Public Power - November 2008 - (Page 51)

FOR GOVERNING BOARDS Strategic Planning for Boards by William Atkinson board-level strategic planning is an isolated exercise that generates a booklet or binder that everyone is delighted to complete. “Then, with any luck, no one has to look at it for another year - or maybe even three years,” said Tim Gelvin, managing director of Gelvin & Associates in Leawood, Kan. “There is no sense creating a strategic plan if it doesn’t come alive,” Gelvin said. “There is no sense following a dead plan, because it just drags everyone down.” “One mistake some boards make is confusing strategic plan- Most missions, and visions of your utility? In other words, a utility’s identity should not change much over time. However, how it applies itself and what it does with that may change a lot. While long-term planning and strategic planning are not the same thing, they should be related to each other. “For example, it is important to ‘live’ strategic planning every day from a tactical standpoint,” said Gelvin. What you do each day should be guided by the longterm plan. In addition, what you do each day should also relate back to your strategic plan. In approaching strategic planning, it is important to recognize that there is “a direct a strategic plan (strategy development), a long-range plan (a five-year, project-based, look), and an annual budget. The board approves all three documents, and the city council also approves the budget. The longrange planning process has been in place for 15 to 20 years. The strategic planning process has been in place about 10 years. “Our strategic plan is not really a moving target,” said John Twitty, general manager. “We review it each year, but may not make any changes to it for a number of years. We are selling basic services to meet human needs, so these don’t change much. We focus on things like reliability and taking care of customer needs,” he said. “One mistake some boards make is confusing strategic planning with long-term planning”. “They are quite different.” ning with long-term planning,” he said. “They are quite different.” Examples of long-term planning are deciding to put in a water system, or install a combined-cycle combustion turbine. These are long-term capital-intensive projects, and a community needs to plan 20, 30, or even 50 years for some of these. Strategic planning, on the other hand, recognizes that the utility operates in a dynamic and changing environment externally, and perhaps internally as well. It then asks some questions. How do you keep abreast of this environment on a regular basis? How do you breathe life into your awareness of the changes that are happening? Then, how do you modify and update your plans based on the fairly stable principles, values, www.APPAnet.org relationship between the amount of self-awareness, honesty, openness and trust among the board members and the utility; and the ability to facilitate their own strategic planning process,” Gelvin said. A board must confront difficult internal issues against the backdrop of a changing internal and external environment before it can succeed in strategic planning. If political baggage potentially interferes with decision making, the board may need to rely on an outside facilitator. “Good consultants are experts in assessing, understanding and reflecting back the strengths and weaknesses of the board in a constructive way,” he said. City Utilities of Springfield, Mo., has a successful history with strategic planning. The utility follows a three-part process: The utility and board implement specific projects, which are tactical responses to the strategy. “We create an annual operating plan, which includes next year’s budget and our fiveyear long-range outlook,” he said. All of these are designed to fit nicely under the strategy. “We try to be very controlled and disciplined in terms of what the needs of the system are, then match these with the capabilities of the system in terms of revenue flows,” he said. Springfield’s strategic planning process includes a strategic objectives scorecard, which covers utility supply, customer delivery, financial strength, human resources, community responsibility, environmental responsibility, and safety. The utility posts the scorecard available on its Web site, where NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2008 51 http://www.APPAnet.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - November 2008

Public Power - November 2008 Contents Perspective 10 Questions Capturing Knowledge Before It Retires Jackson’s GIS Search Keeping a Job Journal Japan Tackles the Kyoto Protocol Getting to 20 by 10 Damless Hydro Power Earthquake: The Hidden Disaster For Engineers Safety For Governing Boards DEED Hometown Connections Parting Shot

Public Power - November 2008

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