Successful Strategic Plan Implementation in Public Organizations: Connecting People, Process, and Plan (3Ps)

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Bert George
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13187

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.793

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 4, pp. 793–798. © 2020 The

Authors. Public Administration Review

published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on

behalf of The American Society for Public

Administration.

DOI:10.1111/puar.13187.

Bert George is professor of public

strategy and behavior in the Department

of Public Governance and Management at

Ghent University in Belgium. Previously, he

held a tenured position in the Department

of Public Administration and Sociology

at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the

Netherlands. Bert’s research focuses on

strategy, behavior, and performance in

public organizations using experimental,

observational, and meta-analytical research

methods. His articles have won awards from

major public management associations,

including ASPA, IRPSM, EPGA, and EURAM.

Email: george@essb.eur.nl

Viewpoint Article

Bert George

Ghent University

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Successful Strategic Plan Implementation in Public

Organizations: Connecting People, Process, and Plan (3Ps)

Abstract: Strategic planning (SP) remains the dominant approach to strategy formulation at all levels of government,

and it is an enduring topic of public administration research and practice. Simultaneously, little is known about the

conditions under which strategic plans are successfully implemented in government. This Viewpoint essay provides

evidence-based recommendations from SP initiatives in Flemish municipalities using multi-informant and multisource

survey data. It shows that successfully implementing strategic plans is influenced by the people, process, and plan (3Ps)

underlying SP. Involving creators in SP helps make the SP process more informed. An informed SP process that includes

constructive conflict helps induce high-quality strategic plans. High-quality strategic plans contribute to successful

strategic plan implementation. Practitioners are encouraged to consider SP not as a one-size-fits-all solution to strategy

formulation, but as an approach in which variation in people, process, and plan influences implementation success.

Strategic planning (SP) has long been the

preferred approach to strategy formulation in

public organizations at all levels of government.

It typically includes an analysis of an organization’s

mandate, mission, and vision and an analysis of an

organization’s internal and external environment,

identifying strategic issues based on these analyses

and stipulating strategies to address these issues

(Bryson 2018). A recent meta-analysis indicates that

SP contributes to organizational performance—

and particularly organizational effectiveness—thus

explaining its popularity (George, Walker, and

Monster 2019).

While this evidence suggests that there is—on

average—value in adopting SP, it does not provide

insights into how to do SP in practice. Most public

administration research has considered SP as a fixed

routine, and typical measurements of SP only focus

on whether a set of steps were conducted (e.g.,

George, Desmidt, and De Moyer 2016; Poister,

Pasha, and Edwards 2013). SP in practice, however,

is not one fixed routine but very much something

practitioners do, and one can expect much variation

in who is involved during SP (people), what the SP

process looks like (process), and what strategic plans

ensue (plan) (Bryson 2010). In turn, this variation can

be expected to influence the extent to which strategic

plans are successfully implemented (Bryson, Edwards,

and Van Slyke 2018). This argument has long been

clear to practitioners: simply adopting SP does not

magically induce the successful implementation of the

ensuing strategic plan—indeed, more effort is needed.

Simultaneously, there is little research focusing on

successful strategic plan implementation in public

organizations, resulting in a lack of evidence-based

insights into how to make strategic plans succeed

(George and Desmidt 2014; Poister 2010).

This Viewpoint essay addresses this practice–research

chasm in public administration by drawing on

evidence from Flemish municipalities (Flanders is the

northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) to identify

conditions under which strategic plans are more likely

to be successfully implemented. First, theoretical

propositions are formulated connecting the people,

process, and plan (3Ps) underlying SP with successful

strategic plan implementation. Next, the propositions

are tested based on multi-informant and multisource

survey data from 127 Flemish municipalities. These

municipalities are multipurpose public organizations,

they have wide-ranging autonomy to formulate and

implement policies that protect the interest and well-

being of their inhabitants (Goeminne and George

2019). They have an elected council, mayor, and

aldermen and a management team that oversees daily

operations. They can vary widely in size and budget,

with the smallest municipality containing only 85

citizens (Herstappe) and the biggest 510,610 citizens

(Antwerp). On average. they encompass close to

21,000 citizens, and the bulk of the municipalities

have between 10,000 to 30,000 citizens.

Since January 2013, each municipality is required

to formulate a multiyear plan for the coming policy

cycle. The rationale underlying this requirement is