Strategic Plan

The strategic planning process is focused primarily on what the city needs to accomplish to achieve success, rather than the day-to-day how of the municipal operations and service delivery. Good strategic planning addresses the issues that challenge the community today and, more importantly, those that will present challenges tomorrow.

Accordingly, the strategic planning workshop is an exercise in collective foresight, as the participants worked together to clarify what success looks like for the City of Forney in light of expected future conditions and where the leadership wants to take the community and the organization.

View all the strategic plan reports.

Purpose

Strategic planning is a product of strategic thinking, which should occur not only at periodic planning sessions, but on a continuous basis. Strategic thinking and planning should occur at the highest levels of the organization, but should not stop there. It must cascade to lower levels of the organization and should directly drive decision making.

Strategic planning involves the gathering, sorting and prioritizing of the best thinking of Forney's policy leaders and executive managers, focused on the core purposes of the organization and the most important attributes of success.

Process

Several components are considered as part of this process:

  • Citizen's Survey: The City Secretary oversees the citizen's survey process and the end results are reviewed with the City Council as part of the strategic plan. This allows direct communication of the community's priorities.
  • Operating Priorities: Prior to the strategic planning workshop the City Council reviews presentation materials prepared by the city's division directors that outline operating priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.
  • Economic Contingencies: As part of the process the City Council discusses the direction and magnitude of expected changes in key economic indicators, and the resulting impacts on the city government in terms of its ability to effectively deliver services.

Strategic Imperatives

During the Fiscal year 2014 strategic planning workshop, the City Council established 8 Strategic Imperatives, or focus areas, that are used to identify specific projects or initiatives for each major strategy. Action items are then developed and prioritized. Forney's Strategic Imperatives are as follows:

  • Beautify Forney
  • Diversify lifelong opportunities
  • Enhance government effectiveness
  • Expand parks and recreational opportunities
  • Improve understanding and communication
  • Influence and support the Gateway Development
  • Modernize transportation and regional connectivity
  • Redefine and re-establish downtown