Process and Outcome Best Practices: Interviews with Exemplary Planning Practitioners

Blog Post by Dr. Karen Christensen

My new article, "Both Process and Outcome Essential to Planning"  (Open Access until May 30) brings the views of exemplary practicing planners to bear on a long-standing debate in planning theory. The debate concerns which should be most emphasized by planners: process or outcome. Process refers to the process the planner follows when planning, be it a rational, collaborative, or negotiating process. Outcome refers to the results when the planner has completed the planning (and implementing) process, for example a sustainable community. To answer this question, I used data collected in 119 interviews by graduate students in U.C. Berkeley's Planning & Institutions course, which I taught during the 1990s. As part of the course each student conducted the same structured interview with exemplary planners in the San Francisco Bay Area, meant to be role models. 

The interviews revealed that consistent with communicative theorists’ claims more exemplary planners are facilitators than either technicians or activists.  Moreover, the strategies most used—"build social capital" (e.g., networking) and "improve communication" (e.g., use an open process)—are particularly appropriate to consensus building.

At the same time, leading Bay Area practitioners understood planning as embedded in politics and shaped by institutions. For example, planners mentioned "intergovernmental resentments and power relations" and "direction from funding agencies." In explaining both their goals and their criteria of effectiveness planners showed themselves directed to outcomes.

Exemplary planners' strategies suit their roles and the political and organizational constraints they perceive, adopting strategies appropriate for a shared power world and asymmetric power relations. Thus, exemplary planners must take politics into account as they act as facilitators. However constrained they were, planners in the study believed they could be effective. One said "Stick to what you know to be important, bring your planning sense to that, and people will listen." On the other hand, the planners spoke about institutional constraints and uneven power relations. One said that the hardest lesson for her to learn was to listen to the politics. Exemplary planners accept political constraints as a factor to be taken into account, rather than a barrier to be removed.

Exemplary planners describe themselves as facilitators using communication and networking strategies in institutionally constrained practice settings of unequal power. Moreover, exemplary planners are goal directed. They use process and political skills to achieve valued outcomes.

These 10 years of interviews highlight that process-outcome is not necessarily a dichotomy, as different kinds of outcomes imply different kinds of processes.  For example, economists might emphasize outcomes with highest benefit-cost ratios and equity planners might emphasize community organizing. In the Portland area, a collective movement tried to find ways to combine urbanization with safeguarding rural and natural areas. Values seem to shape the line between ends and means.

Open Access via SAGE Publications until May 30, 2015:

Christensen, Karen S. “Both Process and Outcome Essential to Planning.”Journal of Planning Education and Research (2015): 0739456X14566277.

Blog Post by Dr. Karen Christensen, Professor Emerita of City and Regional Planning: http://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/faculty-staff/karen-christensen.

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