Strategic Planning Services

The vendor required to provide to facilitate the development of a multi-year citywide strategic plan.
- The strategic plan will serve as a roadmap to guide the city's priorities, policy decisions, resource allocations, and performance measures for the next five to seven years.
- Requirement:
1. Project launch and planning
•    Conduct a project kickoff with the city senior leadership to establish roles, responsibilities, timeline, communication expectations, and desired outcomes. 
•    Develop a detailed project plan outlining key phases, milestones, and deliverables.
2. Discovery
•    Review and analyze relevant internal documents and data, including demographic data, service and program data, budget, and city staff structure.
•    Conduct an environmental scan, including peer municipal benchmarking, to identify best practices relevant to the city.
•    Consider community business and resident input obtained through town hall meetings and city senior leadership interactions with staff. 
•    The city does not expect the consultant to conduct additional community-wide engagement beyond reviewing existing engagement reports.
3. Internal engagement and alignment
•    Engage with the city leadership to evaluate current operations, culture, organizational structure, and service delivery.
•    Review current departmental and divisional goals for possible retention under a new strategic direction.
4. Mission, vision, and values development
•    Lead a collaborative and iterative process to develop revised mission, vision, and value statements that will be applicable until at least may 1, 2029, and reflect city senior leadership and community input.
5. Strategic priorities and goals development
•    Facilitate the development of strategic priorities and goals with the city senior leadership that are informed by assessment findings and aligned with the city’s vision and values.
•    Facilitate feedback and revision sessions with the city senior leadership to ensure clarity, alignment, and shared ownership.
•    Items 4a, 5a, and 5b are expected to require in-person sessions spanning 8 to 16 hours in total.
6. Implementation and evaluation
•    Facilitate the development of departmental and divisional goals in support of the city’s strategic priorities and goals.
•    Create an actionable implementation plan specifying responsible parties and performance management structures to ensure compliance, timelines, and resource considerations (i.e., integration with the budget and, as appropriate, the capital improvement plan).
•    Establish measurable outcomes, key performance indicators (KPIs), and tools for tracking progress and evaluating impact (e.g., a dashboard template to report annual and interim results). 
•    The administration is interested in measuring outcomes related to equity and environmental sustainability.
•    Items 6a, 6b, and 6c are expected to require an in-person session of 8 hours. 
•    The city leadership can be required to do preparatory work before or follow-up work after the in-person session. 
7. Final deliverables and communication tools
•    Prepare and submit a final strategic plan, executive summary, slide presentation, and communication materials (e.g., talking points, handouts) for broad dissemination and stakeholder engagement.
•    Ensure that the materials are accessible and user-friendly for internal and external audiences.
8. Plan presentation
•    Support the city’s chief of staff and chief operating officer in presenting the final strategic plan to key audiences, including the city council, city staff, and community stakeholders.
9. Project close and recommendations
•    Conduct a final debrief with the city senior leadership to review deliverables and answer questions.
•    Provide guidance on implementing, evaluating, and updating the plan to ensure long-term success and adaptability.