings
and so onwhich comprise the practice-as-entity (2007, 13).4
Strategic planning thus should not be viewed simply as a thing
that people do with the help of artifacts (process diagrams, fl ow
charts, strategy maps, plans, forms, etc.), but as a generative system
that can produce patterns of strategic action through specifi c
performances based on context-specifi c, situated local judgment
and improvisation.
Fourth, practice theory expands the central foci of dominant social
theoriesminds, conversations, texts, and/or specifi c behaviors
and interactionsas Reckwitz notes, by simultaneously [shifting]
bodily movements, things, practical knowledge and routine to the
center of the vocabulary (2002, 259). Practice theories thus contend with and seek to account for the integration and reproduction
of the diverse elements of social existence (Shove et al. 2007, 13).
Viewing strategic planning as a practice thus requires that it be seen
as quite richly constituted when done well, and not as easily reduced
to the scaled variables of variance studies (e.g., Bryson, Crosby, and
Bryson, 2009; Forester 1999; Jarzabkowski 2005).
A fi nal point comes from Wenger, who emphasizes the importance
of communities of practice (1998, 49). Practices are sustained
or changed in communities (which themselves may be sustained or
changed). More to the point, collective strategic thinking, acting,
and learning occur in communities of practice that vary in permanence. Indeed, temporary cross-boundary communities such as
strategic planning coordinating committees, task forces, or teams
Looking ahead to the next
decade, what can be done to
get the most out of strategic
planning? . . . [There is]
. . . a real need for better
practice-oriented theory to
help guide and learn from
improvements in strategic
planning.
S260 Public Administration Review December 2010 Special Issue
are often intentionally created to shake up peoples thinking, acting,
and learning. Th e knowledge that is brought to bear or produced
(learned) should relate to understanding and/or achieving the
purposes of an enterprise or its parts (4). Knowing and learning,
however partial, are a matter of actively engaging in the pursuits
of such enterprises and working to make the
engagement meaningful (4). Learning is thus
an ongoing issue of sustaining the interconnected communities of practice that make up
any organization and through which it knows
what it knows and thus becomes eff ective and
valuable as an organization (8). Of necessity,
because communities are involved, issues of
personal and collective identity are also involved, which means that changes in practices
and organizations also necessarily involve at
least marginal changes in personal and collective identity (Fiol 2001), or organizational
culture more broadly (Schein 2004). From a
practice perspective, it is a serious error to view strategic planning
as any kind of technocratic, mechanistic, strictly linear process.
Instead, at least at its best, it should be viewed as a much richer,
fuller bodied, more fully human (physical, social, emotional, even
spiritual) endeavor engaged in by communities of practice presumably intent on strategic thinking, acting, learning, and meaning
making on behalf of their enterprises, and their individual and collective identities. In sum, I assert that an important future direction
for strategic planning practice and theory is to focus on strategic
planning as a practice, or set of interrelated practices, and not as an
entity abstracted far from practice.
Th at said, I also note a serious problem with most practice theory,
which is that while it does attend to processes, the typical fi ndings
do not lead easily to design principles or rules (Rommes 2003) that
might be used to guide future action, nor does it attend to the social
mechanisms (Mayntz 2004) that are the likely causal connections
between elements of context, a process, and desired outcomes.5
As a
result, the study of practiceusually in the form of case studies
typically off ers little vicarious learning that is helpful for discerning
how outstanding performance characteristics or eff ects have arisen
in undertakings, either by design or epiphenomenally (Barzelay
2007, 525). When studies do not identify causal mechanisms, one
does not know what actually explains the outcomes of specifi c practices. For practice theory to really help improve strategic planning
practice, it will need to attend to what Bardach (2004) calls the extrapolation problem by using methodologies, such as that proposed
by Barzelay (2007) to better learn from second-hand experience.
Predictions about the Future of Strategic Planning
Practice and Research
In this section, I off er eight predictions about the future of strategic
planning practice and research in the next 10 years. Th e predictions
grow as much out of my experience as a strategic planning consultant and academic administrator as they do from my reading of the
literature.
First, the need for strategic thinking, acting, and learning is only
going to increase in the next decade.6
Just consider the changes of
the fi rst decade of the twenty-fi rst century: it began with so much
promiseand then came 9/11, the spectacular collapse of once
admired but actually corrupt corporations, Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, two quite lengthy wars in the Middle East, the fi nancial crisis
of 20072009 with its massive public debt hangover, and equally
massive subsequent budget cuts at the state and local levels. Meanwhile, Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the
), as well as others,
are rapidly emerging powers, and the U.S.
economy is in the midst of major, not wholly
understood, restructuring.
Information, communication, and social networking technologies are drastically changing
our livesAmazon, eBay, and Google all took
off in the late 1990s; Facebook, YouTube,
and Twitter are post-2000 inventions. Th e
eff ects of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and
moves away from a carbon-based economy
will be huge. At the same time, confi dence in
elected politicians, our governments, and most other institutions
is in decline. Serious observers conclude that fundamental weaknesses in the American state presage a slow decline of the United
States (Jacobs and King 2009). Public and nonprofi t organizations
are clearly stressed. What are their leaders and managers to do? Th e
smart ones will emphasize strategic thinking, acting, and learning
and see strategic planning as a practice meant to help them do those
thingsthat is, as a way of helping them navigate between the
twin dangers and enemies: mindless action and the actionless mind
(Scharmer 2009, 214).
Second, approaches or designs for strategic planning will continue
to proliferatealthough they may be called by other names (e.g.,
Holman, Devane, and Cady 2007). At the same time, practitioners
and academics increasingly will demand greater evidence-based clarity about which approaches work best, for which purposes, in which
circumstances, and why. In other words, there will be increasing
demand for strategic planning to become a kind of design science
(Simon 1996, 11138; Barzelay 2007; Rommes 2003). As Herbert
Simon noted, Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed
at changing existing situations into preferred ones (1996, 111).
For strategic planning approaches to become more practically and
reliably useful, practitioners and academics will need to work together to fi gure out how learning from one situation may be used in
the next when exact replication is not possible. What is needed is a
catalog of challenges for which strategic planning approaches might
be an eff ective response, clarity about which approaches are likely
to work best for which challenges, a listing of the likely requirements for success, and detail concerning the specifi c design features
or principles that should be employed to guide the actions needed
to trigger (or suppress) the social mechanisms that are expected to
produce desired outcomes (Michael Barzelay, personal communication). At the moment, much of this knowledge is stored as tacit craft
knowledge in the heads of skilled and refl ective practitioners (Schn
1987; Sennett 2008). Social scientists can help improve practice by
engaging with these practitioners to clarify, codify, further test, and
publicize this knowledge. Said diff erently, the best strategic planning
practice is ahead of social science, but the best practice is unlikely to
be spread quickly and be of most use without the help of the skills
Public and nonprofi t
organizations are clearly
stressed. What are their leaders
and managers to do? Th e smart
ones will emphasize strategic
thinking, acting, and learning
and see strategic planning as a
practice meant to help them do
those things . . . .
The Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning S261
and publicity available to engaged scholars (Patton 2008; Posner
2009; Van de Ven 2007).
Having an available catalog of demonstrably useful designs for
strategic planning, however, will not lead automatically to improved
strategic planning practice. As Wenger notes, Practice itself is not
amenable to design . . . meaning learning cannot be designed: it can
only be designed forthat is, facilitated or frustrated (1998, 228).
A signifi cant challenge to improving strategic planning practice,
therefore, is how to create process designs that specifi cally facilitate
strategic thinking, acting, and learning rather than frustrate them.
In other words, the last thing we should want is strategic planning
processes that drive them out. A strategic planning process design
(or approach)for example, Nutt and Backoff s (1992) strategic
management process, Brysons (2004a) strategy change cycle, Eden
and Ackermanns (1998) journey-making process, or Rughases
(2007) identity-based strategy-making processshould not be
viewed as a simple recipe or specifi cation, but instead should be seen
as a boundary object that functions as a communication-facilitating artifact around which communities of practice can negotiate
their contributions, their positions, and their alignment (Wenger
1998, 235).
Each of the designs mentioned includes concepts, process design
guidelines, activities, tools, techniques, and advice regarding phases
and potential mechanisms of engagement, imagination, and alignment. But the designs are not the process as brought to life by a
community of practice; they are not the practice itself.7
Th eoretically
and descriptively rich case studiesand especially comparative case
studieswill be needed, along with explicit attention to drawing
the lessons to be learned from these cases for the design of future
eff orts (Bardach 2004; Barzelay 2007). Beyond that, standard teaching methods are unlikely to produce the kind of craft knowledge
needed to improve the craft. Education in keeping with Schns
Educating the Refl ective Practitioner (1987) or Sennetts Th e Craftsman (2008) will be needed.
Th ird, pressures for more inclusive approaches will increase, both
for intra- and interorganizational change eff orts, along with greater
knowledge of eff ective practices for doing so. Th e pressures for
greater inclusion are a consequence of (1) reframing many problems
at a system level encompassing more than one organization, so that
challenges around education, health care, economic development,
disaster management, terrorism, and so on, require multiorganizational and often cross-sector responses (Crosby and Bryson 2005);
(2) recognition that relevant expertise, perspectives, and local
knowledge are distributed unevenly among many diff erent kinds of
people (Innes and Booher 2010); (3) recognition that if suitable designs are pursued, large, diverse groups of people can produce better
judgments, coordination, and collaboration than small groups (Ball
2005; Surowiecki 2004); and (4) recognition that building needed
coalitions for successful adoption and implementation of changes
typically requires engagement of those responsible for making the
changes happen (Crosby and Bryson, 2005, 2010; Epstein et al.
2005; Innes and Booher, 2010). Th e array of approaches to inclusion will continue to increase (e.g., Holman, Devane, and Cady
2007)including ones making greater use of information, communication, and social networking technologiesand practitioners
will become increasingly adept at tailoring participation approaches
diff erently for diff erent stakeholders at diff erent stages in the process
(Bryson 2004b).
Fourth, pressures will increase for the use of methods that integrate
analysis and synthesis into strategic planning processes. Th e need
is particularly acute in situations in which marked feedback eff ects
result in unpredictable consequences of action (Ball 2005). In these
situations, some sort of dynamic system modeling is necessary in order to grasp the situation in a more holistic way and understand better what the fi rst-, second-, and third-order consequences of actions
might be (Eden et al. 2009). Th e use of scenarios to understand
future drivers, possibilities, and constraints is likely to increase (e.g.,
Marcus 2009; Van der Heijden 2005). Approaches to visually mapping strategies will be more widely used (e.g., Bryson et al. 2004;
Eden and Ackermann 1998; Niven 2008). So will geographic information technology in order to understand the spatial distribution
of issues and consequences of decisions (e.g., Bryson, Crosby, and
Bryson 2009). Information and communication technology-rich
decision theaters will proliferate that can help mangers do more
real-time analysis, scenario construction, strategy development,
decision making, and evaluation.8
Th oughtfully managed deliberation processes are even more important than advanced technology
for good analysis, synthesis, and committed action (Garsten 2006).
Innes and Booher (2010) off er a particularly good account of a practice-based approach to fostering dialogue in complex, ambiguous,
and equivocal situations in which joint agreement and action across
boundaries of various sorts are required to address the problem at
hand and advance the common good (see also Scharmer 2009).
Fifth, the changes predicted here sit uneasily with increased expectations of, or requirements for, speedy responses to serious challenges.
Th e desire for greater inclusion, appropriate analysis and synthesis,
and speed is typically not possible to fulfi llbecause while a combination of any two is possible, achieving all three is extremely diffi cult (Eden et al. 2009). For example, in collaborative, cross-organizational strategic planning, the advantages of inclusion, analysis, and
synthesis are typically gained at the expense of speed (Huxham and
Vangen 2005; Innes and Booher 2010). Organizations that are able
to act quickly in the face of strategic challenges are typically characterized by having long-standing prior good working relationships
internally and externally, and by having done considerable collaborative prior analysis of challenges, synthesis of eff ective responses,
and rehearsing of a range of responses (Weick and Sutcliff e 2007).
A particular challenge for strategic planning practice, therefore, will
be fi guring out what surprises are predictable, or even inevitable,
and then developing strategies consisting of necessary competencies
and possible response repertoires that can be rehearsed and drawn
on quickly to address the surprises when needed (Schwartz 2004;
Weick and Sutcliff e 2007).
Sixth, greater clarity will develop about what strategies actually work
in which circumstances, and why. Several public sector strategy
typologies exist (e.g., Boyne and Walker 2004; Niven 2008; Nutt
2004; Nutt and Backoff 1992; Osborne and Plastrik 1997; Wechsler
and Backoff 1987). In addition, one might argue that Salamons
(2002) assembly of public sector tools, or policy instruments,
constitutes a typology of strategies. Each of these typologies is premised on viewing strategy as an entity, not as a practice, and none
clearly specifi es the social mechanisms that are presumed to provide
S262 Public Administration Review December 2010 Special Issue
the causal explanations for the eff ectiveness of diff erent strategies.
In the next 10 years, practice and research will help fi ll in the gaps,
and strategic planners will gain a greater understanding of and
confi dence in knowing when and how to use particular strategies
for particular purposes. As practices and performances, strategies
will be seen as reasonably coherent and aligned assemblies of design
features, communities of practice, and actions incorporated into
specifi c situations in an intentional process of situated learning, and
in which strategy is seen as some combination of what is intended,
emergent, and ultimately realized (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel 1998). Any strategy in practice is unlikely to be a pure version of
a particular strategy category, but instead will be a hybrid.
Seventh, a major category of strategic issues will revolve around
strategic alignment. As strategic planning becomes increasingly integrated with other elements of strategic management, major attention
will be focused on highlighting and resolving issues of alignment
so that coherent, consistent, persuasive, and eff ective patterns are
established across mission, policies, budgets, strategies, competencies, actions, and results (Barry 1997; Light 2008; Niven 2008).
Concerns for alignments will arise as pressures increase for effi ciency,
eff ectiveness, and accountability (Moynihan 2008). Balanced scorecards and strategy maps are quite useful for clarifying and resolving
issues of alignment (Kaplan and Norton 2006), although in my
experience, they are not very good for formulating strategies in the
fi rst place, because the scorecard categories are essentially predefi ned
and the working out of causal linkages is diffi cult given the rigidities.
Other, more fl exible approaches to strategy mapping, such as Eden
and Ackermanns (1998) and Bryson et al.s (2004) causal mapping
processes, are better at formulating strategies, which then may be
programmed eff ectively using balanced scorecards and strategy maps.
Finally, and by way of summary, there will be a heightened emphasis on strategic planning as a way of knowing and learning (e.g.,
Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson 2009).9
Th e move toward strategic
management in public and nonprofi t organizations has already been
noted. Th e move includes integrating strategic planning, budgeting, human resource management, and performance measurement
and management. An important next phase for strategic planning
and strategic management will be incorporating more directly ideas
and practices for fostering organizational learning and knowledge
management (e.g., Cummings and Worley 2008; Moynihan and
Landuyt 2009). Th is move will take seriously, from a practice and a
research standpoint, the assertion by many strategic planning advocates that a major benefi t of strategic planning is the learning that
occurs during the planning process (e.g., Barzelay and Campbell
2003; Bryson 2004a; Nutt and Backoff 1992). Learning occurs, for
example, about what the mandates are and mission should be; the
outside environment and concomitant opportunities and threats;
the way things are currently done inside the organization and their
attendant strengths and weaknesses; the major strategic issues; alternative strategies for addressing the issues; and, quite signifi cantly,
the politics surrounding any change eff ort. Further, this emphasis
on learning underscores the importance of who is involved in the
planning process, and how the design and evolution of planning
processes can promote iterations of dialogue, deliberation, and
change. Th is learning occurs within a community of practice and
involves many diff erent kinds of knowledge, including storytelling
(Innes and Booher, 2010).
Work on organizational learning (e.g., Crossan, Lane, and White
1999) and organizational development (e.g., Cummings and Worley
2008), along with recent work on elements of strategic management, helps point the way to deeper and more pervasive inclusion
of learning into strategic planning practice. For example, Moynihan
(2008) develops important insights into how performance measurement information is used by organizations to promote learning. He
develops what he calls an interactive dialogue model to explain
how and why organizations use performance information internally
and externally. In a complementary vein, Pattons (2008) work on
utilization-focused evaluation provides practice-oriented guidelines
for increasing utilization of evaluation fi ndings. Similarly, Innes and
Booher (2010) and Scharmer (2009) show how learning occurs in
collaborations and off er many suggestions for promoting it.
In a related manner, because strategic planning is in large measure
about designing mission- and goal-related alignment across organizational levels and functions, and between inside and outside, an
explicit practice-based approach to improving strategic planning
would pay particular attention to the role of bridging activities,
roles, processes, and structures. Relevant research includes work
on boundary-spanning roles and activities (Maguire, Hardy, and
Lawrence 2004), the creation of boundary experiences and boundary groups and organizations (Feldman et al. 2006), boundary
object creation and use (e.g., Carlile 2004; Kellogg, Orlikowski, and
Yates 2006), and the development of nascent or proto-institutions
(Lawrence, Hardy, and Phillips 2002).
Cross-boundary groups (boundary groups for short) are collections
of actors who are drawn together from diff erent ways of knowing or
bases of experience for the purpose of coproducing [cross-] boundary actions (Feldman et al. 2006, 95). Typical examples would include strategic planning coordinating committees or task forces and
strategic planning teams, as well as representative decision-making
bodies. As some boundary groups become formalized, structured,
and institutionalized, they become cross-boundary organizations or
proto-institutions (Lawrence, Hardy, and Phillips 2002).
Adeptly designed boundary experiences are important for helping
participants develop a shared perspective that they then can act on
(Boland and Tenkasi 1995; Scharmer 2009). Boundary experiences
are defi ned as shared or joint activities that create a sense of community and an ability to transcend boundaries among participants
(Feldman et al. 2006, 94; Feldman and Khademian 2007). Many
strategic planning activities, such as stakeholder analyses undertaken by a team, or strategy discussions by coordinating committees
would be boundary experiences.
Boundary objects are typically important in helping people create
shared meaning. Boundary objects are physical objects that enable
people to understand other perspectives (Feldman et al. 2006, 95).
Boundary objects can facilitate the transformation of diverse views
into shared knowledge and understanding that can aff ect action
(Carlile 2004). Of particular importance in strategic planning are
discussion documents of various kinds and draft and fi nal strategy
maps and strategic plans.
Th e use of boundary groups, experiences, and objects is necessary to
help communities of practice fi gure out what kind of strategic issues
The Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning S263
the organization actually faces in relation to their environment, and
what might be done about them. Really useful collective learning
typically only occurs through careful design and use of settings for
boundary experiences. Th ese settings may be called, for example,
forums or learning forums (Crosby and Bryson 2005; Moynihan
and Landuyt 2009) or holding environments (Heifetz, Grashow,
and Linsky 2009). Th e settings and experiences are needed to help
groups fi gure out whether the issues involve simply reacting in
an essentially pre-programmed way to changed circumstances, or
require progressively more extensive reorientation, including, in
order of deeper challenges, restructuring, redesigning, reframing,
or even regenerating purpose (Khademian
2002; Scharmer 2009, 2747). Th e deeper
the required changes, the more necessary it is
to have supportive leadership, skilled facilitation, and authentic engagement and dialogue
among participants to discern the core of what
is needed.
In addition, the deeper and more pervasive the
needed changes, the more signifi cant issues of
individual and organizational identity become.
Th e importance of identity in strategic planning has been recognized for a long time, but
is probably seriously underappreciated in both
practice and in the literature. For example,
deeply shared articulations of organizational
identity through action-oriented mission and vision statements are
clear contributors to performance (Collins and Porras 1997; Weiss
and Piderit 1999). Beyond that, practitioners and authors typically
emphasize the importance of buy-in and commitment for strategic
planning to be successful. However, the literature gives little attention to how to forge a shared identity out of individual identities
other than to recommend participation and engagement. Eden and
Ackermann (1998) and especially Rughase (2007) are among the
few to develop both theoretical arguments and practical procedures
for producing shared agreement on, and commitment to, a desired
organizational identity and the strategies that fl ow from it. Tapping into individual identities is crucial, as Wenger notes: because
identifi cation represents an investment of the self, it generates the
social energy that sustains both our identities and our communities
in their mutual constitution (1998, 192).
Identifi cation also produces the extraordinarily
powerful feeling of knowing that undergirds
commitment, especially when faced with serious challenges (Burton 2008). In short, learning, meaning, and identity are at the heart of
any practice. Indeed, Wenger argues that
[l]earning is the engine of practice, and practice is the history of that learning (1998, 96).
Conclusions
Strategic planning is here to stay because the need for strategic
thinking, acting, and learning will only increase, and strategic
planning at its best helps foster them. I am much more optimistic
regarding the future of strategic planning than I was 20-plus years
ago, when Bill Roering and I argued that the normal expectation
ought to be that strategic planning will fail, as typically its purpose
is to change an organization, and so much has to go right for those
changes to happen (e.g., in terms of leadership, understanding the
context, addressing the right issues, creating viable strategies, building an eff ective coalition, and so on) (Bryson and Roering 1988).10
Now I am far more sanguinebecause there is so much widespread
practical experience with managing eff ective organizational change
in general, and with pursuing eff ective strategic planning in particular. Practitioners increasingly know what is involved in bringing
about eff ective change and plan and act accordingly. In addition,
there are now many skilled strategic planning consultants and facilitators whose talents may be drawn on when needed.
I also believe that academics are increasingly providing more useful guidance for
improving strategic planning practice. Th is is
attributable in large part to academics taking
practice seriously as a topic for research and
in developing methods for learning from
secondhand experience. When strategic planning is viewed and researched as a practice
engaged in by communities of practice, the
result is a conception of strategic planning
far broader than that on which most past
research and writing on the subject is based,
and much closer to how strategic planning
actually is used. Th e knowledge to be gained
from a focus on practice will always be situational and circumscribed, but nonetheless
is likely to be quite practically useful. Th e knowledge will take the
form of reason-based advice to inform approaches or designs for
strategic planning (e.g., Barzelay and Campbell 2003; Barzelay and
Th ompson 2009; Bryson 2004a; Campbell 2000).
Professional public aff airs education also has an important role to
play. Th e rise of strategic planning has been driven in part by the
increase in coursework, workshops, and internships on the subject
off ered by schools of public aff airs and administration. Here, too, an
increased focus on the actual practice of strategic planning will help
improve the fi eld, particularly as academic knowledge is brought to
bear explicitly on issues of how to learn from and improve practice
(Posner 2009).
Finally, James Q. Wilson famously defi ned
public management as a world of settled
institutions designed to allow imperfect
people to use fl awed procedures to cope with
insoluble problems (1989, 375). I think the
evidence indicates that when strategic planning is seen as a practice that is improved by
reason-based advice, it is one of the very useful ways in which imperfect people can cope
pretty well with some of those insoluble
problems. I now believe that the future of strategic planning practice
at its best is very bright indeed!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank many people for their comments on an earlier
version of this essay, including Fran Ackermann, Michael Barzelay,
Frances Berry, Barbara Crosby, Colin Eden, Norman Flynn, Jay
Kiedrowski, Rosemary OLeary, B. J. Reed, Jodi Sandfort, Michael
Strategic planning is here to stay
because the need for strategic
thinking, acting, and learning
will only increase, and strategic
planning at its best helps foster
them.
When strategic planning
is viewed and researched
as a practice engaged in by
communities of practice,
the result is a conception of
strategic planning far broader
than that on which most past
research and writing on the
subject is based, and much
closer to how strategic planning
actually is used.
S264 Public Administration Review December 2010 Special Issue
Shindl. Carissa Schively Slotterback, Melissa Middleton Stone,
Maarten van der Kamp, David Van Slyke, Ted Poister, Kaifeng
Yang, and two extremely critical and helpful anonymous reviewers.
Th e result is a completely rewritten and much improved essay, although I certainly remain responsible for its contents and any errors.
Notes
1. Strategic thinking, acting, and learning may be defi ned as follows: Strategic
thinking is defi ned as thinking in context about how to pursue purposes or
achieve goals. Th is also includes thinking about what the context is and how it
might or should be changed; what the purposes are or should be; and what capabilities or competencies will or might be needed, and how they might be used,
to achieve the purposes. Strategic acting is acting in context in light of future
consequences to achieve purposes and/or to facilitate learning. Strategic learning
is any change in a system (which could be an individual) that by adapting it better to its environment produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity
to pursue its purposes (Bryson, forthcoming).
2. When most public and nonprofi t offi cials say their organizations do strategic
planning, it is not clear what their statements mean in practice, nor is it obvious
that their practices mirror the defi ning characteristics of good strategic planning
just mentioned.
3. Th is section draws on Bryson, Berry, and Yang (2010).
4. In the management literature, Feldman and Pentland have developed this idea
in relation to a particular kind of practice, routines. Th ey refer to the ostensive
aspects of a routine-as-entity as the abstract patterns formed out of many performances. Th ey refer to the performative aspects as what we observe: real actions,
by real people, in specifi c times and places. Of course, the ostensive and performative aspects are linked: Th e ostensive parts are the embodied understandings
of the routine that we act out in specifi c instances . . . [T]hey guide performances, and are used to account for and refer to performances. Th e performative parts create, maintain, and modify the ostensive aspects of the routine; in
other words, actual performances can change what we think of as the routine in
principle (2008, 3023; see also Feldman and Pentland 2003, 2005).
5. Note that a social mechanism is a fairly general, but only sometimes true, partial theorization of complex temporal phenomena in the social world (Barzelay
2007, 527). Or in the words of Mayntz, in a widely cited article, Mechanisms
. . . are sequences that occur repeatedly in the real world if certain conditions
are given. . . . Mechanisms state how, by what intermediate steps, a certain
outcome follows from a set of initial conditions. . . . Th e specifi cation of causal
chains is what distinguishes propositions about mechanisms from propositions
about correlations (2004, 214). Processes then may be viewed as combinations
and sequences of mechanisms that produce some specifi ed outcome (Tilly and
Tarrow 2007, 203). Well-known mechanisms include competition, co-optation,
the creation of us/them distinctions, diff usion processes, escalation of commitment, groupthink, and so on. See, for example, Barzelay (2003) and Tilly and
Tarrow (2007).
6. Th e fi rst edition of my strategic planning book (Bryson 1988) was written while
I was on sabbatical at the London Business School during the 198687 academic
year. Colleagues there insisted I speak with a senior leader of the British Civil
Service College (now the National School of Government), because they thought
she would want to hear about how strategic planning might help government
departments. Th at 1987 conversation was very short, as she opened by saying,
Th ere is no need for strategic planning in the Civil Service. As it turned out,
there was no need for her continued services. Th e next year, the college became
the fi rst of the executive agencies created by the Margaret Th atcher government, meaning it now had to compete for students who previously had nowhere
else to go. Because the funding followed the students, the college clearly had
to pay attention to its newly empowered customers and get its strategies and
off erings right. Th e leader who thought little of strategic planning was replaced,
and I began a 10-year run teaching strategic planning to the most senior civil
servants, many of whom are now chief executives of agencies.
7. As Wenger notes, Th e relation of design to practice is always indirect. It takes
place through the ongoing defi nition of an enterprise by a community pursuing
it. In other words, practice cannot be the result of design, but instead contributes
a response to design (1998, 233).
8. Some of these theaters will be modeled after Baltimores CitiStat system (Schachtel 2001), in which key decision makers and analysts rely on prior analyses and
graphic displays to make real-time assessments of issues and decisions about how
to respond, followed by regular, disciplined follow-up and reassessments and
redirections, as needed. Th e general form and nature of CitiStat-type practices
are referred to as PerformanceStat systems by Behn (2008). More advanced
theaters may resemble the decision theater at Arizona State University, which
uses an interactive 3-D immersive environment built with cutting-edge graphics
technologies to enable up to 25 decision makers to better see and understand
the past and present, as well as predict the future of an issue (see http://www.
decisiontheater.org/page/about_us/facility).
9. Th is last point also draws on Bryson, Berry, and Yang (2010).
10. We also asserted the existence of what we called the paradox of strategic planning: it is most needed where it is least likely to succeed, and least needed where
it is most likely to succeed (Bryson and Roering 1989). Th e paradox still exists.
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