he Future of Strategic Planning in the Public Sector: Linking Strategic Management and Performance
๐ Theodore H. Poister, Georgia State University (2010)
๐๏ธ Posted: 13 December 2024
๐ฏ Core Insight:
Strategic planning is not enough. Public institutions must shift towards integrated strategic management by directly linking plans with performance measurement, execution, and adaptive leadership.
๐ What the article highlighted:
๐ง After 25 years of promoting strategic planning in public administration, the author reflects critically on whether it has been truly effective. Many agencies engage in planning sporadically, without sustained commitment to execution and performance.
Poister outlines three necessary transitions for the 2020s and beyond:
- From strategic planning โก๏ธ to strategic management
- From performance measurement โก๏ธ to performance management
- From siloed planning โก๏ธ to integrated strategy-performance alignment
๐๏ธ Case in Point: Pennsylvania Examples
๐ PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) integrated infrastructure safety, lifecycle costs, and local needsโbeyond just road maintenance.
๐ Williamsport City Government developed a strategic transit system that connects parking lots, pedestrian routes, cultural sites, and shopping areas using public buses. This system served residents and tourists, while factoring in actual mobility patterns and behavioral dynamics.
๐ What made it work?
- Real engagement with citizens, business owners, NGOs, and local chambers of commerce
- Thoughtful stakeholder alignment and inclusive deliberations
- Combining quantitative data (e.g. traffic stats) with qualitative field observation (e.g. where people walk, when festivals attract large crowds)
๐ Key Lessons:
โ Leadership matters โ Senior officials must champion and continuously support implementation.
โ Internal culture must evolve โ Bureaucratic inertia and rigid traditions must be challenged.
โ Strategic decisions must reflect real-life contexts โ not just abstract statistics.
โ Collaboration is essential โ Between planners, implementers, analysts, and even external experts.
โ Performance and strategy must be fused โ A strategy thatโs not executed is merely a document. A strategy thatโs not measured is not improvable.
๐งฉ Final Thought:
Although this article was written in 2010 for the U.S. context, its lessons remain deeply relevant to countries like Mongolia today. Without a strong management system inside public institutions, no national development goalโno matter how ambitiousโcan be achieved effectively.
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