A Collaborative Methodology for Local Strategic Planning: Insights from Four Plans in Portugal

Planning practitioners have been challenged by the demand for more open, effective, and transparent processes. But the collaborative practices that have tried to materialize these goals often yield unsatisfactory results. While this can partly be attributed to various forms of vertical coordination, achieving these different, and sometimes conflicting, goals also poses inherent methodological challenges. This paper discusses an innovative approach to these issues applied in four strategic plans in Portugal. It focusses on the way in which the methodology tried to give practical meaning to the so-called 'communicative turn' in planning, while addressing some of the shortcomings associated with it.