Blueprint for Achieving Regional Results > What

What: What?s the Big Idea?

Once you have people together to consider the future, you?ll need to structure a process that builds consensus around a) the kind of region you?d like yours to become and b) what steps you can take to achieve that future.  Here?s a few more ideas.

Begin with the End in Mind.  Many communities, particularly fast-growing communities ranging from Salt Lake City to Charlotte to Greater Orlando to Central Texas have had great success with a community or regional visioning process.  Developing plausible but provocative scenarios about the future, and then bringing a wide spectrum of people together to make choices among those scenarios, can be a powerful tool to anchor ideas about what comes next.

Create Some Working Hypothesis.  Having painted a picture of your region?s future, you?ll then need to develop some working hypotheses -- things you could do, the changes you could make that might take your region where you want it to be.  It might be helpful to plot these ideas on a graph that shows a) its potential impact (low to high) relative to b) how easy or hard it would be to accomplish.  So, while you?ll probably start with a long list of things you?d like to accomplish that could make a difference, you?ll find that some will fall by the wayside, and others will not attract support. You?ll see that some of these changes could be made without the support or involvement of elected officials.  However, you?ll come to appreciate that to get most of these changes accomplished, you will need the support of elected and appointed officials at various levels.

How: Dig In to the Hard Work of Change

Blueprint for Achieving Regional Results

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