Loading...
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Res 037-2017 3/21/2017
Resolution No. _________ Resolution accepting the Strategic Planning Workshop Report and directing the staff to develop recommended approaches to implement the strategies outlined in the report WHEREAS, the City Council hired the Azimuth Group to provide professional services in the development of a Strategic Planning document for the City organization; and, WHEREAS, a consultant for the Azimuth Group conducted several individual interviews with the City Council and Executive Staff, facilitated a one and half-day strategic planning workshop, and prepared a final report with state goals and objectives for the City organization; and, WHEREAS, the City Council wishes to accept this report as the strategic goals and objectives for the City and direct the City staff to develop recommended approaches to implement these strategies. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS, THAT: The City Council hereby accepts the Strategic Planning Workshop Report (as attached) and directs the City staff to develop recommended approaches to implement the strategies outlined in the report. PASSED AND APPROVED this the 21st day of March, 2017. ______________________________ M A Y O R ATTEST: ____________________ City Clerk 37-2017 The Azimuth Group, Inc. 3419 Westminster Suite 215 Dallas, Texas 75205 214.987.3423 office 214.987.0919 fax info@azimuthgrp.com Final Report STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKSHOP REPORT February 8—9, 2017 The City of Wichita Falls SubmiƩed to strategic soluƟons for public leaders © Copyright 2017 The Azimuth Group, Inc. STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKSHOP REPORT City Council and Senior Leadership Team City of Wichita Falls, Texas Prepared by: The Azimuth Group, Inc. 3419 Westminster Suite 251 Dallas, Texas 75205 214.987.3423 info@azimuthgrp.com February 8‐9, 2017 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction & Background ............................................................................................................. 1 Planning Process Overview and Workshop Agenda ........................................................................ 5 Workshop Expectations ................................................................................................................... 7 Environmental Scan / Context Map ................................................................................................ 8 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Analysis ................................................ 10 Cover Story Vision ......................................................................................................................... 12 Mission Statement ........................................................................................................................ 14 Values ............................................................................................................................................ 15 Strategic Goals ............................................................................................................................... 16 Goal Prioritization .......................................................................................................................... 18 Operating Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 20 Strategy Map ................................................................................................................................. 21 Recommendations......................................................................................................................... 23 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 1 Introduction & Background The City of Wichita Falls, a community of approximately 105,000 population is “comfortably nestled in the North‐East corner of the Panhandle/Plains area of North Texas. Wichita Falls is an economically pro‐ gressive city home to commerce and industry with worldwide interests.” Organized under a Council‐Manager form of local government, the Mayor, City Councilors and the professional staff of the city are focused on ensuring that the decisions they make over the course of the next several years ‐ on such matters as growth and development, improvement of city service levels and the fiscal management of the municipal enterprise ‐ are the best possible ones for Wichita Falls’ future success. The city is governed by a City Council comprised of a Mayor elected at‐large, one at‐large City Councilor and five Councilor’s elected from single‐member districts. The City Manager is appointed by and ac‐ countable to the governing body for the efficient and effective delivery of municipal services. The city government itself is a large and complex organization of over 1,200 full‐time equivalent em‐ ployees providing a full range of local government services with a combined funds operating budget of $168 million. For the 2016‐2017 fiscal year, the City Manager and Mayor identified an opportunity for the City Council and the staff leadership team to engage in a deliberate, thoughtful and strategic ap‐ proach to future planning and priority‐setting. To accomplish this goal, the Azimuth Group, Inc. was engaged by the city to plan, facilitate and docu‐ ment the results of an intensive strategic planning workshop. Held at the city’s Multi‐Purpose Events Center over a day and a half in mid‐February, the combined elected and appointed leadership team de‐ voted time, energy and collective thought to chart a fresh course for the future of Wichita Falls. This re‐ port documents the results of that effort. In preparation for the strategic planning workshop, AGI conducted a series of individual interviews with the Mayor, each member of the City Council, the City Manager and the Deputy City Manager. Addition‐ ally, the consultant met with the city’s Department Directors as a group to describe the planning project and to solicit their collective input on the strategic opportunities and challenges facing Wichita Falls to‐ day and in the future. Interview participants addressed the following question: “What does success in the strategic planning workshop look like to you?” As shown in the table on the following page, a general set of common themes and issues emerged from this process. This input was then used by the AGI consultant to devel‐ op the planning workshop agenda and activities. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 2 CITY COUNCIL AND MANAGEMENT STAFF INTERVIEW RESULTS Elected Official Perspectives Management Perspectives With a set of new, younger and highly energetic Mayor and City Council, the time is ripe for taking the time to think and plan for the long‐term needs for Wichita Falls. Population growth has been stagnant for many years and the city needs to grow. While the city’s relatively small size has advantages – traffic con‐ gestion is minimal, for instance – the opportunity to grow and attract new businesses and residents can bring good things without having to become a huge metropolitan center. The workshop is an opportunity for the Counci‐ lors to get to know each other better and to col‐ laborate on setting the future direction for the community. The Council needs to be “on the same page” and wants to be active and aggres‐ sive in “doing something” to move the city for‐ ward while being realistic about the resources that may be required. A relatively small number of important priorities are almost universally shared among the elected officials interviewed. These include: o Economic Development to generate the jobs and the sales and tax revenue necessary to support municipal services. Downtown rede‐ velopment is a critical component, but not the only component, of the city’s development needs. There are needs on the east side of town and other areas of the city as well. The city needs a well‐articulated economic devel‐ opment strategy and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Securing the convention hotel is a critical part of the overall economic de‐ velopment approach. o Municipal Infrastructure needs improvement. This is most evident in the condition of the streets, but other pressing needs exist includ‐ ing rehabilitation of the underground water / wastewater facilities, the upgrade, repair or replacement of City Hall, the improvement of Lake Wichita and the completion of the Circle The staff is eager to have a unified sense of vision and direction from the City Council. The planning process can help in the clarification of the roles and responsibilities of the City Coun‐ cil and staff, with a focus on the Council’s policy role and the staff’s role as professional advisors and implementers of the policies established by the City Council. Staff’s involvement in the planning workshop is an opportunity to build mutual trust and team‐ work. The staff is concerned that any strategic vision that the Council may provide is realistic and achievable. While ready and willing to implement the Council’s direction, they need to have the opportunity to lay out the budgetary and opera‐ tional requirements for the achievement of Council goals and do not want to be perceived as attempting to block the Council when doing so. The city can do a better job of getting its message out to the citizens. Lots of good things are hap‐ pening that may not be communicated as well as they could be. An important outcome of the strategic planning effort could be an even stronger sense of com‐ munity pride. The key priorities for the community’s future, as seen by the staff, align closely to those expressed by the members of the City Council: o Economic development / downtown revitali‐ zation o Infrastructure maintenance o Protection of SAFB’s long term viability o Creating a place that is attractive to younger generations o Delivery of high‐quality public services. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 3 Elected Official Perspectives Management Perspectives Trail are also mentioned frequently. The new airport terminal is seen as a real “jewel” and an asset to be leveraged for growth. Some see water bills as too high. o Sheppard Air Force Base is crucial to the fu‐ ture of the area. The city should be doing eve‐ rything within its authority and power to en‐ sure the long‐term viability of the base. o Meeting the Needs of Millennials has to be considered. There is a sense of frustration that younger people are not easily attracted to Wichita Falls and those that are here are hard to retain. Working to strengthen the re‐ lationship with Midwestern State University, Vernon College and the public school districts is important. Some see downtown revitaliza‐ tion as an important aspect of any effort to attract and retain young people. o Efficient and Effective Municipal Services. Councilors report that they have high levels of trust and confidence in the city’s manage‐ ment team and staff. They recognize that the organization is lean in terms of staffing levels and funding and respect the staff’s ability to manage service levels with constrained re‐ sources. There is a concern about keeping the pay for police and fire competitive and a con‐ cern that Wichita Falls risks losing officers and firefighters to other cities. Customer service needs to be a priority, especially in the plan‐ ning, building, permitting and inspections ar‐ ea. Other areas mentioned as important to individual council members, but representing less of an overall consensus include: o Addressing the Clay County wind farm (SAFB issue) o Management structure / plan for the water park o Improved presence in Austin o Clarity of council / staff roles and responsibili‐ ties When asked what concerns, if any, they have the potential outcomes of the planning workshop, the staff cites the following: o The adoption of an unrealistic / unachievable vision given the resource constraints within which the city has historically operated. o The risk of “over promising and under deliver‐ ing” from the perspective of the citizens. o The possible lack of realism about the timeframes within which the future vision can be obtained. The management team is appreciative of the op‐ portunity to be involved in this important pro‐ cess. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 4 Elected Official Perspectives Management Perspectives o City prescription coverage benefit should be available to locally‐owned pharmacies o More diverse events at the MPEC. o Improvement of aesthetics across the city and, particularly, at the entrances to the community o Need for a branch library o Improved commercial air service o Historic preservation o Affordable housing options o Maximization of grant funds. The members of the City Council are supportive of having the senior staff and directors present for the planning workshop and value their input and expertise. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 5 Planning Process Overview and Workshop Agenda Effective strategic planning involves the gathering, sorting and prioritizing of the best thinking of the City of Wichita Falls’ policy leaders and senior managers, focused on the core purposes of the organization and the most important attributes of strategic success. The City of Wichita Falls’ strategic planning workshop, resulted in the development and agreement on a framework to guide the decision of both elected leaders and managers over the next three to five years and beyond. The elements of that framework include: Updated statements of vision, mission and values. An examination of the current operational environment and the identification of important exter‐ nal forces and trends that influence and impact the City of Wichita Falls’ ability to meet citizen ex‐ pectations. Assessment of the municipal organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Development and prioritization of seven key strategic goals around which critical policy decisions can be evaluated and important organizational and operational activities can be managed. Identification of a preliminary set of 25 individual operational objectives, spread across the seven goals, that represent a “to do” list of initiatives, activities and programs to undertake over the next several years. Note that the objectives were developed by the project consultant based on the in‐ formation gathered during the strategic planning workshop and should be carefully reviewed and revised as appropriate by the governing body with the input of the City Manager. Throughout the workshop, both the Council and staff members worked together at the strategic, rather than the operational, level of municipal government. The main goal of the strategic planning workshop was to identify the What rather than the How of future municipal services, organization and operations. Accordingly, the workshop design afforded the Council an opportunity to provide strategic policy guid‐ ance to the staff in terms of the desired outcomes / results, while ensuring that the city staff will have the subsequent opportunity to develop operational plans, timelines and budgets to achieve the Coun‐ cil’s stated priorities. Strategic planning is a product of strategic thinking, which should occur not only at periodic planning sessions such as the one just completed but on a continuous basis. It involves the gathering, sorting and prioritizing of the best thinking of Wichita Falls’ policy leaders and managers to effectively address the issues that challenge you today and, more importantly, those that will challenge you tomorrow. The strategic planning workshop, therefore, was designed as an exercise in collective foresight. Participants sought to clarify what success looks like for Wichita Falls in light of the conditions you face today, expect in the future and where you want to lead the organization and the community. With this in mind, the workshop activities were designed to create an atmosphere that enabled an open discussion of the city’s current strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and to then forge consensus around the highest order priorities for the city to address over the next 5 or more years. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 6 These priorities, in turn, establish the foundation for defining more specific action steps, resource plans (budgets) and performance measures for the city staff to provide to the governing body. The results of the planning workshop should also serve as a unifying frame of reference to guide daily policy and oper‐ ating decisions, organizational structures and governance. The agenda for the Wichita Falls 2017 Strategic Planning Workshop is shown below: WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8, 2017 Time Activity Participants 7:30 – 8:30 Participants Arrive / Breakfast All 8:30 – 8:35 Welcome/Introductions Mayor/City Manager 8:35 – 8:45 Session Overview / Group Expectations Facilitator / All 8:45 – 9:00 Ice Breaker Activity Facilitator / All 9:00 – 10:30 Context Map All (What are the significant social, community, economic and organizational forces that may impact our ability to achieve success?) 10:30 – 10:45 Break 10:45 – 12:00 SWOT Analysis All (What are our Strengths/Weaknesses, Opportunities/Threats?) 12:00 – 12:45 Lunch 12:45 – 2:15 Community Vision All (What do we aspire for our future to become?) 2:15 – 3:15 Organizational Mission and Values All 3:15 – 3:30 Break 3:30 – 4:50 Brainstorm Strategic Goals & Objectives All 4:50 – 5:00 Day 1 Re‐Cap / Next Day Overview Facilitator 5:00 Day 1 Adjourn Mayor THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9, 2017 Time Activity Participants 7:30 – 8:30 Participants Arrive / Breakfast All 8:30 – 8:45 Day 1 Reflection Mayor/All 8:45 – 10:00 Goal Prioritization Facilitator / All (Anonymous keypad voting) 10:00 – 10:30 Interpretation of Priority Voting Facilitator / All 10:30 – 10:45 Break 10:45 – 11:30 Evidence of Success All (How will we know that we are making progress?) 11:30 12:00 Group Reflection / Feedback All 12:00 Workshop Adjourn Mayor City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 7 Workshop Expectations After an initial ice‐breaking / team building exercise, the workshop facilitator engaged the participants in a conversation about their expectations for the workshop. The following list of desired outcomes of the planning process resulted from the participant input: Wichita Falls becomes a city where people want to come Develop a long‐term plan and the means to execute it Address both our “aims” and our “interests” Develop a plan that will help the city better connect to young individuals Strengthen the relationship between the City Council and the city staff Conduct the workshop with complete transparency A plan to build partnerships with both businesses and residents Identify what is already working well Provide a clear sense of our future direction Define a plan to encourage development and exploration of partnerships City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 8 Environmental Scan / Context Map Strategic planning cannot occur in a vacuum. Rather, it must be based on a clear understanding of the environment within which the strategy will be carried out. The Mayor, City Councilors, the City Manager and top members of the professional staff participated in a structured exercise to describe the current conditions impacting the City of Wichita Falls’ ability to effectively understand, plan and deliver services in the public interest. This exercise focused the thinking of participants on the following: Community and organizational trends. Political factors. Economic climate. Citizen needs. Technology factors. Uncertainties. In addition to documenting these important factors and trends, workshop participants engaged in a productive dialog about the significance of these trends and factors for the Wichita Falls community and their impact on city government’s ability to deliver the services and programs the public desires at an affordable cost. The result of this environmental scan, in the form of a graphic context map, is shown on the following page. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 9 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 10 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Analysis Whereas the context mapping exercise was primarily focused on external conditions, for the SWOT analysis workshop participants were asked to critically and constructively consider attributes of the City of Wichita Falls organization itself. Strengths are those assets and capabilities currently available within the organization and that can be leveraged to achieve desired results. Weaknesses are those problem areas or aspects of the government organization (and, in some cases, the community at large) that are currently standing in the way of strategic success and must be overcome to achieve optimal results. Threats are current or potential future external events that, if unmitigated, have the potential to seriously impair the organization’s ability to realize its potential. These may be political, eco‐ nomic, societal, natural or man‐made in nature. Opportunities are future‐focused and are conditions that can, if properly understood, be cap‐ tured to obtain strategic advantage through capitalizing on strengths, overcoming weaknesses and mitigating threats. The SWOT matrix on the following page display the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats identified by the Wichita Falls leadership team. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 11 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 12 Cover Story Vision An organization’s Vision is aspirational in nature. It defines what the organization wants to be or to achieve. It is an idealized description of the desired future state of the community. Wichita Falls workshop participants completed a visioning activity to help create a shared vision for the future. Using the metaphor of a magazine cover story on the city’s success published in a future edition of a major news magazine in the year 2025, Council and staff members individually chose photographs that illustrated their personal vision for Wichita Falls. Then, working in small groups, they “wrote” the notional future magazine story describing their shared vision in terms of the title on the magazine cover, the headlines of the major articles and the subject matter of sidebar stories and quotes illustrating the group’s collective hopes for the future. The resulting magazine cover, headlines and quotes imagined by the workshop participants are shown on the following page. Based on the visioning discussion, the AGI workshop facilitator used the city’s current vision statement to craft a slightly modified version for consideration: WICHITA FALLS VISION “Wichita Falls is a vibrant, growing, family‐oriented community of unlimited opportunity and civic pride.” City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 13 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 14 Mission Statement A Mission Statement describes the organization’s purpose. It defines the “business” of the organization and its relationship to its customers. The workshop facilitator led the participants through a review of 10 sample mission statements from other municipal governments, along with the City of Wichita Falls’ cur‐ rent mission statement, and identified the key concepts most relevant to the current needs of the or‐ ganization. The workshop facilitator then drafted – and subsequently refined – an updated mission statement, as follows. MISSION STATEMENT “Enhance our quality of life through responsive service delivery, sound financial management, and partnerships spanning the public, private and business sectors.” City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 15 Values Organizational Values are the fundamental principles that guide how members of the organization con‐ duct themselves while carrying out their mission in pursuit of the overall vision. Together, the values provide an ethical framework for decision‐making and action. Using a set of value statements provided by the workshop facilitator, the workshop participants listed those most important to them individually and then prioritized the top five as follows: WICHITA FALLS VALUES Excellence Integrity Accountability Transparency Innovation City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 16 Strategic Goals After systematically scanning the external environment, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, identifying opportunities and threats and confirming the City of Wichita Falls’ overall vision, mission and values, workshop participants next turned their attention to the specific areas of policy leadership and management focus that they believe to be likely to have the greatest positive impact on the long‐term success of the community and the organization. To identify these areas of strategic focus, the workshop facilitator applied a technique known as “future pull.” The workshop leader challenged the participants to mentally go forward in time to imagine great success. Participants were then asked to visualize a situation where the city had achieved its vision through successful accomplishment of its mission while operating within its value framework. Then they were asked: “Looking back from a position of great success, what, specifically, did the city do to achieve that success.” Each participant listed the action steps that, if taken today, would lead the city to that future position. They thought about how to leverage the identified strengths to overcome weaknesses and how to miti‐ gate threats to create opportunities. Many individual ideas were generated and captured on “sticky notes” with each participant describing their individual objectives. Then, working together with the workshop participants, the workshop facilitator grouped the ideas together on a graphical chart to re‐ veal common key strategic areas of focus. From this collaborative brainstorming exercise, as illustrated in the graphic on the following page, a total of seven strategic goals emerged as the most important for the City of Wichita Falls’ future, as follows: STRATEGIC GOALS Redevelop downtown Accelerate economic growth Provide adequate infrastructure Actively communicate and engage the public Attract and retain young voters and graduates Efficiently deliver city services Enhance the Wichita Falls brand City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 17 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 18 Goal Prioritization After identifying and agreeing on the seven strategic goals, the participants engaged in a process of anonymous electronic ranking and evaluating them using anonymous voting technology. Each of the goals were evaluated on two separate dimensions: Strategic Importance and Current Performance. The first evaluation, Strategic Importance, used a paired comparison / forced choice ranking method to establish a hierarchy of strategic priorities. Recognizing that the city organization needs to accomplish all seven of its strategic goals to achieve the desired future state, this process helped to determine the rela‐ tive importance of each. The Performance dimension al‐ lowed the participants to score how well they feel the city organi‐ zation is currently performing or succeeding on each of the strategic goals on a 1 to 9 scale, with 9 being “practically perfect” and 1 being “not at all.” Having evaluated each strategic goal on both Importance and Per‐ formance, it was then possible to plot a profile of the results on a 2x2 matrix, as shown at right. Defini‐ tions of the four quadrants of the strategy profile are as follows: "Givens" are high value/high‐performance items. They constitute the city government’s primary strategic priorities. "Foundational Strategies" are vital support functions. They are necessary to the system and should be performed at least to an acceptable level. "Immediate Opportunities" indicate key areas for innovation that can have major and early im‐ pact on success. They show where not only "doing things differently" but doing different things are imperative. Implementation timelines are one year or less. "Mid to Long‐term Opportunities" represent key success factors that would likely be brought on line following the execution of the Immediate Opportunities. These innovations are usually 1‐2 years or more out. Based on the electronic ranking, the following priority assignments of each of the six strategic goals can be made: City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 19 Immediate Opportunity – Plan and Invest Now o Redevelop downtown o Accelerate economic growth Givens – Primary Focus Areas o Provide adequate infrastructure Foundational – Must Haves o Actively communicate and engage the public o Efficiently deliver city services o Enhance the Wichita Falls brand Mid to Long Term Opportunity – Research and Plan o Attract and retain young workers and graduates As illustrated in the prioritization profile below, the three top priorities of the Council as determined by the overall importance ranking on the vertical axis are: 1. Redevelop develop downtown 2. Accelerate economic development 3. Provide adequate infrastructure Similarly, the three areas most in need of performance improvement are: 1. Redevelop develop downtown 2. Accelerate economic development 3. Attract and retain young workers and graduates City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 20 Operating Objectives Whereas strategic goals reflect the major policy priorities of the City Council, operating objectives constitute the specific projects, programs or actions needed to achieve each goal. After the workshop, the planning process facilitator prepared a set of objectives for each of goals generated by both City Councilors and city staff members through the various workshop activities and the brainstorming process previously described. The facilitator worked to capture the intent of the workshop participants as revealed through the development and discussion of the strategic goals and, in several instances, combined, consolidated and re‐phrased some of the suggested action steps to create a workable set of strategic objectives for the city’s implementation over the mid to long‐term. The facilitator’s analysis of the brainstorming results produced a set of 24 individual strategic objectives organized by the seven strategic goals, as follows: Redevelop downtown o Create a comprehensive downtown master plan o Establish and leverage public‐private partnerships o Promote downtown as a destination o Develop and open a convention center hotel o Upgrade the MPEC facilities Accelerate economic growth o Collaborate on an economic development strategy o Support neighborhood revitalization o Attract targeted industries and jobs o Advocate for long‐term success of SAFB o Support local educational institutions Provide adequate infrastructure o Plan for future infrastructure bond elections o Complete signature public improvements o Replace City Hall Actively communicate and engage the public o Equip City Councilors as community ambassadors o Enhance public outreach and engagement o Establish coordinated messaging Attract and retain young voters and graduates o Collaboratively develop a strategy for retention of graduates o Expand city internship opportunities Efficiently deliver city services o Identify and evaluate privatization and restructuring opportunities o Maintain market competitive compensation levels o Practice effective governance City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 21 Enhance the Wichita Falls brand o Continue support for the Choose Wichita Falls program o Build on the current logo and brand identity o Aggressively market the city Strategy Map A strategy map is simply a graphical depiction of the organization’s overall strategy regarding its vision, mission, values, strategic goals and key operating objectives. It serves as a quick reference guide to the plan and is a useful tool for organizing and aligning departmental business plans, objectives and re‐ sources in support of the overall strategy. A strategy map summarizing the City of Wichita Falls’ strategy is shown on the following page. It is important to note that the operating objectives shown on the strategy map and listed above do not necessarily duplicate the action steps depicted on the strategic goal brainstorming graphic displayed on page 17 nor the verbatim content of the Context Map, SWOT Matrix and Cover Story Vision graphic. Instead, the strategic goals and operating objectives are derived from the synthesis of all of the input and dialog by Councilors and staff members throughout the planning workshop. They represent the planning facilitator’s best effort to capture the consensus strategic intent of the combined elected and appointed leadership team and to place them within a framework that will be useful for the future implementation and management of the strategic plan. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 22 City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 23 Recommendations The City Council’s planning workshop was an important milestone in the City of Wichita Falls’ renewed focus on long‐term strategic thinking, planning and management. While the city has a long‐established practice of annual Council workshops focused on immediate needs and priorities, this year’s effort al‐ lowed both policy makers and administrators to take a longer view and to think creatively about the possibilities for the community that go well beyond the year‐to‐year tactical decision making. The signif‐ icance of the commitment of time and resources to this effort is commendable, the results are encour‐ aging and have established a foundation for future improvement. RECOMMENDATION Review, discuss and refine the strategic plan presented in this report as necessary and appropriate. The Council and staff should work together to review and confirm all elements of the strategic plan pre‐ sented in this report, including the statements of vision and mission, the organizational values, the stra‐ tegic goals and objectives and the prioritization of those goals. The Council and staff should pay particu‐ lar attention to the strategic objectives listed for each of the seven major goals to verify that they accu‐ rately reflect the intent of the governing body. The City Manager and his immediate team should also be closely involved and consulted in this review process. RECOMMENDATION Commit to a regular, annual process of strategic plan‐ ning linked to the budget process. Going forward, the Mayor, Council and staff should develop a disciplined practice of collaborative stra‐ tegic planning. An annual planning retreat – similar to those conducted in the past in Wichita Falls ‐ should be used to evaluate progress made on projects and objectives established for the year, to review current and projected financial conditions and to consider needed updates to the strategic goals, objectives and priorities. The results of the annual strategic planning retreat and any guidance provided by the City Council should become the foundation for the staff’s development of the annual budget and supporting de‐ partmental operating plans, performance measures and targets. City of Wichita Falls, Texas Strategic Planning Workshop Final Report Page 24 RECOMMENDATION Develop and implement a strategy deployment and execution plan. The City Manager, in the role of the city’s chief executive officer, should have the primary responsibility for strategy execution. For the City Manager to do so, the City Council, acting in its role of a corporate Board of Directors, must first take responsibility for strategy formulation. Just as policy is the province of the Council and administration the province of the staff, so it is with strategy. The Council sets strate‐ gic priorities, defines how their accomplishment will be measured, and then holds management ac‐ countable for the effective execution. RECOMMENDATION Identify and adopt reporting tools and processes to track and report results, identify further improvement opportunities, and docu‐ ment results. Once the Council adopts the city’s strategy, that strategy becomes the documented policy of the govern‐ ing body and the City Manager is accountable for its execution. The Council should focus more on the desired outcomes / results they expect the city government to achieve and less on the detailed means / tactics by which those results are obtained, subject to limitations and guidelines established by the Council and law. By ensuring that strategic goal attainment and operating results are measured and reported by man‐ agement to the Council and the general public, an improved focus on accountability for results is creat‐ ed and can foster a climate of confidence and trust between elected officials and appointed staff. 214.987.3423 office 214.987.0919 fax www.azimuthgrp.com 6611 Hillcrest, Suite 441 Dallas, Texas 75205