Emergency Management, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9 PLANNING TECHNIQUES AND METHODS

The intelligence quotient of any meeting can be determined by starting with 100 and subtracting five points for each participant.

—Scott Adams

The previous chapter considered basic concepts that provide a context to plan development. But how does one make progress in developing plans? Plans, particularly those involving multiple jurisdictions or agencies, seem to take forever to produce. There are endless meetings of well‐intentioned representatives and numerous draft plans and proposals, but final products seem elusive. This chapter looks at some of the techniques and methodologies that can be used to develop an effective plan.

A critical first step in developing plans is to determine up front who are the stakeholders and what mechanism will be used to gain final approval for the plan. Stakeholders are those who have a vested interest in the plan, either through responsibility for implementing the plan or by being affected by the plan's implementation. This could conceivably be a large group and, as Scott Adam's humorous quote cautions, including too many players at a meeting can hamper progress. Consequently, it is necessary to determine which stakeholders play crucial roles in the plan as decision‐makers and implementers versus those stakeholders who do not have a direct role but whose needs and support must be considered in plan development. This allows the establishment of a planning structure that limits the number ...