External Scanning—A Tool for Planners

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Abstract
Public managers and planners inevitably face changing social, economic, political, and technological conditions. Accordingly, they need to be able to identify those issues and trends in the external environment that will affect their own organizations. External scanning is a tool that has been used in the corporate sector and more recently has been found in the public sector. This article is based on a review of the literature on external scanning; the authors' experience as researchers, consultants, and teachers; and a survey of 10 public-sector institutions that practice external scanning. The authors suggest a model for public-sector external scanning that uses in-house volunteers to carry out the classic functions of external scanning: scanning, analysis, and reporting.

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