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Case Number 34Strategic Planning: A Conduit to CommunicationsThe Prairie Village Police Department, accredited in 1999,
is located in the Johnson County suburbs of Kansas City, and The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA), whose ultimate goal is to elevate the law enforcement profession and increase the quality of service to the public, realized the importance of interagency communications in several of its standards. Specifically, standard 11.5.1, Goals and Objectives, establishes the annual updating of such planning documents, and standard 11.6.4, Planning and Research, requires a multi-year plan with long-term objectives stressing that such planning is “essential for an effective agency management.” A four-part strategic planning process was initiated in December of 2000 when all members of the department were invited to an introductory meeting at a local country club. The specific objective of this session was to provide all employees with a brainstorming session, with the sole purpose of identifying topics that would be important to the organization and/or the community, within a three-year time span. The meeting, which was attended by almost half the department, identified over 50 topics, which required further discussion. The second step of the strategic planning process occurred over a period of six months. Department members were invited to group meetings where several of the identified topics were addressed each month. Through in-depth discussions, agency members first defined the exact perimeters of the topic, then examined the positive and negative ramifications of the topic, and finally determined the relative importance of the topic to the department and the community. Upon conclusion of the discussion sessions, agency members were invited to a department meeting where each topic was again briefly summarized for the attending members. Employees then independently voted on each topic using a 1 to 5 rating scale as to the importance of each topic to the future of the agency and the community. A list of topics was then prepared and ranked in order of their importance. Topics that did not receive an above-average score were removed from the strategic planning list. The final step in the strategic planning process will be the assignment, over the next several years, of the ranked topics to command staff members, supervisors, or task forces who will prepare studies and recommendations to be forwarded to the Chief of Police for assessment. In an effort to emphasize the importance of the strategic planning process, and the time individual employees participated, a report is prepared for department members every six months to keep them apprised of the progress. The goal of the strategic planning process is to provide the department with a three to five-year planning agenda. Equally important, however, is the methodology selected to achieve the planning document. The created forum allowed for an exchange of ideas between management and operational employees, centered on listening to one another, and creating an atmosphere of employee ownership within the department; all sound organizational tenets that every accredited law enforcement agency strives for as we seek to further the excellence of our profession. Chief Charles F. Grover
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serves
approximately 28,000 residents in the cities of Prairie Village and Mission
Hills, Kansas. Communication has always been a priority for the Prairie
Village Police Department, with many conduits that allow communications to be
dispersed. These methods range from the typical administrative and
supervisor staff meeting minutes, administrative monthly plans of action that
keep employees current on new and existing agency projects, and yearly goals and
objectives that invite employee participation, to the atypical, which includes
group meetings with the Chief of Police on a bi-annual basis.