THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS, PART 1

THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS, PART 1

BY FRANK L. FIRE

As stated in the introductory article to this series (“Strategic Planning for Fire Departments: An Introduction,” October 1996, page 71), strategic planning is not a tool reserved solely for business and industry. It has evolved over the years, with many refinements, to a point where all organizations–formal and informal, business- and nonbusiness-related, large and small–may use it to increase their chances of success in whatever activities they choose to pursue. This, of course, includes large and small fire departments of all kinds, divisions and departments within fire departments, and other enterprises within or serving the fire service.

Even after reading the introduction to strategic planning, you may still find it difficult to believe that formal strategic planning can really help your department or organization, but we are making some progress–at least you are still with me! Hang in there a little longer, and I guarantee that you will learn some techniques and approaches that will help you. Invest a few minutes of your time to read the following process involving strategic planning, and I`m sure you will see the benefits.

THE PROCESS

The process is simply one of self-examination, which at times can be very painful but always enlightening and very rewarding. The strategic planning sessions should be led by a facilitator, a person who should remain impartial during discussions and whose main job it is to see that everyone has an equal chance to participate. He must follow the outline of questions and capture the answers on paper that is kept on display so that the planning team can constantly refer to it. He must keep the discussion flowing and on track. He can allow some leeway in the discussion, but he must always bring it back to the topic at hand. Above all, the facilitator must constantly remind everyone not to take anything personally and not to attack anyone during the discussion (or later, for that matter).

As already stated, the organization must provide its own answers to a series of questions if it hopes to be able to plan properly. The answers must be given openly and honestly and in the spirit of helping the entire organization. The facilitator collects the answers, which are used to develop Key Result Objectives, Action Plans, and other action points that team members must carry out during the coming year. The final objective of the strategic planning process is to produce a strategic plan for the length of the planning period (three to five years), with specific goals, objectives, and action plans to be carried out in the very next year.

PART 1: Where are we now?

Let`s go through the questions in Part I of the planning process and some answers a “typical” fire department might give.

Where are we now? appears to be a simple question, but it will take some serious digging to get the full answer. The planning team might answer that the department is a 115-year-old paid fire department in a city that has stopped growing in population and area and has an aging inner city and many empty industrial buildings. Statements can be made about authorized strength and equipment and about anything else pertinent to the department at that time. In other words, a short description of the department will answer the question.

A. What business are we really in?

The answer to this question will describe what the department thinks it does. Many departments think they are in the business of extinguishing fires but are really in the business of educating the public on how to prevent fires. They may also be in the business of protecting and saving lives, the environment, public and private systems, and property. A simple one- or two-sentence answer will suffice.

B. What is our vision statement?

Some departments don`t realize that they need a vision statement. However, most departments will have little trouble answering this question. It should be a statement that describes what the department really wants to be in the future.

C. What are our products or services?

Here, the correct answer should include every separate service the department offers. The operative word here is every. The team must go through every activity it has, whether or not it has a direct impact on the public, and enumerate them. If any activity must be explained in detail, those details must become part of the answer. Don`t forget to include the services you provide under contract, such as mutual aid.

A fire department may have products as well as services. It may distribute (free or otherwise) smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide detectors, or other safety devices; literature; training; and education.

D. What are our markets?

A fire department should think of its market as the geographical area it serves–the people, organizations, and systems within that area.

D-1. Who are our customers?

It doesn`t hurt to think of the people, organizations, systems, and places you protect as customers, because that`s what they really are. They expect services (and perhaps products) from you, and they pay you for them, directly or through taxes. The relationship with your customers may not be exactly like that between a retail store and its customers, but perhaps your service level will improve if you make such a comparison. Always place yourself in the shoes of the customer. How would you want to be treated in the exact same situations to which you are responding? It will quickly become obvious that the people and organizations you protect are your customers.

You should be able to identify all the customers in your protection area. They are not only the people who live in individual homes but also the people who pass through or stop in your protection area, schools and their students, hospitals and their patients, hotels and their guests, commercial businesses and their customers, nursing homes and their inhabitants, industry and its employees, and so on. The systems, public and private, such as roads and highways, water, telephone, and electric and gas utilities are also your customers. Also, don`t forget any mutual-aid agreements you may have with other governmental entities. The fire departments and communities with which you have these agreements are also your customers.

D-2. How have they grown or shrunk over the years?

Has the population, number of businesses, and/or geographic area you serve grown or shrunk in the past five years, and by how much?

D-3. How has our business with them grown or shrunk?

How has this affected your department? Are you making more runs now than you did in the past, and what kinds of runs are they? Must you provide more or less service now than you did in the past? Are there any new services you must provide now that you didn`t before (emergency medical services, hazardous materials response team, high-rise rescue, and so on)? Try to think of every way you interact with your customers.

D-4. How do they describe us?

What do your customers think of you? Do they think you are well-trained? Properly equipped? Professional (even if you are a volunteer department)? This is one of the most important questions in the entire planning process. You must be very honest with yourselves in finding out how your customers view you. The answers may be very enlightening and may very well provide the path you must take to improve yourselves and your department, not to mention how you serve and satisfy your customers.

D-5. What customers have we lost in the past five years?

What individuals, families, and businesses have moved out of your protection area? Are their homes and places of business empty or occupied? Do these empty structures represent fire or other types of hazards?

E. What are the trends of our business?

Will any changes be required in the future? How will the mix of runs we have change in the near future and over the intermediate and long terms? What new services will our customers expect of us? What new services should we consider providing? What is happening in society in general, and to our protection area in particular, for which we must prepare?

E-1. Current?

Are we already behind the changes that are occurring? If we provide emergency medical services, are we currently properly trained, educated, and equipped? How about hazardous materials, high-rise rescue, dive teams, and so on? Are we complying with all the new standards and regulations that are coming into existence?

E-2. Future?

Are we prepared for the inevitable aging of our population? Are young people moving in? Will we be prepared for new housing developments, new retail shopping centers and malls, new industries, and so on? What trends are occurring that will affect us in the future? In what new training and education areas should we become involved?

F. What is our current position in each of our markets?

Keeping in mind the trends discussed in the last section, where is our department situated? Are we leading the trends, following them, or ignoring them? Are we considered a progressive department because of our views on fire prevention, training, education? Are we properly trained, educated, and equipped to handle all the problems modern society can (and will) throw at us? How are we handling public education? Are we the best around to provide “nontypical” services, such as emergency medical services? Are our inspectors “up” on the latest building materials, construction methods, codes, and regulations? Are our fire investigators experts in determining cause and origin of all suspicious fires?

Go through each of your functions one by one, and determine how you rank in each job function, relative to each market you serve (residential, commercial, and industrial buildings; life rescue; EMS; hazardous-materials response; school safety; hospital safety; and so on). Match each job you do to each segment of your protection district (your market).

G. What is our historical performance in each of our markets?

How good was our past record in each function of our job? Construct charts for the past 10 years to show how many fires occurred in each category of your record keeping (almost all fire departments have this historical data already compiled). How many deaths due to fire in your city? How many injuries due to fire? What is the financial loss? How many deaths and injuries (on the job) in the department over those years? How are your neighborhoods rated by the fire insurance companies? Prepare charts and graphs in every possible category. After comparison and discussion, determine whether the historical data paint a good, bad, or indifferent picture of the department. Is this what you want for the people you protect 10 years from now as well? Be honest; criticize; and, above all, determine if you are satisfied with the overall performance of the department over the past 10 years.

H. What are our historical financial data for the past five (or longer) years?

Has there been enough money to run the department efficiently and effectively? Be honest with yourselves. I know there are always more wants than there are dollars. Have you really been able to operate in the manner you feel you should with the budget that has been available? Are you selling your internal customers (legislators, mayor, safety/service director, others who have influence over the money you receive or should receive)?

H-1. Are the financial trends favorable?

Does it look like money will be available in the future to accomplish all the goals you are establishing in this plan? Are bond levies and tax issues expected to pass in the future? Is the tax base of your city (county, township, village) increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same? Are you getting better or worse in convincing the powers that be to provide you with the wherewithal to accomplish your goals and objectives? Refer to E, F, and G above to see what has been happening historically.

H-2. How do the financial ratios compare with the industry averages?

In this case, you need to have the size, activity, and budgets of fire departments equal in size to yours, from nearby areas and as many different parts of the country as possible. This information may be difficult to obtain at first, but as your department and other departments from around the country begin to exchange financial information, it will become easier and easier each year. It is time fire departments quit being so secretive and parochial and start to help each other by sharing such information.

H-3. How do the financial ratios compare with our three most important competitors?

In this situation, “competitors” does not mean other fire departments but other competitors for the available money, such as the police department, the department of public works, the parks department, the water and sewer department, and so on. How are you pictured as a user of taxpayer money when compared with others? Does the public see you as being frugal and efficient? How do the powers that be (city council, county council, other legislators) see you? How do you see yourselves regarding the use of public funds? This is a tough series of questions but absolutely vital if you are to get the funding necessary to carry out your goals. Too many fire departments will ignore this section and then wonder why “everyone else seems to get the money and we get left out.”

I. What are our internal capabilities and limitations?

This section will probably be the “touchiest” for everyone on the Planning Team, principally because of questions number 3 and 9. Everyone must remember that they must never appear to be attacking anyone, and everyone on the team must accept the fact that weaknesses and problems exist in every organization, even yours.

I-1. What are our key result areas?

In what areas do you want to make the most progress during the planning period? These areas should coincide with what your customers want most from you. Is it more rapid response time to fires? Is it improved EMS? Is it more modern communications capabilities? Whatever it is, your department must adopt these as areas at which to target specific action and set up Key Result Objectives (KRO) with success measures that are real.

KRO are those objectives that must be accomplished if the plan is to be a success. They are tactical plans that must be made and successfully completed by each member of the Planning Team. Obviously, each member will have a different set of KRO for their area of responsibility. These KRO will become Action Plans to be accomplished during the upcoming year. Each Key Result Objective must have attached Success Measures, which actually quantify the results required for each objective. For example, if a Key Result Objective for a Planning Team member is to increase training for certain groups within the department, the goal must be stated as a specified number of hours or as taking a specified number of firefighters to a designated higher level of training.

Each Key Result Objective for each Planning Team member must be reviewed during the year to determine progress or lack of progress. If problems are uncovered during the year on a timely basis, the problems can be solved and the objectives achieved.

I-2. What are our strengths?

This might appear to be the easiest of all the questions, since every Planning Team member seemingly gets the opportunity to brag about his particular department or area of responsibility. Get ready for a surprise (probably very unpleasant). You will quickly discover that many of your colleagues may not always agree with your list of strengths and may even have on their list of weaknesses items that you have listed as strengths.

Remember that this question is intended to provide a list of major strengths on which your department can capitalize, really taking advantage of those things that the department does really well. Make sure that what you suggest is truly recognized as a strength by your customers, the public. The test to determine if it is really a strength could be the answer to the question “Does this set us apart from ordinary fire departments–that is, in comparison with our peers in the surrounding area, do we do this as well as or better than these other outstanding fire departments?”

I-3. What are our weaknesses?

This is the most difficult of all questions. It is absolutely one of the most important questions (if not the most important question) in the entire exercise of planning, and it can cause the most problems among the members of the Planning Team. It has been said many times, but it bears repeating: All members must set aside personal feelings during planning and not consider it a personal attack when someone mentions as a weakness an item they (probably with ownership of the function in question) think is a strength. Nothing causes animosity more than the feeling that someone is after you and will get at you through your job.

Weaknesses must be listed as they are mentioned by team members. Discussion on individual items (proposed weaknesses) should be postponed until the team feels the list is relatively complete. Since the final list will be reduced to the top five or six or so weaknesses that are to be corrected during the next year, many, many weaknesses will not make the final list.

Weaknesses are listed so that the department knows the exact areas and functions it must work on for the next year and for the life of the plan. Weaknesses are what must be corrected if there is to be any success and the goals or objectives are to be achieved. It is absolutely amazing how much progress is made toward completion of all goals as weaknesses are eliminated. Weaknesses may be thought of as roadblocks on the road to success. As these roadblocks are eliminated, the road to successful completion of the plan becomes smoother, more understandable, and easier to navigate.

The way to identify weaknesses is to concentrate on many areas, including, but not limited to, the following:

those things that are sources of complaints from within the department as well as from outside;

areas that always seem to hold the department back from achieving something desirable;

lack of certain resources that are important (even critical), such as personnel, money, time, training, and equipment;

personnel;

policies (departmental or otherwise) that stifle innovation and progress;

the organization;

testing and promotion procedures;

work schedules;

image (both public and within your governing organization); and

the function of certain departments and services.

Try to identify everything that prevents your fire department from becoming truly great. Just remember, the list must be eventually pared down to those few weaknesses that absolutely must be eliminated so that the overall strategic plan can be accomplished.

I-4. What are our service positions?

Are we the best at what we do for our customers? Can any of these services be provided better by other organizations, public or private? Are there other services we should be providing because we can provide them best? Are other fire departments around the country providing some service that we don`t provide? Do our customers deserve some service we are not providing now? Should we drop any services we are now performing? How does the public view our services, and how do they value them? How do our superiors (city council, and so on) view our services, and how do they value them? How is our overall image?

I-5. What are our potentials for growth and new technologies?

Are we in a position to grow? Are resources available for us to grow? Is growth in our department needed by the community we serve? Is our community growing, or will it begin to grow during the life of the plan? Should we grow in any particular way? Is growth required before we can reach all our goals? Are there new technologies available to help us serve our community better? Do we have the capability (resources) for taking advantage of any new technologies that exist? Do we have the capability of developing new technologies? Can we “partner” with other fire departments or organizations to take advantage of new technologies?

I-6. What is our current strategic game plan?

Do we currently have a strategic plan? Is our current planning process adequate? Is our current strategic plan as complete as this one being proposed? How successful has our strategic plan been in the past? Will our current strategic plan accomplish everything we want?

I-7. What is our organization?

Describe the current organization. Do we have a “traditional” organization? Is the current organization adequate for our current operation? What changes should be made to become more efficient and effective? What changes should be made to accomplish what our customers want us to do? What changes should be made if we adopt formal strategic planning? Are changes difficult to make within our organization? What are the barriers to change in our organization?

I-8. What is our management style?

This is another blockbuster question. “Management” in some fire departments means the chief of department and other chief officers; in other departments, it includes all officers; in still others, it may include everyone except firefighters. If the style of management is not perceived to be “good,” there will be a problem in verbalizing feelings. In this case, the chief will have to put his personal feelings aside and listen to the answers as they are listed. Correcting or amending a perceived “bad” management style will be one of the most difficult goals to accomplish in the next year or in the life of the plan (or in the remaining tenure of the chief).

After all, management style begins at the top, and all management below the rank of chief of department will usually reflect the style of that chief. And if the chief happens to believe that his style of management is right for his department, then he probably will not take the different descriptions well at all.

However, the immediate goal of the plan may not be to change the management style of the department. The job here is to describe that style. Once everyone agrees that the style has been properly identified, everyone should know how to operate under that style.

I-9. What are our major problems?

It is not difficult to get a ton of responses on this question. However, be aware that major weaknesses have already been identified above and that they should not appear on this list. If a weakness keeps popping up in different forms in this question, maybe it should be added to the list of major weaknesses already compiled.

A major problem might be that the public has an incorrect perception of the department and its capabilities. Are other competitors (as defined above) jealous of your department? Is there a communications problem with the public, elected officials, or anyone else? Are any groups within the department working at cross-purposes with other groups? Is there anything else that is “bothering” the department or any of its personnel? Is scheduling a problem?

I-10. What are our major opportunities?

This question should produce many responses but usually doesn`t. For some reason, members of the Planning Team feel that either it isn`t their responsibility to define major opportunities or that the ones they do describe may not jibe with the chief`s plans. Remember that the purpose of formal strategic planning is to develop the overall plan for the direction of the organization over the life of the plan. The purpose is not to adopt the “chief`s plan.” If the chief feels that only what he thinks should go into the plan, either he will be the only one contributing during the planning sessions or he will not allow formal strategic planning to occur at all. The decision to do formal strategic planning is a sign that the chief is progressive, interested in the ideas of everyone within the organization, and secure in his job!

I-11. What are our major strategic issues?

This is more or less a summary of the process to this date. What are the major objectives that must be accomplished during the next year and during the life of the plan? What major weaknesses must be eliminated during this time? What major strengths must be capitalized on to ensure success? What could happen to prevent us from achieving the plan?

In Parts II and III, we will look at the questions Where do we want to go? and How will we get there? n

FRANK L. FIRE is the vice president of marketing for Americhem Inc. in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He`s an instructor of hazardous-materials chemistry at the University of Akron as well as an adjunct instructor of haz mats at the National Fire Academy. Fire is the author of The Common Sense Approach to Hazardous Materials and an accompanying study guide, Combustibility of Plastics, and Chemical Data Notebook: A User`s Manual, published by Fire Engineering Books. He is an editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering.