Plan for the Improbable, Not Just the Likely
Federal agency plans and priorities have always been subject to significant redirection based on Presidential and Congressional election outcomes. Seldom, however, has this political fact of life been demonstrated as dramatically as it was when Massachusetts voters unexpectedly elected Scott Brown, a virtually unknown Republican state senator, to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of long-time Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
Costing the Democratic party its 60-vote super majority in the Senate, the Brown victory, coupled with the partisan ideological divide between the two parties, seriously diminished chances for the passage of comprehensive health insurance reform legislation, despite the fact that preliminary versions of a bill had already passed both houses of Congress and entered into the mark-up process preceding a final vote. With 41 Republican Senators (including Brown) publicly lined up to vote against the bill, what had been the all-but-certain prospect of comprehensive health insurance reform legislation was reduced by one special-election result to a long-shot at best.
The loss of a Democratic super majority in the Senate also sharply diminished the likelihood that the Obama administration would be able to enact two other major initiatives, education reform and energy reform, which along with health care reform were centerpieces of President Obama’s campaign platform.
Big electoral surprises may be among the most dramatic of events that create federal policy challenges and opportunities, but they are only one of many different kinds of events that can reshape a federal agency’s planning environment virtually overnight. Whenever control of the Presidency or both houses of Congress passes from one party to the other, it is not uncommon to hear agency executives saying, “I hope the policy pendulum doesn’t swing too far in the opposite direction based on the ideological consequences of this latest power shift.”
Hope, however, is no substitute for an effective plan. Agency executives often ask us, “How can we prioritize and plan when we don’t even know what will happen in the next election cycle?” Effective planning is not dependent upon accurate political or economic forecasts. The contingency section of a carefully thought-out strategic plan becomes most valuable precisely when forecasting is most difficult. In an uncertain or volatile political or economic situation, contingency planning—which is really preparing for the possible but improbable—may even be a requirement for the survival of an agency or some of its operating units.
The purpose of contingency planning is for agency executives to give full consideration to all reasonably foreseeable internal and external opportunities and challenges that could confront the agency, and to outline and agree on the trigger points and action steps the agency will initiate for each such extraordinarily good or bad set of events, should it occur.
Contingency planning puts agency executives in a much better position to deal with the unexpected by forcing them to explore scenarios other than the most probable ones. Usually short, general in nature, and not as detailed as the basic strategic plan itself, the contingency section of a strategic plan is extremely important in the event of a crisis—such as an international financial meltdown, or if something happens that makes the agency’s basic plan invalid—such as the unexpected loss of White House or Congressional support. If things get far better or get far worse than originally anticipated, an approach exists for dealing with the improbable situation that has actually materialized.
It is preferable to prepare contingency plans in an atmosphere of calm and reason rather than to wait for a crisis to occur and then attempt to plan under highly emotional and strained conditions. Careful attention to the early warning signs of critically important changes in an agency’s operating environment can assist the agency in both creating and executing effective contingency plans. Serious contingency planning can prompt an agency to develop more thorough tracking systems that monitor changes in its internal capabilities and limitations as well as in its external challenges and opportunities.
Every federal agency should revisit the contingency section of its strategic plan in light of the intensely partisan political divide between the parties, the volatile and shifting mood of the national and local electorates, and the continuing uncertainty of the national and global economies. A “continuity of operations” plan, while important for obvious reasons, does not by itself constitute an adequate contingency plan. Agencies should also address other possible albeit improbable upsides and downsides. Here are some questions we have found useful for that purpose:
- How can we build reasonable but not unlimited flexibility into our agency’s strategic plan?
- What contingency actions would our agency take if an extraordinarily good or bad set of events were to occur?
- How would our agency respond to specific future situations that are far better or far worse than we actually anticipate?
- What key indicators will trigger awareness in us of the need to re-examine the adequacy of the strategic direction our agency is currently following?
- How will our agency monitor these indicators?
- At what points, if any, will higher-level monitoring be triggered?
- At what points will contingency actions be triggered?
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Indeed, hope is no substitute for an effective plan and agency executives should prioritize and plan for a reasonable range of alternative futures–guided but not limited by the projections of standard political and economic forecasts.