Evaluative Thinking about Strategic Business Planning in Policing

By: Amanda Franceschini (M.Sc.), Strategic Planner, Waterloo Regional Police Service

Strategy is both an act of control and imagination, providing value while making decisions about how to invest effort and resources. 1 “Strategy” can also equal “advantage”, so it is critical to pay attention to both new and evidence-informed approaches. With the right approach, there is greater potential to move effectively from “strategic thinking” to “strategic planning” and then to “strategic management”.

What is strategic management and why is it important? Strategic management is the execution of a plan; it is dynamic, continuous, and involves the coordination of resources across an organization. Done well, it means a plan made an impact towards things that matter and did so efficiently.

How do organizations typically progress from thinking to planning to management? At its core, a Strategic Business Plan (SBP) aligns with an organization’s vision, mission, and values. Organizations move from this foundation and a shared understanding of the landscape to the selection of efforts that have the greatest likelihood of achieving the desired future state. Results are then quantified or qualified. Basic progress updates tend to result in “done” or “not done” categorizations. Is this enough to be considered good strategic management?

An important element of strategic management is evaluation - checking whether there was indeed a relationship between actions and outcomes. “Evaluative thinking” is a perpetual cycle of, “questioning, reflecting, learning, and modifying.” (Bennett & Jessani, 2011) 2. This thinking cycle reinforces that while the goals (a general “what”) and objectives (a specific “what”) may be set and published externally, the strategies (a general “how”) and tactics (a specific “how”) are more internally facing and meant to be revisited over the course of a plan.3

With confidence that the selected approaches represent how to effect the desired change and with meaningful key performance indicators identified, this leads into data collection and supporting conclusions. How might we test our assumptions? Can we attribute any changes we see in the data to the strategic initiatives? One approach is to combine data with causal knowledge. 4

Means/Ends Matrix

Enter the Means/Ends matrix. Matrices are great tools for subject matter experts to provide practical rigour in a simple way. One core strategy at a time, strategy owners work across the matrix to indicate the predicted strength of the effort with high, medium, low, or no ratings against key measures. A matrix can shine a light on any gaps, clusters, and synergies.

Figure 1 – a Means/Ends Matrix

A Waterloo Regional Police Service Case Study

The Waterloo Regional Police Service’s (WRPS) SBP is comprised of 4 goals, 13 objectives, and 31 associated strategies. I met with all objective owners and asked them to indicate whether they expected their strategy efforts to have a high, medium, low, or no effect on the standardized Canadian Police Performance Metrics. Reading down, I could see which efforts had a broad reach (a lot of ratings) or a deep reach (high ratings). Reading across, I could see which police performance metrics would be most important to collect with multiple strategy owners citing their importance. All of the objectives are mapped onto either i) crime and victimization, ii) police activities and deployment, iii) police resources, or iv) trust and confidence in police.

Insights at the Goal Level

“Our Commitment to Safety” is WRPS’ goal with the strongest association in the pillar of crime and victimization. Recontact data and victimization data (reporting rates and feelings of safety) are rated highly as key indicators across offender management, road safety, youth, and partnership efforts to name but a few.

“Our Connections” is a standout in the pillar of police activities and deployment, which acknowledges contributions to public safety that include non-crime policing responsibilities. Quality of service and perceptions of police are cited as the most important indicators of success. It is in this area where “Our Resources” is also expected to make the most impact.

“Our Members” and “Our Connections” mapped most onto the police resources pillar, which includes measures of police personnel and operating expenditures. Diversity and representation is the metric emerging with the most focus.

“Our Connections” is also expecting to make the most difference in the trust and confidence in police pillar, making the collection of that standardized deck of questions by Public Safety Canada a shared priority.

Insights at the Objective Level

Predicted to have high impact

• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) strategy
• Community partnerships

Predicted to have a range of impact

• Customer service (i.e. the quality of our public interactions)
• Community feedback opportunities
• Communication
• Resources masterplan

From a Metrics Perspective

Greatest shared interest in data collection

• Quality of service
• Trust and confidence in police
• Perceptions of police
• Client outcomes
• Proactive time

Additionally, greatest predicted change in data based on SBP efforts

• Victimization data
• Community survey repeat measures

Applications

I propose a matrix evaluation approach that can lead to greater strategic management of policing priorities and resources tied to the business plan. This tool is shaped by member expertise, can reflect the current context of policing, can highlight how organizational values are manifesting, and offer how to align resources. To weave more strategy discussions into standard reporting, take an inventory of where else these key measures are being reported and highlight in those sources which SBP efforts are predicted to be moving the dial.

Moreover, if Police Performance Metrics and internal measures of success are both measured with continuous data coupled with member hypotheses, there is an opportunity to apply modelling and move towards prediction. All in all, this approach can enable adaptive leadership to make more evidence-based decisions in agile strategy execution.

Amanda Franceschini (M.Sc.) is a Strategic Planner with the Waterloo Regional Police Service and has been in policing for 14 years. During that time, she has presented internationally on the topic of strategy, achieved certification as an Advanced Law Enforcement Planner, served as President of the Canadian Association of Law Enforcement Planners for 6+ years, and was honoured with a Women in Leadership award in 2024. Franceschini has been active with the International Association for Strategy Professionals for the past four years. She is the current President of the inaugural Canadian Chapter and a participant in both the Government Community of Practice and Women in Strategy group, is an award-winning researcher in psychology, and member of Mensa Canada. amanda.franceschini@wrps.on.ca

1 Hadaya, P., & Stockmal, J. (Eds.). (2023). Guide to the strategy management Body of Knowledge (Third Edition). The International Association for Strategy Professionals.
2 Bennett, G., & Jessani, N. (Eds). (2011). The knowledge translation toolkit: Bridging the
know-do gap: A resource for researchers. SAGE Publications India. https://sk.sagepub.com/books/the-knowledge-translation-toolkit
3 Horwath, R. (2024). Deep Dive: The proven method for building strategy, focusing your resources, and taking smart action. Greenleaf Book Press.
4 Pearl, J. (2018). The book of why: The new science of cause and effect. Basic Books.
5 Atkinson, L., & Collins, B. (Spring 2024). Using evaluative thinking to achieve better results. Strategy Magazine (39), 8-11.

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