Read this if your parks and recreation agency has recently completed a master plan or is ready to update its master plan.
Your parks and recreation master plan was created with the goals and values of your community at its core. It’s part of what makes your community a great place to live, work, and play. It’s also a living document, designed to meet both current and future community needs—and to evolve as those needs change.
Establishing an ongoing process for updating your master plan helps your department keep pace with the priorities and interests of your community and builds strong support for your master planning efforts. Tracking and reporting progress on your master plan, utilizing a well-defined work plan is key to long-term, continuous improvement—and a master plan that helps your community thrive.
Below are six strategies to ensure a successful parks and recreation master plan implementation. These strategies reflect the commitment and discipline required to engage your staff and integrate the process into your daily operations, now and in the future.
1. Embed the plan
Your master plan becomes the roadmap for your department. It serves as a reference point that will guide decision-making as well as community response when new issues arise—it is a framework within which to evaluate potential changes or updates. To embed the master plan into your organizational knowledge base:
- Make the plan part of your new employee orientation program.
- Post the executive summary of the plan on your department website and track its progress. This helps the community at large understand the department’s strategic direction and its commitment to results.
- Make printed copies of the executive summary available to interested partners and community members to provide a quick snapshot of the plan.
2. Conquer and divide
Begin the implementation process by creating a project management team or assigning a staff member who will “champion” the project. Your project leader will be responsible for monitoring and reporting on the plan’s progress and working with other staff, county management, and other departments to effectively integrate the plan within your operations.
- Assign accountability for each master plan recommendation to a staff member or team. The project manager will have responsibility for tracking the progress of the master plan implementation.
- Divide the plan into separate fiscal years and track progress one year at a time as part of an ongoing work plan.
- Develop strategies for each action item in the plan. Strategies are developed prior to the start of each fiscal year by the staff members who are accountable for completing the action item.
3. Report and format
The department should regularly report on the progress of the master plan project. The formatting suggestions below will facilitate quarterly and annual reports from staff and/or team leaders.
- A best practice is to develop a spreadsheet or use strategic planning software to list the goals, objectives, action items, start dates, and completion dates for each fiscal year of your plan. Include the names of the staff members responsible for completing the action items.
- Each accountable team or staff member is responsible for reporting on the progress of their action item on a quarterly basis.
4. Tell the master plan story
It’s important to assess the progress of your master plan project and share updates with your staff, as well as your stakeholders and community, on a regular basis. Tell the story of your progress and accomplishments.
- Conduct staff meetings on a quarterly or semi-annual basis to review your progress.
- At the end of the year, perform an annual review of the master plan and document any changes to the objectives and action items in order to reflect changes in your department's priorities.
- This process can be included in an annual review meeting in which the next years’ objectives and action items are discussed as part of the annual budget process. Action items will tie into both the operating and capital budget process.
- Update your major stakeholders and the community on the plan’s implementation and results every year.
5. Monitor and revise the master plan
To keep the master plan actively on your staff’s radar—and embedded in your department’s knowledge base—visual aids can be an important tool.
- Post a chart of each year’s recommendations and action items on office walls in administrative areas, with a check-off column designating completion, as part of a visual management program.
- If new ideas surface during the year, include them on a written “parking lot” and review them as part of the annual project review to evaluate whether they should change or replace any existing strategies or action items.
6. Review and renew your master plan
The five-year mark is a good time to review and renew your parks and recreation master plan, which you have been tracking each year using the suggestions above.
- Conduct a shortened update process, which includes repeating the statistically valid survey and demographic projections that informed your current plan.
- Adjust existing recommendations as necessary, based on your review.
These six strategies for implementing your parks and recreation master plan will ensure that your master plan will continue to align with the needs and priorities of your community and become firmly embedded in the knowledge base and culture of your department.
BerryDunn works with parks, recreation, and library agencies across the country to help them strengthen their operations, innovate, and enhance services that benefit their communities. Learn more about our services and meet our team.