Although private industry has been decentralizing for the past decade, community colleges have been slow to follow. For those colleges that have decentralized, traditional structured planning methodologies do not apply. The focus of strategic planning efforts at decentralized institutions is on the development of strategic themes to which individuals, empowered to use their own creativity, respond. While a formal model for planning in a decentralized institution would inhibit change and be counterproductive, the following ideas can be taken into consideration: (1) an institution must analyze its own identity and functions, rather than rely too heavily on ideas from the corporate sector; (2) routine processes ought to be re-engineered only when appropriate; (3) institutions must buy into the notion of wide-scale collaboration; (4) evolution is normal and is the outcome of decentralized strategic planning; (5) college members must be willing to yield to broader concerns even as they recognize that institutional interests sometimes conflict with their own; (6) an ongoing planning process is desirable and necessary; (7) there must be a large and widely shared information base; (8) planners should avoid limiting recommendations based on perceptions of the resources likely to become available; and (9) barriers within the existing structure should be razed and leveled. Since 1989, Virginia's Blue Ridge Community College has experimented with a decentralized approach, and the first decentralized strategic plan was published in 1991. Although application of the plan has been uneven, the college community has supported the plan and has been optimistic. (Contains 14 references.) (KP)