I, and I'm sure others, shall miss your direct input tonight. A few brief comments:
1. re: Facilitator: I agree if we are speaking of a facilitator as a 'project manager'. I believe we can manage ourselves internally, either with someone from the team/teams or via a sound project plan and good communication. As far as any qualitative research we may decide to commission, however, I would support an outside person. There are many reasons for this which I could elaborate if needed and when appropriate to do so. I was not clear in our discussions, which type of facilitation was under discussion.

re: the Process I hope tonight we establish not only the process but also our potential roles. In the corp world of planning answer the target customer question is critical. There are other questions including ones concerning teachers, technology and taxes. Your 2nd point, re info gathering is a key part of the process and is often the 1st step on bottom up strategy setting. That is to say, 1. Gather and analyze info on internal and external dynamics, trends, drivers, facts, etc. 2. Determine the ST & LT gaps (performance, expectations, financial, yadda yadda), 3. Prioritize & Value gaps 4. Brainstorm solutions 5.Select options (can be like a circle between 3 & 4 in selecting and narrowing focus) 6. Because this a 5-7 yr plan we may wish to establish a path of Strategic Goals. 7. Monitor & feedback system 8. Metrics
9. Contingency Plan & Signals 10. Establish / transition feeds into capital budget, annual plan, employee performance reviews/systems (in annual plan it would be to execution). Each of these phases consists of a wide variety of tasks. Pls note, formal communication plan should be developed and executed during the strat plan process. I have not numbered this as it is a parallel process.

I hope the above is not too confusing. It actually is VERY simple. PLS Comment.

 out of  found this valuable. Do you find this valuable?