ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the profession has a strong need for strategies that can assist planners to play roles that are both efficacious and politically realistic. It examines several aspects of that context, each of which plays a major role in the Feedback Strategy. The chapter presents the trial balloon as an idea, or an action undertaken, for the express purpose of generating feedback. The trial balloon is a useful tool for the planner who wants his or her work to be both efficacious and politically feasible. The chapter also suggests that most planners do this regularly in any event; that is, they do have particular clients in mind as they set about formulating plans. The Feedback Strategy is grounded in some assumptions about the context in which planning occur; indeed, it makes the context a part of the strategy.
