City of Evanston

The City of Evanston has won an Honorable Mention for the prestigious Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award for 2007.

The criteria for winning are rigorous and challenging. The winner must:

1. Describe a process in use that is at the leading edge of the field or an actual pioneer in approaching a strategic planning process in a totally new and unique way
2. Or... be a very creative extension of a tried and true process
3. The process must be shown to directly help improve the performance of the organization
4. There must be a definitive way in which the strategic plan and strategy are implemented and a method of interim assessment

The Goodman committee felt that the City of Evanston's submission this year was a superb example of a functional level strategic planning process and resulting strategic plan in the area of Information Technology for the City of Evanston, Illinois. It was an excellent example of a very creative extension of a tried and true process. Points made by the committee that summed to its decision to award the City of Evanston Honorable Mention for this year's award included the following:

1. The strategic planning process studied the processes of other government IT organizations and it also incorporated the responses from 446 end user customers
2. This surveying process unearthed nine common themes and a set of criteria was made to define what would constitute an IT project or initiative
3. The IT strategic planning process was inclusive of the City of Evanston's plan and initiatives as well as many other stakeholders
4. The IT initiatives and goals were stated in end user terms, not in technical language
5. A single point of contact — the Customer Service Center — was established to handle issues and assess end user satisfaction
6. In their analyses of other IT strategic planning processes and plans, the City of Evanston's team decided that most were written at a high, technical level and thus were not actionable
7. At the same time, the team assessed that in the past accountability, coordination among departments and project management needed to improve greatly. This first planning process has helped greatly in these three areas and that...
8. The planning process and plan performance and its contribution to the City's performance would be assesses quarterly

All of this led to what the committee agreed was an excellent functional area strategic planning process and resulting strategic plan. We have invited them to re-submit next year with the inclusion of IT's interconnection and value add for the City of Evanston's strategic plan.

The Committee thanks the City of Evanston, Illinois for its fine submission and hopes this process will continue to contribute to the City of Evanston's IT performance and synergistic contribution to the strategic plan of the City of Evanston, Illinois. Congratulations on a job well done!