Strategic Planning: Consultation Assignment Instructions 

Overview 

In this class, you will be exposed to and work with realistic strategic planning issues.  Many of the assignments you already completed will be building blocks for this assignment.  This is a rare class where you will be allowed to use material from each assignment in this class as you build toward the final assignment.  You will not be penalized for self-plagiarism for using coursework, as an example, from the Discussion: Public Safety Organization Strategic Plan when completing assignments in other weeks.   

In this assignment (the Strategic Planning: Briefing Assignment will be related) you should take on the role of consultant by developing a Strategic Planning Guide to assist a local public safety agency in the strategic planning process. Although the Strategic Planning Guide could be used as a boilerplate for many agencies, you should direct the focus of this guide to a specific agency. In other words, name the specific agency. This should be the agency you used in a majority of your assignments to this point. If for some reason you cannot use that agency, please consult your instructor for guidance. This guide should be innovative yet easy to follow by senior command staff. The guide should cover the process of strategic planning, the opportunities and challenges associated with the planning process, and the steps necessary to carry out the plan.  You should base your guide on, at a minimum, the materials used this semester. It should include:

Instructions 

·      A discussion of why strategic planning is important.

·      The name of the strategic planning model and the major elements of the model.

o   Be sure to mention the pitfalls that might arise at each step in the process.

·      A discussion of how to determine the value of existing data as well as how you will analyze and measure the data you obtain from the strategic planning process.

·      Resources where the organization can find more information.

·      Explanation of specific Strategic Planning terminology.

·      A discussion of how your model differs from other common strategic planning models.

o   What have you retained from other models and what unique aspects have you added?

·      Create a brief (one to two paragraphs) Christian Worldview Section on the importance of planning, good stewardship, and/or accountability in the strategic planning cycle.  

o   If you have difficulty in this focus negotiate with your professor on a good CWV focus to place in this section.  Your professor must agree to this change before you can change your section focus.       

·      Charts, worksheets, and other planning elements might be helpful to an organization as the start the strategic planning process.

o   This should be kept reasonable due to the time constraints of an 8-week course.   

·      The assignment must be submitted as a Word file.

The goal is to be succinctly comprehensive. The final document should be roughly 15 pages double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 points, 1-inch margins.  The paper should mirror APA.  However, instructors must maintain the flexibility with APA grading that will allow a limited amount of “editorial” license when a student prepares an Agency-Specific Strategic Planning Consultation Model. 

Even though the student will reply upon the two course texts, they are expected to not merely copy the course texts. Rather, they are to create a “hybrid, semi-unique” model based upon the texts and also incorporate a significant number (12+) of academic (within the last 10 years), best-practice based, and organization being analyzed references (APA compliant references and citations).  The majority of references should be Academic and best-practice related. Additionally, students shall quote the Holy Bible in their CWV section. 

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.