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As social issues are becoming complex and challenging to solve, governments are increasingly seeking support of diverse planning groups when developing strategic plans. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on (1) the link between planning group composition and strategic plan design quality and (2) the potential inverted U-shaped relationship of planning group diversity in terms of its scope and size for achieving high-quality strategic plan design. To address these gaps in extant knowledge, we analysed 2005 − 2014 U.S. county governments’ strategic plans on homelessness to identify relationships between diversity in planning group size and scope and strategic plan quality. Our results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between planning group diversity and strategic plan design quality, suggesting that strategic plan design benefits from group diversity up to a certain level, after which it …