Strategic planning in public sector engineering organization

In today's engineering and construction industries, the concepts of company loyalty, traditional competitors, and employee development are changing at a pace that has not previously been encountered in postindustrial times. In response to these changing concepts, private and public organizations alike are increasing their emphasis on long-term or strategic planning. This paper introduces strategy planning, describes the expected results of strategic planning efforts in engineering and construction organizations, and provides a case study illustration of the process for the City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Engineering (a 1,000-person public sector architectural and engineering organization). The case study describes the seven steps used by the Bureau starting with building a strategic planning team to ending with evaluation of the implementation effort. Lessons learned from the case study are used to identify several recommendations for future planning efforts in the area of strategic planning.