Category: Strategic Planning

What Do You See?

Looking at this picture, what do you see? You may see a typical suburb.  Or a small town in flyover country.  Both answers would be correct! However, when we look at the picture we see: The commuting patterns that are impacted by zoning decisions The small business that is trying to get a building permit […]

Spencer Project Complete

On Monday (Jan 7, 2019) we presented the Spencer City Council (Spencer, Iowa) with a final draft of their Economic Development Strategic Work Plan.  The plan, developed in conjunction with the city’s Grow Spencer Commission, covers a range of economic development initiatives for the next five years.  Check out the plan. In accepting the final […]

Understanding How City Plans Fail

In my experience a City’s successful implementation of a plan depends greatly upon a their reaction to and investment in the actual elements of the plan.  For successful implementation to occur, a city must be mindful of the tendency for its performance to ‘default’ to status quo (generalization and avoidance), substitution (solving a less complex […]

Toyer Strategic Leads Forum in Spencer, Iowa

Toyer Strategic Consultant was in Spencer, Iowa yesterday continuing our work with the Grow Spencer Commission to create Spencer’s new economic development strategic plan.  The day concluded with a community forum where David Toyer made a presentation on the economic development planning process, the core planning components within the strategy, some of the targeted industries […]