Whether you’re an elected leader, a volunteer planning or zoning board member, or a professional public manager of a lean organization, you’re challenged by complex projects and limited staff resources to move projects forward.  Comprehensive plans and other larger planning projects often require the support of professional planners. Choosing the right consultant to help guide your project is perhaps the most critical step in the entire planning process, and the choice can ultimately determine the project’s outcome – and its success.

Independent of specific project needs, here are five elements to look for in a professional to ensure strong partner to your community:

• Direct experience with similar projects. As your guide leading the planning process, an individual with direct, practical experience from the field can better anticipate – and help your community avoid – pitfalls and threats.  They will have necessary knowledge and confidence that comes from having “been there” before.
• Recognition that the community is steering the ship. In planning, good leadership doesn’t equate with sole decision-making, nor does it follow a pre-determined path. It instead involves far more listening than speaking, and asking more questions than giving answers.  Good planning consultants help participants focus on key issues, then follow an exploratory journey through relevant  Their goal will be informed decision-making, by the community.  The best guide will allow a planning process to be organic, and not force an outcome they have in mind.
• Openness about the planning process. A confident and experienced planner will get a firm understanding of the priorities of community leadership, then be able to chart a clearly defined planning process.  Even if the project is to begin a study with unknown conclusions, a professional planner will be able to map out a process to reach them, and describe how they will adhere to it, including how they will maintain momentum and engage the public. They should also share the types of planning tools in their arsenal that they intend to use.  You should feel confident they’ve followed a similar process before – with success.
  
• A track record of meeting timelines and budgets. Don’t be afraid to ask for examples of past project budgets and their final costs, as well as former timelines and whether they were extended.   If there are disparities, ask why.  Sometimes paths can change direction – for very good reasons.  Many times, communities themselves switch gears, lengthening schedules or adding to a project’s scope.  Professional planners can adapt to changes – which is a good trait.   Being the source of change orders is not as good.
• Strong communication skills that make concepts clear to all. If the consultant you’re interviewing uses technical terms, jargon, or speaks at a level you find hard to follow, be concerned.  The best communicator makes tough concepts easy to understand, explaining how they relate to the community and its members.  If they talk like they care about the neighborhood, and they seem to understand the community well, that’s a signal that they will put things in local terms, and are strong and successful communicators.

The best planning consultants are those who are concerned about the project, but even more importantly about how it relates to the bigger picture for your community.  If they ask about long-term goals, how things have evolved to where they are today, and where your community is headed in the future, you might have found the perfect partner to help you throughout the longer, more beneficial journey.