Analytical Consulting
What is the "Facilitate Planning Approach"?
The Facilitated Planning Approach has four critical components:- Collaborative, interdisciplinary (not multidisciplinary) approach
- An expert facilitator, to implement and adjust the planning process as necessary, to increase effectiveness, and to focus inquiry and creative problem solving
- Internal organizational participants provide the planning expertise, and organizational managers provide interpretations on policy and give direction for scope of the decision to be made
- Results documented concurrently with the planning process, affirming and validating participants’ contributions in the format of the decision package, with in-process review and correction
The Facilitated Planning Approach is the rigorous federal analysis and review of an applicant’s proposed action executed concurrently rather than sequentially among engaged parties. Federal officials, the project proponent, appropriate Federal, state, local, and Tribal representatives and interdisciplinary professionals engage early and throughout the planning and decision-making of an applicant’s proposed action. Through the assistance of an informed Facilitator partnered with the lead agency (IES)’ planners, all planning deliberations are effective, efficient, and within the framework of laws, regulations, and each participating agency’s practices and policies. It seamlessly integrates the planning of an applicant’s proposed action, documents directly related to the pending Federal decisions integrate compliance among applicable laws and regulations. It offers agencies at all levels of government, Tribes, NGO’s, and the interested and affected publics timely opportunities to truly understand the issues associated with the pending decisions and become meaningfully involved throughout planning, creatively improving the outcome while minimizing or avoiding conflicts.
The "Facilitated Planning Approach" increases cost-effectiveness, decreases planning times, and substantially improves the quality of the decision package. Participants empower each other through symbiotic integration of skills, expertise, and strengths, which increases the levels of trust, communication, and interorganizational positive relationships. Using "in-house" expertise for planning makes responsible officials more responsive, energizes processes and relationships across organizational lines, facilitates additional cross-functional activities after the planning effort is completed, and creates organizational "buy-in" for the decision, making implementation and monitoring more likely.
Therefore, both the short-term goal of conducting quality planning, well documented for decision making, and the long-term goal of creating trust, communication, and positive relationships are inherent benefits to the "Facilitated Planning Approach."
Why Change from the Way We Always Do It?
| Facilitated Planning Approach | The Way We Always Do It |
| Effective and Interdisciplinary Planning | |
| Efficient because planning direction is self-correcting throughout process, with no “repeat planning”. Focus is on the need for action through analysis of cause-and-effect relationships. The Informed Facilitator partnered with the Project Manager engages the interagency interdisciplinary team to clearly articulate and analyze project need and quantify objectives, develop well-defined chains of cause-and-effect relationships, and evaluate the benefits and disadvantages of reasonable alternatives. | Planning focuses on the proposed action through stovepipe, multidisciplinary planning, creating encyclopedic information and foreclosing reasonable options without providing comparative consequences for informed decision making. Participants focus on interests and positions, thus creating inherent disagreements and conflict within a bartering exchange, which often foregoes or misses innovative solutions. |
| Planning Results | |
| Collaborative, integrated, interdisciplinary planning focuses the analysis of underlying chains of cause-and-effect interrelationships. | Segmented, stove-pipe, multidisciplinary planning does not readily recognize interrelationships of environmental, technical, and socioeconomic elements. |
| Building Consensus and Accountability | |
| Organizational cooperation focuses on mutually-accepted objectives and buy-in on the results and decisions. | Turf wars, resistance, lack of commitment, sabotage, and delay become the norm. |
| Creating Mutual Understanding | |
| Inherent cross-training. Working together to resolve clearly articulated problems and meet quantitative objectives. | Narrow focused specialization, creating barriers to communication, understanding, and mutual respect |
| Meaningful Contribution to Decisionmaking and Legal Compliance | |
| Seamless, integrated planning ensures that all components are considered through interdisciplinary analysis. Each is evaluated as it interrelates with others. Planning fulfills requirements of pertinent laws, regulations, and agency and national policies. Agency informed decision making within full and appropriate public, Tribal, and agency involvement is achieved in an understandable analytic forum and documentation. | Stovepipe planning, even if conducted strategically, does not produce documents furthering informed decision making or compliance with laws, regulations and agency and national policies. Evidence of the interrelationships of issues and environmental consequences is difficult to understand, hindering informed decison making. |
| Self-Correcting Capability | |
| Decisions that are supported, implemented correctly, and monitored with self-accountability | Documents that gather dust on the shelves, decisions that either are not implemented or are implemented incorrectly, no accountability, even sabotage. |
| Building the Capacity for Effective Public Service | |
| Integrated Federal Planning produces projects that work. They are developed creatively, systematically and are cost-effective and delivered on time, with minimally to no destructive cost. | Rigid, stovepipe planning creates a negotiated agency progression toward agency decision. Winners and losers are often defined by their endurance. Counter-strategies and poor interrelationships emerge as agency decisions become surrender to just doing something and hoping it works. |
| Efficient Use of Money and Agency Personnel | |
| Manpower and expertise incorporated efficiently and early for planning, with efficient use of resources and available funds | Intensive use of manpower and funds to repair and correct mistakes |
| Planning That Builds for the Future | |
| Planning focuses on both short-term analytic problem-solving and decisions with a well-formatted, easy-to understand, analytic, and complete record. Decisions foster success and long-term, interpersonal and inter-organizational trust. Supportive long-term relationships and positive patterns of communication among all interests becomes the norm. | Planning simply "puts the fire out". The agenda is dominated by damaged relationships and trust, high organizational and personal risks and costs, winners and losers, and broken communication. The capacity for effective public service is diminished. |