[...]... possible of the planners and other professionals who had taken part in our experiment in application 3 years earlier, in order to discover what influence, if any, the experience had had on the organisations and individuals taking part At that stage, it appeared that the impact on individuals had been generally more substantial than that on organisations But the extent of that impact was both variable and elusive;... Jessop’s and John Friend s seminal work Local Government and Strategic Choice appeared in 1969, I was teaching in the Department of Town and Country Planning at the University of Sydney I was so impressed that I reviewed it for the then Journal of the Australian Institute of Planners, and it has had a marked influence on my work since I had the profit and pleasure of spending a sabbatical year with John... load of drafting and co-ordination has fallen on one of us, Friend, as and when pauses in the pressures to maintain a continuing flow of project work have allowed Yet the endeavour has been a joint one, which neither of us could have brought to fruition without the other For Hickling s immersion over this period in practical applications of the strategic choice approach provided an all-important base... it as a specialist function associated with the preparation of particular sorts of plans At the same time, it allows planning to be seen as a craft, full of subtlety and challenge; a craft through which people can develop their capacity to think and act creatively in coping with the complexities and uncertainties that beset them in practice ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXTS OF STRATEGIC CHOICE This relatively... managers, planners and policy-makers have now become exposed to the strategic choice approach; and there are hundreds of these who have played a part alongside us in its development There have been many interim publications too; some of them reporting on particular research and application projects, others emanating from training programmes designed to introduce the essentials of the approach to prospective... general Orientations and shifts of attitude which are central to this approach; Chapter 9 discusses the Practicalities of applying the approach in practice, based on cumulative experience over more than 30 years Both Chapters 4 and 9 are organised with reference to a general view of four complementary aspects through which any approach to planning can be described and compared to others These four aspects,... out the short exercises which appear at the end of Chapters 2 and 3 If you are interested in a clearer understanding of the challenges of applying the approach in practice, you can then skim through Chapter 9; and, if you are interested in using the computer as a tool, you can then browse through Chapter 10 xxii A quick access guide For a more thorough appreciation of how you can apply the approach, ... in Planning at the University of Amsterdam, has persistently sought to encourage development of the comparatively neglected academic perspectives of the strategic choice approach, and the study of its relatedness to other bodies of planning theory Others who have contributed to the development of the approach over the years include many past and present members of IOR and Tavistock Institute staff... the search for a theory and a practice of responsible scheming that the strategic choice view of planning can be said to be addressed It is, however, one thing for an individual to embrace a philosophy of planning as strategic choice; and quite another thing for a group of people working together to share such a philosophy as an unequivocal foundation for their work Experience has shown that there are... decision-makers and decisiontakers The way strategic choice is used in teaching depends on the educational environment In the example cited above, the students were in the third year of an undergraduate course: But ideally the students should be introduced to the concepts of strategic choice in the first year, and the approach built up throughout the course Finally, I believe the stage of development of strategic . practical applications of the strategic choice approach provided an all-important base of experience against which to judge the realism of the advice we wished to offer and the most practical. sabbatical leave from the University of Sydney in Australia. As a professional planner, he readily agreed to make it his task to visit as many as possible of the planners and other professionals. stage, it appeared that the impact on individuals had been generally more substantial than that on organisations. But the extent of that impact was both variable and elusive; and if dissemination