Developing strategic planning in a special education service

Contends that, although strategic management and marketing techniques have been widely recognized as useful outside the profit‐making sector, strategic planning is one technique which does not appear to have been widely adopted. Reports the development of strategic plans in an educational service for the hearing‐impaired. Discusses the poor applicability of conventional (formalized, comprehensive, linear) planning techniques to the situation of the service and outlines the development of an alternative model, based on a more informal, holistic approach.