Agenda Date: 10/14/2024
Subject:
Title
Horizon 2027 Strategic Plan Overview
Body
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Prepared By: |
Adrienne Burton, Manager of Innovation and Performance Excellence |
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Presentations: |
Adrienne Burton, Manager of Innovation and Performance Excellence Kathleen Osher, Assistant City Manager |
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this discussion is to provide Planning Commission an overview of the strategic plan as well as a recap of the 2024 City Council retreat. The strategic plan has been crafted with input from council and staff as a guiding document for how the city will systematically achieve the community’s long-range vision for Littleton.
LONG-TERM OUTCOME(S) SERVED:
High Quality Governance
DISCUSSION:
The strategic plan, initiated in February 2023 at the annual City Council retreat, has undergone an iterative development process with multiple feedback opportunities for both council and staff. This plan is a link between the city’s comprehensive plan, Envision Littleton, and the annual budget cycle, and it embodies a forward-looking approach aimed at nurturing a vibrant, sustainable, and thriving community over the next two decades. The strategic plan outlines a set of highest-priority initiatives to be implemented within the next 2-3 years, setting the stage for tangible progress towards long-term outcomes.
The comprehensive plan is the cornerstone for all planning endeavors, and by aligning with its overarching mission, the strategic plan focuses on actionable strategies and initiatives that address specific needs while advancing the broader objectives outlined in Envision Littleton. This interconnectedness between the two guiding documents not only promotes coherence and consistency in policies and actions but also fosters a dynamic approach to planning, allowing for adaptability and responsiveness to emerging challenges and opportunities.
Moving forward, the strategic plan is poised to play a pivotal role in informing the city’s annual budget cycle and shaping the direction of departmental work plans. By aligning the city’s budget with major priorities, the plan furthers efficient utilization of resources and maximizes impact across all sectors of the community. In essence, the strategic plan represents a collective endeavor to chart a course towards a brighter, more sustainable future.
Financial Planning
The strategic plan will serve as an additional tool for financial planning, specifically for the alignment of the city’s budget with strategic initiatives, ensuring that resources are optimally allocated to their delivery. Accomplishing the 2-3 year initiatives requires forecasting of necessary resources to realize those strategies. Most notably, those resources are staff capacity and funding. The short-to-medium-term initiatives allow greater foresight into potential grant and other funding mechanisms in addition to phased budget requests. The strategic plan necessitates a multifaceted approach to resource management and financial planning to realize the vision.
Outcome Indicators
Outcome indicators serve as the metrics and benchmarks to measure the effectiveness and impact of the strategic initiatives in moving the city toward the community vision. The development of these indicators reflects the spirit of the overall plan which favors continual improvement and iteration to accomplish lofty future goals. Indicators are crucial for measuring progress and require a data-driven culture which is why rollout of outcome indicators will be a measured and strategic process to ensure the selected indicators provide comprehensive and meaningful insight. Indicators are a combination of leading and lagging measures to gain foresight into potential changes or shifts but also retrospective to measure past performance and historical trends.
Community Dashboard
To reinforce the commitment to transparency and community engagement, the plan proposes a community dashboard designed to provide real-time data on the progress of strategic initiatives to the public. The goal of this tool is to engage the community by making information accessible and understandable and provide an external-facing platform for public accountability.
Strategic Plan Updates
Finally, this plan is a living document that will require regular evaluation. In line with a continual improvement vision, the plan proposes an update cycle to reflect changing circumstances, lessons learned, and community feedback. It’s important that this cycle be designed appropriately to advance priorities while maintaining flexibility. To remain relevant and effective, the plan details a dynamic planning process consisting of a three-year cycle. In the first year of the cycle (the renew phase) 2-3 year initiatives are confirmed and prioritized to pave the way for budgeting and resource management. The following year (review phase) focuses on monitoring and evaluating implementation. The final year of the cycle (refine phase) opens an opportunity to fine-tune and optimize the plan based on data and lessons learned. By the end of that three-year cycle, most initiatives should be complete or become ongoing projects no longer necessitating the same level of oversight. Then, the cycle begins again. This allows for short-term stability but also the opportunity to update and make necessary changes to support the plan outcomes.
BACKGROUND:
This document, rooted in the community vision and key input from council and staff, sets forth initiatives to be pursued over 2-3 years, aligning closely with our annual budget cycle and department workplans. Development of this plan has largely taken place over 2023 and 2024. At the February 2023 retreat, the city council began work on a strategic outcomes framework that connects the vision from Envision Littleton 2040 with the city’s long-term outcomes, council priorities, indicators of success, 2-3 year initiatives, and department work plans. Since then, staff has undergone an iterative process of developing and refining the plan periodically bringing updates and requesting feedback from city council and making significant progress during the 2024 council retreat. Key elements of the plan include vision, outcome categories, 2-3 year initiatives, and department workplans.
Vision: Vision is the long-term aspiration for the city. Council confirmed the city’s vision statement at the 2023 retreat; this is the same vision statement that was articulated for the Envision Littleton 2040 plan:
“Littleton is a place where visions and values endure across decades and generations. It is a place where nature and city living intersect, can both be enjoyed, and are guarded with a fierce sense of stewardship.”
Outcomes: The five outcomes in the strategic framework reflect a series of desired end results for the next 20 years to advance and uphold the vision. If we drive toward the shared vision, Littleton will be known as a:
Vibrant Community with a Rich Culture;
Sustainable Community with a Natural Beauty;
Robust and Resilient Economy;
Safe Community; and
High Quality Governance
2-3 Year Initiatives: These initiatives serve as the focused, short-to-medium-term efforts to make progress toward the shared vision. These manageable, time-bound initiatives detail and clarify the ways in which the city will make progress in each outcome and ultimately toward the vision. These initiatives represent a mixture of specific council priorities as well as necessary and important strategies the city must make progress toward for the safety, infrastructure, or regional partnership of the city. Initiatives are negotiated between council and staff with council having the opportunity to prioritize as they did at the 2024 council retreat.
Department Workplans: Department workplans identify annual projects, actions, and tasks for staff to deliver direct results based on the 2-3 year strategies identified by council. These plans ultimately become a roadmap with key deliverables for the upcoming year. Given the forward planning of these workplans, they will be able to inform the budget cycle and assist in identifying the necessary resources to accomplish the work that will support the 2-3 year initiatives, outcomes, and, ultimately, the long-term vision for the city.
At the heart of the strategic plan is collaboration. The plan will help council and staff build community trust and show through data, benchmarks, and dashboards that the city is investing the appropriate amount on prioritized municipal services. The plan will continue council’s desire to have vision clarity which is critical to avoiding everything becoming a priority and in turn, nothing being a priority.
Prior Actions or Discussions
• Council Retreat - February 10-11, 2023: Council reviewed the proposed Strategic Framework, began the vision discussion, set outcomes, identified 2-3 year council priorities and a set of 2-3 year goals
• Council Study Session - April 25, 2023: Council confirmed the vision and developed a list of potential outcome indicators
• Council Study Session May 9, 2023: Council discussed the potential ways that each outcome would be apparent in the community and tactics that would help illustrate progress as well as potential resources and needs to advance the outcomes in preparation for the 2024 budget workshop held on September 8, 2023.
• Council Meeting Update - January 2, 2024: Council heard a presentation from staff on the status of the strategic plan and what to anticipate at the 2024 council retreat.
• Council Retreat - February 9-10, 2024: Council reviewed existing initiatives and prioritized them in an Eisenhower sort as well as tentatively scheduled updates on priorities through Q4 2026. Council also provided input on favorable outcome indicators and important aspects of metrics.
• City Council Study Session - May 14, 2024: Council reviewed draft Strategic Plan and discussed impact and using Horizon 2027 as living document to be updated regularly as initiatives and other work progresses.
• City Council Regular Meeting - June 04, 2024: City Council approved Horizon 2027, the city’s Strategic Plan.
FISCAL IMPACTS:
At this time, there are no fiscal impacts in development of the strategic plan; however, the initiatives will play an instrumental role in the budget process to ensure budget allocations, requests, and prioritizations are in sync with strategic priorities.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
This is an informational briefing with no staff recommendation.
ALTERNATIVES:
This is an informational briefing with no alternatives.