Planning for Change: Incorporating Contextual Implementation Design into Strategic Planning

Many governments have adopted strategic plans to improve outcomes, but these efforts often fail because they do not take implementation into consideration as they plan. Past research indicates that the situational context of a strategic initiative influences implementation success. This study explores how context influences the relationship between implementation best practices and success by examining 155 strategic initiatives from 36 U.S. municipalities through a series of multiple regression analyses. The evidence indicates that context does alter the success rate of implementation best practices and should be taken into consideration during strategic planning in order to improve government effectiveness