Plan, Plan, Plan

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Master Plan process. The MP, lest you forgot, is a guiding document for a communities growth and development. This week I was thinking about strategic plans. In this regard I am not looking to the community but to the make up and direction the department I oversee.

I am a systems thinker. I like to know how things evolve and operate. I wonder why processes are in place and who developed them. Who thought it was a good idea to do this or that. Some elements are out of my control. State RSA or local Ordinance dictate certain things, and that is all well and good. My thoughts are more closely tied to operational and practical areas.

In that regard I am going to take the task of developing a strategic plan for the department. This involves many of the same elements of a Master Plan, but on a more local level. Instead of looking from a high level at the City, I want to know where the City Manager views the department in the grand scheme of things, I want to know how the Planning Board views us, how the staff views the department and how the regular citizen views, or more likely does not view us.

Part of this will be a plan for improved communications and outreach as well as reviewing all document development and flow through. One tool will be this blog, and I hope to look for questions and answers out there in the wide world.

Part of this will flow from the presentation of the upcoming Capital Improvements Program. I want to redirect how we interpret, present and work through the CIP. THE CIp is am important part of our planning and I want to make it more citizen focused and interpretive. We'll see how that goes.