Facilities: How Strategic Planning Drives Facility Planing

BY: MR. WILLIAM P. MCMAHON, SR., AIA, MCMAHON GROUP, INC.

With community facilities, inclusive of amenities, being amongst every community’s most expensive contributors to operating costs, it only makes sense to build and operate only what a community needs. Blindly building facilities without a strategic reason to have them is a waste of valuable resources and lost opportunity to achieve far greater community success.

STRATEGIC PLAN FIRST – THE ONE-DAY EXERCISE FOR STARTING FACILITY PLANNING.

So when a community is at a point where it needs to make facility upgrades or additions, start by doing a little strategic planning on what the community’s mission (purpose) is.

• Who does it serve (young, old, families, etc.)?

• What services and amenities should the community provide?

• What quality level should be attained?

• What would make the community unique and of great value to its residents?

Once these strategic questions are answered by the association and its board of directors, they provide an understanding of what is truly needed for facility and amenity upgrades.

SURVEY THE RESIDENTS

Now it is time to survey the residents by testing the strategic issues and learning what the entire community wants in facility and operating improvements. This important step in communications involves all residents and builds consensus on what to do, how to do it and how to pay for it. This is called “making the plan the residents’ plan,” and it is very important.

PLAN THE FACILITIES WITH ALL THE FACTS

Then with the strategic plan and residents’ survey clearly pointing the way for future facility needs, the community is ready to proceed with planning improvements that are supported by the association board and the great majority of residents. It takes a little longer to do facility planning this way, but it pays off in big ways of project success and community harmony.

Blindly building facilities without a strategic reason to have them is a waste of valuable resources and lost opportunity to achieve far greater community success.

Mr. McMahon is an operational, financial and architectural planning consultant to clubs throughout North America and the world. He established McMahon Club Planners in 1983 as an affiliate of the architectural firm his family has operated since 1906. Mr. McMahon is unique among club consultants in providing an integrated strategic planning approach to solving club problems.