At its September 23 meeting the Authority Board of Directors selected La Piana Consulting to guide the board through a strategy development process. Lester Olmstead-Rose, director of strategic practice for La Piana, will be the principal consultant. An experienced consultant and facilitator, he brings a background in business, government and nonprofit management to the task as well as fluency in Spanish.
The goal of the strategy process is to envision a collaborative future for the Authority and build the will and intent to work cooperatively in achieving it. A series of open meetings will bring together the different segments of the open space community: the general public, environmentalists, land owners, health advocates, and trail users as well as Authority staff, board members, volunteers, and Citizens' Advisory Committee members.
Olmstead-Rose will focus on several key questions. First is the issue of developing an explicit framework to guide the board in making and communicating decisions. A second goal is determining the unique strengths that allow the Authority to do something different and better than other agencies, what is known as a competitive advantage.
By establishing who the Open Space Authority is, where the agency is going, and what its major initiatives should be – chapter one in a longer story – the groundwork for clear, effective planning is set. And with planning in place, the work of building a future for the Open Space Authority that has the support of its many constituents can begin.
