The ranking process provided clear insights into the priority that the participants attached to each of the 13 sub themes and about how do-able each sub theme was considered to be by the participants (see Table 3). Where the current process works, leave it alone and Let the users choose what works best for them were the only sub themes that were considered to be both of a high priority and highly do-able. Generally, the remaining sub themes were considered of high priority but low do-ability. One interesting result was that the two sub themes Reassessments should be done on a cyclical basis and Build support and cooperation of elected officials were ranked high priority by 74 percent of the participants, the largest percentage given to any of the sub themes, however, these same two items were considered highly do-able by only 26 percent and 21 percent respectively.

A majority of participants considered almost every finding from the workshop series as a high priority, thus validating the strength of the workshop findings, yet they also were somewhat skeptical as to the “do-ability” of almost all of the sub themes. Important issues were identified, but there is a major gap between the importance and the perceived feasibility of the actions they proposed. This gap reinforces the need for ORPS and local assessors to continue their dialog.

The findings from this ranking process lay a foundation for a set of action plans to investigate and pursue each of the sub themes. Six of the thirteen themes from the high priority list were selected by the participants as the focus for the development of action plans at the workshop. The six sub themes are the shaded rows in Table 3.

Participants were asked to craft a goal statement for each identified sub theme and a set of action steps to reach that goal. Resources required to implement the action plan and barriers to implementation were also identified. Finally, strategies for overcoming each barrier were discussed.

Many interesting discussions were held in the development of these plans. Three critical success factors emerged from these discussions: more effective communication, a commitment to collaboration, and clear concise guidelines. Each of these success factors is discussed below followed by the recommended action plans.

To aid the reader, an action plan process is presented in Figure 4. The figure illustrates that action plans must be developed with consideration of critical success factors, in the context of resources and barriers, and with a clear set of mechanisms for overcoming barriers. The launch point for each action plan is the goal statement that emerged from the workshop results.