Strategic Planning Services

The Vendor is required to provide developing a unified Strategic Plan that will serve as a high-level framework guiding policy direction, resource allocation, and operational priorities across its Water, Gas, and Sewer utilities.
- This effort integrates partner and collaborator engagement, performance metrics, and alignment with citywide climate, equity, and financial goals.
- The work will include organizational assessment, interest-group engagement, strategic framework development, retreat design and facilitation, and the creation of an actionable implementation and performance-tracking structure.
- The intent is to produce a durable, measurable, and Board-validated roadmap that aligns with Water, Gas, and Sewer operations under a cohesive long-term direction.
- Project Management and Coordination:
•    Develop a detailed project work plan within 2 weeks of contract execution.
•    Conduct bi-weekly coordination meetings (2 per month).
•    Provide monthly written progress summaries (1 per month).
•    Maintain milestone tracking aligned with the August 2026 retreat.
•    Coordinate all logistics and preparation for workshops and the Board Retreat.
•    Develop and maintain a Strategic Plan Framework document outlining Vision, Goal, Strategies, and Work Plan alignment.
•    Develop an internal and external interest-group outreach plan to align with Strategic Plan development milestones.
- Discovery and Organizational Assessment (Months 1–3)
•    Review key organizational and financial documents.
•    Conduct a suggested 15–25 executive and senior staff interviews (30–60 minutes each).
•    Facilitate 2–3 internal leadership alignment workshops (half-day each).
•    Produce a current state and gap assessment memorandum.
•    Conduct an environmental scan analyzing regulatory, economic, workforce, infrastructure, and climate-related factors affecting all utilities.
•    Assess alignment with existing business plan, resources plan, capital improvement plan (CIP), long range finance plan, and other advance-planning efforts as identified by the selected vendor.
- Implementation and Performance Framework (Post-Retreat; Months 10–12)
•    Incorporate retreat direction into the Final Strategic Plan.
•    Develop a suggested 3-year implementation roadmap (2026–2028).
•    Define accountability structure and reporting cadence.
•    Design dashboard or scorecard templates.
•    Align strategic priorities with capital and financial planning cycles.
•    Prepare final Board adoption materials.
•    Develop a formal Implementation Action Plan identifying the responsible bureau/department, lead staff, start year, and reporting frequency for each strategy.
•    Design a progress reporting template suitable for quarterly or annual Board updates.
•    Provide recommendations for periodic (biennial or triennial) strategic plan review.