Strategic Planning as a Field of Practices

Beyond the appearance the dominant conception of strategic planning is still rooted in the rational comprehensive paradigm of planning. We have added sophistication, i.e. the consideration of the plurality of actors as a constitutive character of the process, the need to construct consensus among different subjects, the selectivity and the attention towards implementation. But the idea is still that of defining objectives and trying to design a set of actions which allow to pursue them. In the Strategic Plan for the Province of Milan we have been induced to choose a different approach. We did not have a strong power to support the plan. The Provincial Institution is quite weak, weak was also the politician in charge of the strategic plan. The territory was not well defined: we have been aware since the beginning that the territory of the Province is just an administrative section of the Milan’s urban region which, by any definition, is larger than the province. Somehow we have been forced to adopt a much less linear approach. This approach has been characterized by a tension between a structure of argumentation which indicates a sense of direction, and a set of actions at different levels which have been tentative, experimental, and which tried to push a very fragmented governance environment in the desired direction. This approach can define strategic planning as “a field of practices” rather than as a coherent sequence of coordinated actions. My question is the following: is this way of conceptualizing strategic planning just the result of a series of specific circumstances or, is this a promising approach which could be more effective in coping with situations where power is fragmented and strong leadership nonexistent – an approach fostering innovation and change? In order to respond to this question I first describe the context and the planning process and then link this to what I consider relevant theories.