The Scottsdale Police Department is a progressive enforcement agency that sees its mission in recognizing the needs of the Scottsdale community and increasing the quality of life for the citizens. To perform the mission and enhance service delivery, the Police Department focuses on a strategic plan that comprises six strategic objectives (directions): to reduce crime, to provide exemplary training, to enhance recruitment and retention, to innovate for the future, to strengthen communications and to strengthen domestic preparedness.
The mentioned objectives are long-term ones. Consequently, their achievement requires setting certain short-term goals. According to the strategic plan, each major objective presupposes the achievement of 1-3 minor goals. For example, crime reduction implies enhancing the patrol and investigative capabilities, as well as crime prevention initiatives. Strengthening hiring initiative and development of employees are essential to enhance the recruitment and to keep the employees satisfied. To innovate for the future, the Police Department decided to improve the technology solutions and to strengthen the facilities planning. Thus, a strategic plan that comprises main strategic objectives can enhance the service delivery.
The concepts outlined by the Police Department can be generalized and applied to almost any organization. For example, if based on the perspective of a non-profit hospital employee, I can apply the following directions: strengthening communications, providing the exemplary training and strengthening domestic preparedness. To support these long-term objectives, I should identify smaller goals. Communications can be strengthened by obtaining the advanced equipment to provide the high quality of the internal and external communications. Also, the exemplary training solutions may include enhancing the training initiatives or strengthening the scheduling and deployment. The strategic directions chosen by the Scottsdale Police Department appear to be general and can be applied even to a health institution.
Thus, it seems that smaller objectives are essential in a perfectly thought-out strategic development model. They help an organization to keep up with its strategic plan and ensure that it is on the right track.