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Let's Go!

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Let’s go!  We are towards the end of three master plans (Two K-12 Districts and one County) at the moment and I always find it interesting to see how the final decision process plays out.  For what feels like years to some stakeholders involved with the process, we have been collecting data from all sources and completing assessments, a demographic study and many discussions and meetings. Now  we are here *deep breath* at implementation and let's go!  But wait…..

Sometimes the ones who are so anxious to get the ball rolling are also the ones who first put the brakes on.  Wait a minute; we don’t know our exact funding stream or timeline or….yikes! The panic ensues.  A master plan, when completed with transparency, involvement from all stakeholders and formed through interactive work sessions will challenge the status quo. As with all “future telling” activities, a master plan will pull on both ends of our logical thinking. On one hand, we are making plans and choosing options for years and years from now and on the other we have to accept that things change and the data we use holds many assumptions, which, for the most part, are out of anyone’s control.  In this dichotomy, the human reaction runs the range from “wait, we can’t choose to move ahead until we KNOW” and to “why does this matter if it is all going to change anyway.”  These are normal reactions that we all face when presented with a choice for the future.  It happens when one decides to plan on any life change like pursuing a new job, buying a house, having a child or getting married.  Accepting variability can be hard.  So, what do we do?

Now is a good time to review why we do master plans.  Master planning is about understanding a larger vision of where an organization wishes to go and creating a path to get there. It is, in our world, a review of distinct data determinants, the facts, combined with the desires of the organization into a comprehensive plan that has end goals, timing and budgets. We enjoy it all and we certainly appreciate learning about the various communities and meeting and creating lifelong friends through the process.   During implementation it would be nice if time lines held true, but for various reasons most are modified, but does that destroy the soul of the master plan?  Of course not. The implementation plan, a vital part of the master plan, is a tool that says we want to tackle this project, then this project and finally this project to attain the final goal.  Shifting time does not change the goal. There are many factors that could change the course. Funding opportunities might pop up or go away but if you know where you are trying to go, than an organization can move quickly and adjust to take advantage of an opportunity. 

This process reminds me so much of my childhood road trips.  We would have a general idea of what states we wanted to see and might even have a couple of tickets to baseball games, which means we needed to hit a certain city on a certain day, but that was it.  The hotel or restaurant was determined closer to the time of when it was needed.  With the framework in place, we let the trip evolve and the detail defined closer to the time in which the activity was required. In the end, we never missed the flight home or a ball game.  

Don’t be afraid, the end of a master plan is a start to a great adventure in becoming what you have carefully decided that you wanted to be.  

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