Please God, save me from plans...especially Big Plans

Dear reader, I do not wish to burden you with too much of the content of Bradford's Big Plan II merely to give you a flavour so you may appreciate the pain us Councillors go through on your behalf. In kindness to fine bloggers such as Msrs Puddlecote and Leg-iron, I shall refrain especially from sharing the contents of the section entitled "health and well-being" - it would strain their delicate sensitivities I fear.

Big Plan II is Bradford's second "sustainable community strategy" and is all about partnership working, cross-cutting themes and a "new outcomes framework going forward". We are assured that it is "evidence and intelligence based" and that it has been validated through "consultative workshops and scrutiny committees". And the plan "overarches" other parts of the District's "strategy architecture" including the Children's Plan, Economic Strategy and Council Corporate Plan.

I am sure you all now appreciate the significance of this document and of the work that goes into producing it. Big Plan II will be the basis of planning for delivery through the "Strategic Delivery Partnerships". The plan is the culmination of work across the "key priority themes" of "Health & Well-being", "Learning & Skills", "Safer Communities" and "Stronger Communities" (plus the essential elements about environment including obligatory references to climate change as well as a mystery something called "eco-systems services").

Without a scintilla of doubt, the good people of Bradford should be grateful for the effort of these noble public servants in bringing together such a fine plan. For Big Plan II is such a beast - resplendent with statements on "active citizenship", "maximising cultural assets" and "people centred services". We have created - and shall agree and publish a paean to the benefits of effective partnership working, prioritisation and focused joint working across cross-cutting themes. A plan where there is a "delivery picture", where communities are enabled and resilient, and where the focus is on "productivity, social good and public value".

Doubtless its launch will be lauded by the populace, celebrated with street parties while, in the City Squares, the Leaders and Executives are paraded shoulder high on gilded chairs as passers by strew rose petals and palm fronds before them to ease their passing. It shall be a wonder!

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Out of the shed but still have my axe...(more on business wiffle-piffle)

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I had a gentle rant about the Idea Hive a few days back - and some people suggested that "underneath the new age language" lay something called "sound theory". My problem is that because it's 95% piffle we miss the good stuff. My advice is to use English.

Maurice Saatchi was of the opinion that you should be able to express a strategy clearly on one side of A4. And as I have expressed before we get all too steamed up with the word – and lose sight of action and tactics. But today that’s not my beef – what I’d like to ask is why we seem to feel that there aren’t sufficient words in the language already.

However, rather than tearing into Idea Hive (Chief Shamanic Officer wtf is all that about then, guys) again I have lifted this from those nice folk at Clarity:

"Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?"

Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive marketplace.

In a partnering relationship with the client, we helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), we helped the chicken deploy its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework.

We convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with our own consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergise with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals in delivering and successfully architecting and implementing and enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes.

The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution.

In conclusion, we helped the chicken change to become more successful.

...read, enjoy and, when you write stuff, try to use those good old words that everybody understands. After all without comprehension (do they still teach that at school) you're wasting your time.

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