An Invitation to Stakeholders: The Planning
Game
(From "Five Year Action Plan Report", July, 1996)
The proposed Five Year Action Plan is a product of a close collaborative
relationship between the working group and the consultant team. It is also
the reflection of an open, inclusive proces that encouraged and considered
input from a larger group of stakeholders embracing students, parents, teachers,
other user groups, and the larger interested community who responded to the
invitation to participate in two interactive workshops.
The first of these, held on March 26, 1996, sought to get a wider perspective
on the overall goals and objectives for the Campus. The primary goals identified
as key to advancing the selection of Action Plan projects are recorded here.
The second workshop held on May 9, 1996 was a hands-on Planning Game designed
to invite groups of participants to create an Action Plan within the real
parameters and constraints of site and budget. Each group was given a game
board (site plan of Berkeley High School), a set of game pieces (colored
chips that represented potential program elements such as classrooms, administrative
areas, library, plazas, physical education facilities, utilities etc.) and
20 million dollars in cash! (Remember your Monopoly?)
The objective was to purchase 20 million dollars worth of improvements and
locate them on the game board in the form of a Five Year Action Plan. Payments
had to be made for each item placed on the board, trade-offs were permitted,
compromise was encouraged, and dissenting ideas or alternatives were noted
on the board and recorded by a facilitator. Building a set of actions that
fit the budget and represented some level of balance and consensus among
group members was the essence.
The Game resulted in four boards with colorful pieces, notes and ideas representing
the preferred Action Plan of each group. Some of the overriding ideas that
surfaced in the plans included:
- priority for physical education facilites
- preference for a 25 m x 25 yd competition pool (not Olympic) recognizing
site and budget constraints
- on-campus food service
- consolidated administration at new entry
- outdoor space improvements, essential building rennovations and system
improvements to be funded, and
- deferral of such items as recreation fields, removal of parking, and
full building rennovations.
The plans that evolved from this workshop formed the basis for three alternatives
that were developed and analyzed by the consultant team and evaluated by
the working group. The final Five Year Action Plan is a product of further
refinement and selection among those alternatives.