Strategic planning has been touted as one of the ''hot'' management innovations in the public sector promising managers the benefits of a highly structured future-oriented management technique taken directly from the best-run business corporations. Little has been known, however about the actual experience of public agencies with strategic planning. Frances Berry and Barton Wechsler conducted a national survey of state agencies to determine rates of utilization, types of strategic planning processes used in different agencies, and strategic planning objectives and outcomes. About 60 percent of agencies responding were using some type of strategic planning, and an additional 3 percent planned to do so in the future. Its initiation has been primarily a decision of individual agency leaders, hoping to set program and policy direction, to emulate an exemplary practice drawn from the private sector, and/or to respond to budgetary pressures. The most commonly employed model of strategic planning used in state agencies builds on elements of the widely discussed Harvard Policy Model. While a third of the states used a five-year time frame for their strategic plans, most still use one-to-four years as the plan horizon, although this appeared to be lengthening as strategic planning and budgeting are integrated. Strategic planning seemed to undergo an evolutionary development process, including being folded into broader quality management programs. Agency leaders responded with varied but largely positive perceptions of strategic planning's impact on a variety of important internal and external outcomes. Overall strategic planning can be described as a successful public sector management innovation.
