5 Year Strategic Plan

My first project for the Water Resources Department was to create a strategic plan for the next five years. In addition, I received a small budget to contract a third party to help facilitate the plan. The project entailed an all day work session with all of the staff members. I was in charge of getting all the divisions together in one room at the same time to discuss amongst themselves and the entire group about what their priorities would be for the next five years. This was a good exercise because it gave everyone in the department a chance to hear what each division was working on and where they lacked resources.

There were about 55 people in the room that were grouped into their division. Each division was then asked to develop a mission statement for their division with supporting goals that matched our City Council goals. For the most part, everyone participated. However, it was interesting to see how the dynamics of the group played out. There were some people who took it serious and shared their ideas and then there were others who remained quiet or just complained about the whole process.

In the end, we were able to get enough information to draft our strategic plan. It took a couple of months to complete the plan. Overall, the project gave me a chance to interact with all the supervisors and staff to make sure we had the information that would help them carry out a successful plan.