CRITICAL ISSUES AND STRATEGIC VISION

Critical Issues

After discussing the information generated by the environmental scan, the Commission will be ready to identify the critical issues that will be the focal points for the strategic planning process.

Until critical issues are decided, the Commission is dealing with the entire local economy and its structures. Coming to a decision on which issues are critical is very important. Many problems remain to be solved in the city. The community cannot solve all of them at the same time within its limited recourses. Defining the critical issues helps community to concentrate on the most important economic problems, which will be addressed in the Strategic Plan.

There is no "best" way to go about selecting these issues. Much discussion will be required and should be actively encouraged because of the multiple and diverse interest groups represented on the Commission. The process by which consensus is reached can be as important as the consensus itself, because the tone of this meeting will predict the likelihood of the group being able to resolve differences throughout the process. The consultant will be helpful in arriving at consensus and in keeping the meeting moving forward, should there be danger of its being delayed by excessive argument.

The number of strategic issues should be limited, because the narrower the focus, the easier it will be to get the commitments necessary to implement the strategic plan, which is the “bottom line” of the strategic planning process. Therefore, in most communities, there will be three or four critical issues.

Efforts to include too many critical issues should be avoided. Although there is a common tendency to want to agree on as many issues as possible, so that the Commission can deal with smaller, separate problems that are more easily resolved, this will cause serious problems later, because it will require too many action plans and endanger success in implementing the strategic plan.

The focus of this strategic planning process will be on economic development issues rather than broader social concerns.

Selection of the issues is a city-specific decision. The consultant’s role, among other things, is to assist the Commission in determining whether the chosen issues are within the city’s capacity to address.

Communities have limited ability to resolve issues that are either the responsibility of larger units of government (oblast, raion, or state) or are so far reaching as to be beyond the control of the community. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid identifying issues such as national business climate, the pace of privatization, the quality of elementary and secondary education, or drugs and crime.

In other words, the critical issues must be capable of being addressed with the human and financial resources that the municipality can access for these purposes. These resources will include city, oblast, state, and private resources.

"Economic Development" as a critical issue

In many cities, the Commission chooses “economic development” as a discrete critical issue. This may appear to be an anomaly since the entire strategic plan is concerned with economic development issues. However, this usually occurs when the real issue is “organizing for economic development” and it generally addresses the need for a private/public partnership or a new department in City Hall.

However, in some cases, the Commission may choose “economic development” in its more general meaning to allow other, noneconomic issues to be addressed, e.g., housing, the environment, or even social or health issues. This is counterproductive, because it widens the scope of the plan beyond the intended focus on economic development.

In summary, the idea behind selecting critical issues is to encourage selective decision making, which allows the Commission to focus on the most important issues affecting the future of the city. This will be the Commission’s first consensus-based decision and will insure that the Strategic Plan addresses those issues which are most urgent, capable of resolution, and of concern to the entire community.

Strategic Vision and Global Objectives

Where is the community headed in economic development? How do the community leaders envision the city 15 or 20 years from now? After the critical issues have been selected, it is time to establish the community’s strategic vision.

There is no single approved technique for developing strategic vision. One useful approach is to start with preparing a complete sentence for each critical issue. This sentence then becomes the global objective for this critical issue and provides guidance to the relevant task force in designing the rest of the action plan.

For instance, if the issue is “business development,” the global objective might be the following:

Global Objective A: Business Development

To create an environment that allows the city to provide reasonable business growth and employment opportunities for the city’s residents.

If the critical issue were the “transportation system,” the global objective might be:

Global Objective B: Transportation

To develop and maintain a street system and public transportation system adequate to the needs of the city’s residents and businesses.

Strategic visions are usually not controversial and tend to be general rather than specific. However, much care should be exercised when writing them. The strategic vision will be the first tangible result of the strategic planning process. The Commission may decide to publish it in the local newspaper to acquaint citizens with the existence of the strategic planning process and the direction it will take. In addition, the strengths and weaknesses part of the SWOT analyses will be based upon the critical issues and the strategic vision.

Here is an example of a strategic vision adopted by middle-sized Southern Bohemian city:

The Vision – city of Písek in 2020:

A sub-commission should be appointed to draft the strategic vision for review and adoption by the Commission. This sub-commission can meet at the same time as the SWOT analyses are being prepared.