IEDC: Economic Development Strategic Planning

This highly interactive course lets participants work in small teams to help understand the complexity of strategic planning and its challenges. Economic developers must build consensus among board members, stakeholders and the community as a whole, creating a unified vision for the future. Learn techniques to build consensus among stakeholders who represent different values and interests. Also, participants will learn the quantitative techniques used to better understand their community including: location quotients, shift share, input-output and cluster analyses. Explore project assessment methods for setting priorities and measuring your plan’s impact.

Course Highlights:

• Stakeholder analysis, structuring participation, planning fundamentals
• Consensus building, group facilitation and conflict
• Defining geography, competitive advantage and SWOT
• Determining vision, mission, goals and objectives
• Demand-side strategies and supply-side strategies
• Identifying projects, strategy formation and implementation
• Setting realistic benchmarks and measuring success
• Exploring the use of dashboard indicators