M3Planning

An exceptional city strategically strides to go beyond status-quo

Company: City of Las Cruces

Industry: US Municipality — New Mexico

With an estimated population of 91,865, Las Cruces is New Mexico’s second largest city. It hosts a council-manager form of government, and is approximately one hour northwest of the closest passenger-service airport in El Paso, Texas. It has been indentified by many national publications as an attractive place to live and was declared a “boomtown” by Inc. Magazine in 2007.

Need: Develop a five-year thematic strategic plan that would engage the community in the process, as well as build upon the momentum of the city’s existing plan. 

Service: Strategy Development

Deliverables:

• Develop the method from which the existing strategic plan could be updated.
• Develop methodologies for department goals and measures.
• Provide the methodology for facilitating public and stakeholder input.
• Incorporate a comprehensive reporting mechanism of the strategic plan for further development.

Solution: To build upon successful elements of the existing strategic plan, qualitative and quantitative data was collected, as well as interactive facilitations and leader retreats.  These tools were then sourced to compile a workable roadmap that the city could track with for continued progress by utilizing our online strategic management tool.

Result: With a thematic structure and clearly assigned goals that identify each department’s role in achieving the broader strategy objectives, the city now has a strategic plan that harnesses the potential of cross-departmental cooperation. Automatically generated reports and other web-based tools have created a system in which the city has the ability to effectively and efficiently communicate to its stakeholders and citizen groups. The development of an implementation plan gave the city the structure needed to keep their plan integrated while being flexible enough to respond to external forces.