In 1993, the federal government announced an important initiative to reinvent government: the National Performance Review. One branch of this effort, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, required all federal agencies to develop strategic plans for how they would deliver high-quality products and services to the American people.

The only problem was that most federal government agencies, as with many local branches of government, knew very little about strategic planning. For typical government agencies pondering the future, it was often merely a budget exercise: planning to do the same thing they’ve always done, but with a higher price tag.

For the federal government, the first step was to identify those best-in-class organizations that excel in strategic planning and to develop partnerships intended to adapt their practices and formulas for success to governmental programs and operations.

The Federal Benchmarking Consortium was created in 1996. It studied 13 corporations, two cities, one state organization and nonprofit organizations to identify the best practices, technologies and skills that can be used by the government in strategic planning. Its report, Serving the American Public: Best Practices in Customer-Driven Strategic Planning, became a handbook of sorts for conducting governmental strategic planning.

Other government agencies quickly jumped on board. In 1997, the State of Arizona adopted the Arizona Budget Reform Act, which required every state agency to complete and submit strategic plans to the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting every two years. Other states and some local governments quickly followed suit.

Now, the fire service is also rapidly adopting the concepts of strategic planning, recognizing that the rapid-fire decision-making skills of the fire scene may not adequately translate to what is the equivalent of the CEO’s chair. Even the Commission on Fire Accreditation International requires the development of organizational strategic plans as a step in its accreditation process for a fire department.

In Strategic Planning: Development and Implementation, Bonita Melcher and Harold Kerzner say that "strategic planning is the process of formulating and implementing decisions about an organization’s future direction."

Strategic planning really differs from other forms of planning in how it deals with the organization as a living, breathing, growing and aging entity that must continually adapt to its changing environment to remain healthy.

Perhaps another way to look at strategic planning is to compare it to the process of planning a trip. We begin by determining where we are right now and where it is we want to go, or in effect, where we want to be at a particular time and place. We plot these locations on a map so we can see our trip plan and watch our progress during the journey.

After that, any decision along the way, such as whether to turn left or right at any particular intersection, is relatively simple. We can refer to our map and see how such a decision will affect the outcome of our trip, either positively or negatively.

In reality, strategic planning boils down to four fundamental questions, asked on an organization-wide basis:

• Where are we now?
• Where are we going?
• How do we get there?
• How do we measure our progress?

For many fire departments, this first basic step of assessing where we are and determining where we want to be as an organization has simply never occurred. For many fire service leaders, the attitude simply remains that "we want to do what we’ve always done, but with more money to do it". They see the process of strategic planning as wasted time or feel-good management. Many even see it as a threat to their individual authority because it invites participation from those outside the inner circle.

Elected officials are becoming savvier in strategic planning. They’ve learned to recognize the signs of agencies that are simply shooting from the hip. Many local officials have participated in strategic planning in their own business or corporate settings and can quickly fire out questions that will uncover whether an organization is making a request based on sound, customer-driven planning or reactionary gut instinct and kingdom building.

If your organization has not yet considered conducting a strategic planning process, perhaps its time to take another look. Many fine fire service publications are available on the subject, as well as seminars and workshops on customer-driven strategic planning. Such resources can provide you with a more in-depth look at the steps and processes involved in setting a course for your organization through strategic planning.

In addition, many organizations find the use of an outside facilitator can be critical in objectively guiding an organization’s planning team through a systematic process toward defined results. President Woodrow Wilson once said, "We should not only use all the brains we have, but all that we can borrow."

In the end, we all know that the most efficient trips begin with good planning. Consider this as you think about your organization: How much time have you and your employees spent considering the future and what it might hold?