Planning for the Unexpected

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September 2023

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Three Lessons in Resilience Planning from my September Garden

For those who garden in the mid-Atlantic, September brings the rich rewards of months of hard work. Soil tilled and weeded, plants and seeds carefully placed, seedlings watered and protected from nibbling critters...if all has gone to plan, September yields squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, figs, peaches, raspberries and melons...and pumpkins are plumping for October picking. Quite often in gardening the unexpected happens. Vacations coincide with drought, cukes tangle and climb the tomato cages, and blackberries - however coerced - sprawl in the wrong direction. This short season-long case study offers three takeaway lessons in resilience planning.

Plan for the unexpected. Determine the most likely events to happen and the most destructive events that could happen and focus your planning there. This is one of many strategies a FEMA employee told me they use for disaster planning, but it also works for gardening, capital facility planning, and first days of school. Preparing for the worst may bear tangible benefits but it also has a psychological aspect. If you know you are ready for the worst scenario imaginable, it brings strength, whether it happens or not. The strength comes from knowing you are prepared.

Know your priorities. If tomatoes are your favorite garden snack, put them in the best spot, and weed and water them first. Tend the other plants after you care for your number one. Articulating priorities helps identify where to allocate resources when the unexpected brings chaos. If you are part of a group, ask for their priorities, too, to be sure you address the whole community’s needs. In capital facility planning, knowing your community’s priorities determines the benchmark operations that community will use to gauge recovery from the unexpected. Understanding what is most important to restoring an okay feeling can contribute to resilience planning by telling you which elements to restore first when something goes wrong.

Planning doesn’t equal control. Storms will bring wind. Animals will chew. And sometimes, despite your best efforts, you might wind up with more jalapeños than tomatoes at harvest time. Planning does not offer an escape from all problems, but it does afford a set of parameters and a set of solutions, which will give you the ability to proceed forward. The path you take may not be the ideal, but you will still be making progress. This year I planted five tomato plants in the premier spot in my garden. They were caged and supported and pruned, tended and watched. As an afterthought, I dropped in a jalapeño plant someone gave me. Week by week I watched tiny tomato plants disappear to nibblers and drought while the jalapeño thrived. The result is the picture above - very few tomatoes, but piles and piles of jalapeños. The plan? We will make salsa picante, rather than salsa marinara.

The unexpected isn’t always negative. Spontaneous fun usually happens in unplanned spaces. Don’t out-plan the fun!

All the best, Meg

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A Year in Review

The past year has been incredibly productive! We've been working on the following significant efforts.

• Lead planner on the wrap-up of the statewide correctional master plan for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (work initiated with a prior employer) with Dewberry and CWP Architects.

• Specialty planner and client advisor for the re-design of a county juvenile system in flux with Capital Program Solutions.

• Specialty planner for a needs assessment and program for a forensic mental/behavioral health facility for incarcerated individuals adjacent to a detention facility with Capital Program Solutions.

• Dialogue TM facilitator and lead planner for a holistic African American Wellness Center with Rayaec, Capital Program Solutions, and The Dragonfly Group.

• Lead planner and client advisor for development of a non-profit aftercare facility in a high-need area of Baltimore City, together with the Wyneken Project.

• Planning firm/planner on the Master Plan for the Southeastern Correctional Institute (SCI) for the ODRC with Prime AE.

• Specialty planner for a jail needs assessment and master plan with Kitchell.

• Specialty planner for courts with Vanir.

In addition to project work, Trunk Branch Twig Bud was certified as a Maryland SBE/MBE and Meg completed an eight-month course in Dialogue TM, an ESRI MOOC (certificate course) on data visualization using GIS imagery and served as an adjudicator for the annual planning awards through the American Planning Association.

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What's Ahead?

See yourself in our future? Give a call or send an email and let's discuss how our highly customized planning services can help you advance your project.

Or look for us at one of these upcoming conferences:

• September 28-29 - Policy & Advocacy Conference, American Planning Association

• October 30 - November 2, 2023 - Your Organization Needs Dialogue! Academy of Professional Dialogue

• November 5-7, 2023 - Corrections Summit

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We're ready for another great year planning for a better future!

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