The purpose of this study was to identify the organizational factors that aided or hindered the successful introduction of comprehensive planning systems in four selected school districts and to use that knowledge to develop a conceptual model to guide school districts in the successful introduction of systematic planning. A major focus of the study was to determine the extent and nature of intersystem interaction within each district among the superintendent-policy making subsystem, the administrative-supervisory subsystem, and the teacher-nonsupervisory subsystem. Data were collected through examination of project documents, preinterview questionnaires, and structured interviews with 59 persons involved with the planning systems under study. The authors describe in turn the general characteristics of the most successful and least successful districts and summarize their findings on the districts' inputs, processes, motivation levels, and success perceptions. The second half of the paper describes the conceptual model developed by the authors for introducing comprehensive planning systems. (Author/JG)