strategic planning process 15407065

The City of Mitcham’s Strategic Planning Process: Lessons from South Australia

Nama : Anissa Chairudea
NIM : 15407065

Strategic planning has a long history. It began as the art of the general and now has become the art of the general manager in any kind of organizations or other entities. The experiences point out that strategic planning approaches developed in the private sector. These approaches can assist the organizations that deal with their turbulent changing environments, included the public and nonprofit organization sectors. It does not suggest that all strategic planning approaches are similarly appropriate to the public and nonprofit sectors.
This paper will discuss the City of Mitcham’s strategic planning process experience for year 2030 that is influenced by Bryson approach. This approach based on the premise that leaders and managers of public and nonprofit organizations must be effective strategists if their organizations are to fulfill their missions, meet their mandates, and satisfy their constituents in the years ahead (Bryson, 1995, p. ix). Furthermore, the Bryson approach is strongly influenced by the Harvard model. In it, primary attention is given to the internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization, to the values of key stakeholders (not just senior managers), and to the external threats, opportunities, and mandates (not just social obligations) affecting the organization (Bryson, 1988, p. 30).
According to Section 122 of the Local Government Act 1999, City of Mitcham’s councils require to develop and adopt Strategic Management Plans. The Act has quite specific requirements about what must be included in the plans, their timeframes, their review and the fact that the public must be involved in the process. Particular attention is drawn to the requirements that Council such as pursues cooperative approaches at the local, state and federal level regarding the setting of policy and in the planning and delivery of services. Based on the City of Mitcham’s Strategic Planning proposal (2003), with the new Council in place, Administration wanted to not only review the current Plan but to look forward to 2030 to try to identify what sort of a City the stakeholders wanted and what Council should do to turn that vision into reality.
In order to prepare of developing and adopting the Strategic Management Plans, they drafted a seven stages process that includes: 1. Preparing Background Papers, 2. Holding a Visioning Workshop, 3. Conducting Special Interest investigations, 4. Holding a Summit Workshop, 5. Developing a Draft Strategic Management Plan, Land Use Review, etc., 6. Inviting the community to comment, 7. Adopting the Plan. The first five stages were what Administration has termed "An Intelligent Debate with our Community" by addressing the participatory approach through critical and systemic thinking took up to 8 months. This culminated with a report on the recommendations of the Summit Workshop being presented to the Council. The last two stages the Council prepared a draft Strategic Management Plan that then was provide to the community for comment.
Finally, this paper will point out some lessons. A number of theoretical and empirical issues will be explore in order to contribute the knowledge and practice of strategic planning in the public and nonprofit worlds. Especially, from the City of Mitcham’s strategic planning process experience should be learned for adopting and improving the implementation of the strategic planning process in terms of the performance Accountability System of Indonesian Government.
John Soeprihanto/MM of GMU/Economic Faculty of GMU, Jogjakarta, Indonesia