Frame Analysis

Cases For Study

1) Follow a story in a city newspaper (the Mankato Free Press is at http://mankato-freepress.com/ , the Minneapolis StarTribune is at http://www.startribune.com/ , and the St. Paul Pioneer Press is at http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-newsstand ) that involves issues of disagreement or conflict at the local/county/regional government level. You will probably want an issue to has received several stories over a period of time, in order to get enough detail:

a. Taking the position of one of the players, conduct a PRINCE analysis for achieving your aim.

b. Then, taking the position of one of the other players, design a breakthrough strategy for negotiating with the first player.

c. Finally, stepping back from the position of any one player, reframe the whole issue from the multiple viewpoints involved.

2) Read Alan Altshuler’s “The Intercity Freeway” in The City Planning Process (Cornell University Press, 1965):

a. Reframe the issues (following Bolman & Deal) from the muiltiple viewpoints involved.

b. Take two opposed positions and design a breakthrough strategy for one of the players.

c. Suppose the breakthrough strategy didn’t work! Reframe the issue to achieve your goal, now using PRINCE analysis.

3) Read “Inheriting a Staff and Building a New One” in Norman Krumholz & John Forester’s Making Equity Planning Work (Temple University Press, 1990)”

a. Suppose you were already on the staff in Cleveland when Krumholz came. Using one or more of the reframing techniques, develop a strategy to keep your job.

b. Put yourself in Krumholt’s shoes as he came into the planning director’s job in Cleveland. What was his reframing analysis? How many PRINCE analyses can you spot (and specify their elements)? Describe at least one “breakthrough negotiation” that he engineered.

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