An Official Community Plan is a strategic plan (not to be confused with a government’s internal corporate strategic plan). The City of Victoria is using a bottom-up strategic planning process to write their new OCP. They’re asking citizens to gather in “community circles” and together go through some standard strategic planning steps. The twist is that it’s done in two iterations:

1. Envision the outcome
2. Brainstorm strategies
3. Consider impact on the triple bottom line
4. Envision the outcome
5. Refine strategies

I think insisting people work in groups and go through two iterations will be successful in breaking-up preconceived ideas and challenging groupthink. It’s great that the City is trying to get public participation in the development stage instead of just asking the public their opinion between fully-formed alternatives. But it’s quite daunting to jump into one of these topics that you haven’t already worked on and I’m skeptical that the submissions will be of high quality.

Many of the proposed topics of discussion have two-page briefing notes called “topic sheets”. They’re pretty readable although they contain a bit too much cheerleading about the City’s current initiatives. They’re a great way to get everyone up to speed at the start of a community circle and include some key discussion points (in a green box on the second page). Unfortunately, six of them still aren’t available, undermining planning for those topics.

There are also 60 – 140 page discussion papers. They have key information that doesn’t make it into the topic sheets, for example that Victoria doesn’t have enough land for a food security utopia. I think community circles would be far more effective if at least one participant has read the relevant discussion paper, but it’s quite a a time commitment. If only every topic had a 10-page executive summary like climate change and energy planning. I think the City bit off more than it can chew with the discussion papers, because four of them still aren’t available.

I’m finding it difficult to organize community circles because I don’t know enough people who meet all these criteria:

• have a vested interest in Victoria
• are engaged
• have lots of free time