Soft situational strategic planning (SSSP): a method and case study of its application in a Brazilian municipality

Paucar-Caceres, AL ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4690-561X, Dos Santos, R, Wright, G ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2183-711X and Belderrain, MC (2020) Soft situational strategic planning (SSSP): a method and case study of its application in a Brazilian municipality. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 71 (3). pp. 363-380. ISSN 0160-5682

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Abstract

Municipal government planning is challenging in the extreme being characterised by ill-structured and messy problems, the complexity of which is compounded by often conflicting views and priorities of multiple stakeholders. In South America, Situational Strategic Planning (SSP) is a wide spread method of such planning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a proposed multi-methodological approach, Soft Situational Strategic Planning (SSSP) in a South American municipal government. SSSP is a variant of SSP enhanced with elements of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and Strategic Choice Approach (SCA). Through an action research case study in a Brazilian municipality, we implemented SSSP through a strategic planning cycle. The findings suggest that SSSP complement the SSP process regarding the implementation and monitoring of strategy. The application also indicated that SSSP has the potential to make government planning processes more structured for policy makers.