Strategic planning is a long-standing “best practice” in public finance. This is for good reason, as it is important to think strategically and long term in a volatile and resource-constrained environment. However, strategic planning, as it is commonly practiced, has limitations. This article, part of GFOA’s Rethinking Budgeting initiative, calls into question fundamental underlying assumptions of traditional strategic planning and proposes a new approach that is better suited to meet the challenges governments face today.

• Publication date: June 2022
• Authors: Shayne Kavanagh and Chris Morrill