Implementation programs, partnerships, and monitoring

Learning objectives

• Build an implementation program that assigns each action a responsible party, timeframe, cost, and funding source.
• Explain how strategic partnerships extend what a public agency can accomplish.
• Describe redevelopment and reinvestment tools such as land banks, brownfield programs, and tax abatements.
• Identify common obstacles to implementation and ways to reduce them.
• Design plan monitoring with indicators tied to objectives and measured against a baseline, using a logic model.
• Explain how level-of-service standards and integrated project delivery connect plans to results.

Key concepts

Why implementation fails

Plenty of good plans sit on shelves. The usual reasons are predictable: nobody was assigned to do the work, there was no money, the actions were vague, political leadership changed, or no one checked progress. An implementation program is the plan's defense against all of these.

7 more sections follow in the full lesson.

Key terms

• Implementation program (action plan): The part of a plan assigning actions, responsible parties, timeframes, and funding.
• Lead agency: The organization responsible for completing an action.
• Strategic partnership: A collaborative relationship with other organizations to achieve shared goals.
• Memorandum of understanding (MOU): A written agreement defining partners' roles and commitments.
• Public-private partnership (P3): A contractual arrangement in which public and private partners share the delivery of a project.
• Integration (coordinated delivery): Combining related projects to gain efficiency and shared infrastructure.
• Level-of-service (LOS) standard: A measurable threshold for the adequacy of a public facility or service.
• Indicator: A measure used to track progress toward an objective.
• Baseline: The indicator's value at the start, against which progress is measured.
• Output measure: A measure of work completed.
• Outcome measure: A measure of results in the community.
• Land bank: An entity that acquires vacant and tax-foreclosed properties and returns them to productive use.
• Tax abatement: A temporary reduction or freeze of property taxes on new investment.
• Payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT): A negotiated payment that replaces some or all of a property's taxes.
• Clawback: A provision recovering incentives when promised jobs or investment don't materialize.
• Logic model: A chain from inputs and activities to outputs, outcomes, and impact.