Management of Municipal Planning Departments - Coursework Example

Management of Municipal Planning Departments al Affiliation Management of Municipal Planning Departments Municipal planning departments need strategic management tools in all their decisions and undertakings in this modern world of efficiency and effectiveness in planning decisions. Strategic management as defined by John Bryson (1995) is a disciplined effort that is intended towards the making of important decisions and the undertaking of appropriate action that lead to the shaping and guiding of the organization’s activities, its main objective and the reason why it is involved in a certain activity. Therefore, strategic planning will involve what an organization plans to do and how it plans to do it. Strategic planning assumes that any organization should be adaptive to the dynamic and unpredictable environment that is quickly changing in order for it to be able to achieve its goals and objectives. In the recent years, the work load for municipalities all over the world has increased and at the same time the resources they depend on have become scarce. It is not an automatic thing again that municipalities as part of the non-profit making organizations will get funds from their revenue generating activities that involve taxations, grants from the government or funds from the stadiums and other social cash generating amenities parks and hotels they possess. This therefore, calls for a strategic plan that will help them achieve all their goals. The managers and leaders of municipalities have been facing a major challenge in the current economy. The municipalities are being faced with an aging population, geographic migration of its experienced work force, extensive immigration into the cities, shortage of housing facilities to accommodate the increasing population, congested roads and hospitals and an increasing debt that cannot be financed. Faced with these challenges the municipalities need a strategic planning programme among all its work force in order to help it to address issues of organizational design, performance, management and accountability in the municipality. This will help the municipality to achieve its goals of development. Challenges faced by municipal management team in achieving development goals Municipalities being the ones in charge of housing and planning in urban centres have been faced by a new challenge in the recent years. The changing economy has hit the housing sector hard making its development derailed. The recent financial crisis that happened in the year 2008 had very negative impact on the development of housing plans by the municipalities. It is the goal of the municipality as a political non-profit making organization to ensure that its populace has adequate and fitting housing facilities (Levy, 2003). The development of any city or big town is measure according to the number of businesses and residential facilities it has and their quality. It has been a big challenge for municipalities to plan well for its populace on how to accommodate them because the finances were not available and there was no clear laid down plan to achieve this major goal for the municipalities and its management. Another challenge that the municipalities face is the provision of the necessary and required infrastructure. The building of feeder roads, health centres, a good transportation system and provision of social amenities to its people for pleasure. For the achievement of the best of these goals the municipality must have a convenient and adequate source of funds to provide these provisions. It has been a great challenge for the municipalities to be able to fulfill some of this goals because the central government may at times not give out grants to the councils and the councils might not have planned well for the provision of this provisions. This most of the times results because of poor management, lack of the necessary skills and knowledge to plan for the source of revenues and clear implementation of the laid down projects (Levy, 2003). Most of the municipalities’ work force do not understand the need for strategic planning therefore becoming a challenge to implement any viable projects. Likewise, municipal development management team is faced by the challenge of lack of teamwork and participation of all the stakeholders involved. The public has been saying it is the work of the municipalities to provide for them and they take no initiative to help the municipalities to achieve their goals. The public is the first to complain when the municipality fails in one area without knowing that the failure of the municipality is part of their failure. Further, the municipalities’ work force is not experienced in the provision of these provisions and are not aware of good planning systems and how they should work together with other stakeholders of like mindedness to achieve the best out of team work (Levy, 2003). Furthermore, the municipalities have been facing a challenge of changing policies. Policies like; fiscal policies, monetary policies, international trade policies and new court orders and new bills by the house of representative have a derailing impact on the development projects of the municipalities. Most of the times when these policies are implemented find the municipalities not ready to absorb and implement them in their systems. Thus, there is an urgent need for the municipalities to be planning in advance and be versed with the trending events in their vicinity that may affect them positively or negatively (Levy, 2003). This again brings another challenge that the municipalities face, that of late planning to take advantage of good times of the economy in order to accrue the benefits that come with a booming economy. The municipalities have been having a challenge in having good systems of collection of fees and fines and license fee from the affected individuals. This has been as a result of not having a changing and dynamic system that adjusts with the changing economic climate in the states and the world at large. Benefits of having a strategic plan for the municipalities’ management team Strategic planning being a deliberative approach, helps the municipality to the use and design of the settings through which important deliberations are most likely to occur (Crosby and Bryson, 2005. Pp. 401-426). The settings include informal and formal forums that link audiences and speakers for the purpose of creating and communicating meaning and encourage the learning of new things. Furthermore, informal and formal forums help in the making of executive, legislative and administrative decisions. Likewise, these arenas help in the reinforcement of informal and formal laws. This helps the public to know what the municipality has achieved and also contribute ideas to the municipality on what to achieve next and how to achieve it. With this togetherness, the public feel to be part of the leadership and will always support in any way possible to see the municipality progress with its development agenda at hand. In addition, strategic planning helps in the promotion of strategic acting, thinking and learning. This is enabled through strategic conversations that call for deliberation among the key actors. Through strategic acting, thinking and learning, the municipality is able to gather systematic information about its internal and external environment and also the interests of various actors. Moreover, it will be able to have a thoughtful examination of its failures and successes it has achieved, be able to set a plan for its future direction, establish its priorities that need action and more so achieve a greater use of the available knowledge and skills in possession by its people (Bryson, 1995). Furthermore, strategic planning helps in informed decision making. Studies have suggested that, nearly half of all the strategies that organizations lay down fail because of poor decision making processes and failure to involve of all the stakeholders. Strategic planning places a clear focus on the challenges and critical issues that the organization or municipality faces and helps the decision makers to come up with appropriate solutions to the difficulties facing the organizations (Bryson, 1995). Strategic planning helps decision makers to develop strategies in light with the possible consequences that may be fall them in the future. Therefore, strategic planning helps them develop defensible and coherent decisions that help them to actualize the implementation of decisions made across all functions and levels. Through this possession of freedom to make decisions, the leaders are able to exercise maximum control of the areas they are in charge of and be able to influence the outcomes and actions in those respective areas. Strategic planning thus helps municipalities to clearly formulate and communicate their strategic intentions and directions to the public and other concerned parties (Crosby & Bryson, 2005). Moreover, strategic planning enhances municipality’s responsiveness, effectiveness and resilience. Municipalities that engage in strategic planning are motivated to address and clarify on major issues and respond appropriately to the external and internal pressures and demands facing them. This encourages the municipality to be managed well for the achievement of its developmental objectives (Crosby & Bryson, 2005). Good management helps in the creation of good systems for better utilization of the resources available while providing alternative ways to accrue more benefits from the untapped resources. This ensures that the municipality is able to sustain itself in its needs and that all the demands of its individuals and met in good time and in the most effective and efficient way possible. Through strategic management municipalities are able to achieve an enhanced managerial legitimacy. Eden & Ackermann (1998), argues that the organizations that are able to satisfy the needs of their stakeholders as per the laid down criteria by the stakeholders and are able to create real value at a much more reasonable cost have the right of existence. Therefore, it is the goal of the municipalities through its management to provide timely and value based services and development projects to the public. It is for this achievements that the municipalities’ existence is actualized and recognized. Through the laying down of strategic plans and implementing them appropriately, the municipalities are able to meet their targets despite the changing circumstances. This enables the public to have confidence in the work of the municipality and help where necessary in the achievement of its goals. An enhanced efficiency and effectiveness of a wider societal systems is an achievement realized through strategic planning. It is evident that most of the problems that the public faces nowadays are far from the reach of the municipals capabilities to solve them if they are not addressed properly. The difficulties stretch from those of health, education, employment, environmental and poverty. These are part of the challenges that require to be conceptualized at the highest supra-organizational level and not merely the organizational level. The systems need to work properly if the world would be any better place to live in. the public has to be integrated and recognized in any decision that the municipality has to make. It is through this that strategic planning is a crucial component to help the management to integrate the public for a greater achievement of all the individuals affected by the decisions of the management. The municipality through these systems will be able to work with other municipality far and wide in the learning of the best way to achieve its development objectives. One trait of strategic planning being free thinking and continuous learning, will be best achieved if there is integration of all the individuals of like mindedness to help make and implement the best decisions for prosperity of the municipality. Eventually, strategic planning can accrue direct benefits to the individuals involved. The decision makers and the key policy makers in the municipality can be helped to achieve their responsibilities and roles, expertise and teamwork will be more likely be built through mutual participation process (Kim, 2002). Political, social, human and intellectual capital will increase through this togetherness between the municipality and the people. Further, morale will more likely increase as the municipality accomplishes most of its goals. Therefore, it is a good practice to work together for the benefit of each other which is the number one goal for any strategic planning formulation. Through strategic planning new management inventions and innovations have led to municipalities and other organizations improve their operations and decision making processes. This has been actualized through the imposition of formal rationality on the systems that may not be rational. Anything that was outdated and of the past and that does not cope with the current digital world should be done away with and all the backward thinking by the management be stopped through fresh trainings. It is now evident that deliberation among the involved stakeholders in strategic planning is of paramount importance to the decision makers for development of the laid down projects. It is reflective, thoughtful, appreciative, informed, stakeholder sensitive, careful, mission oriented and at large political in the integrating strategic planning among all the activities of the municipalities. This deliberation involves an important kind of discipline that involves education, training and learning. It may also involve; taking control, imposing order and the imposition of the appropriate sanctions in the implantation of the strategic plan for better achievements. Therefore, the implantation of the strategic plan should follow a certain sequence and be formulated in such a formal manner that will lead it to be flexible and achievable. Strategic planning promotes the taking of action at the right time, wise strategic thought and learning that helps the organization and the stakeholders achieve the best value out of it. It is therefore, a necessary requirement for municipalities to integrate and educate all its staff to know on how to formulate and participate in the formulation and implantation of the development plans of the organization. This will help every party involved to feel to be part of the organization and be able to contribute in the development of the organization. This is enhanced by the feeling of being part of the decision making team because one is given the chance to express their opinion on certain project or undertaking by the municipality. This will also help the organization because the stakeholders will research for the best information that will lead to the implantation of the best development projects. This will ease the work load that the management, decision makers and policy makers for the municipality. It should become a common practice for everyone to always plan in advance for the achievement of their goals. Conclusion It is therefore, a common practice for the municipalities to integrate strategic planning in all their decision making processes. This will ensure that the municipalities are able to meet their development goals and accrue from the benefits of planning by the management through strategic planning. Through this, greater growth, development, appreciation and skills and experience will be the number one achievement for the municipality, the policy makers, decision makers and the public at large. References Bryson, J. M. (1995). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Crosby, B. C., & Bryson, J. M. (2005). Leadership for the common good: Tackling public problems in a shared-power world. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Eden, C., Ackermann, F., & University of Strathclyde. (1998). The role of GDSS in scenario development and strategy making. Glasgow: Department of Management Science, University of Strathclyde. Kim, C. (2002). Sorting out deregulation: Protecting free speech and Internet access in the United States, Germany, and Japan. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub. Levy, J. M. (2003). Contemporary urban planning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Read More