Strategic planning

-developed in late 1950s and early 1960s

-defined as "a disciplined effort to produce decisions and actions that help shape
an
organization.
-concentrates on "optimal strategy decisions"
-involves an attempt to formalize a rational approach to decision making

Steps of strategic planning

1. Identify the mission of the organization
2. Establish goals to be achieved
3. Assess organization's environment
4. Develop objectives to attain your goals
5. Devise plans to achieve objectives
6. Agree on timetable for implementation
7. Create info system to monitor and evaluate progress

Decision making process is often defined by levels of "cooperation" or "conflict"

that accompany the decision.

If strategic plans are intended to reflect current and future conditions, then,
logically, they must be updated to reflect environmental changes. Some say that the
best
way to make strategic plans is to change how they are developed.

Strategic management
-developed in the 1980s
-replaces strategic planning in the process
-concentrates on "strategic results"
-more political in nature
-primary goal is "to link the planning process to the management process through
environmental scanning and stakeholder analysis"

Steps of strategic management

1. Depict org's historical context in terms of trends in its environment, overall
direction, and normative ideas
2. assess imediate situation in terms of current strengths and weaknesses, and
future
opportunities and threats
3. Develop agenda of current strategic issues to be managed
4. Design strategic options to manage priotity issues
5. assess strategic optons in terms of stakeholders affectes and acquired resources
6. Implement strategies by mobilizing resources and managing stakeholders

Incrementalism
-"the science of muddling through", "successive-limited comparisonxs", "decision
making
in the margins"
-method of working by adding to a project using many small incremental changes
instead
of a few large jumps.

Features of Incrementalism
-goals are not isolated and determined before analysis, the means often affects the
ends
and vice versa
-decision makers ordinally consider those that differ marginally from existing
policy
-all consequences are not evaluated
-analysis is neverending, policy is remade endlessly

Mixed scanning
-incorporates both rational and incremental approaches

Garbage-can model
-"organized anarchy"
-assumes that problems, solutions and participants are disconnected and exist as
separate organizational streams
-denotes that decisions are made in three ways;oversight,avoidance, and resolution

Decision making tools

1. Quantitative aids
- Payoff matrix - displays choices and results for easier decision making
- Decision Tree - assign numerical values to decision-makers' preferences
2. Nonquantitative aid
- Delphi Technique - tool for forecasting future events
- The Scenario - an attempt to picture future events by means of written
narrative

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Program analysis
-compares alternatives in the light of their costs and consequences
-form of system analysis

Process of analysis
1. Define problem
2. State objective
3. Identify constraints
4. Identify alternatives to attain objective
5. Create selection criteria for choosing among alternatives
6. Choose best alternative according to criteria
7. Implement selected alternative
8. Evaluate result; provide feedback if neccessary

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Staffing factor
-financing that converts outstanding invoices into immediate cash

Calculating staffing factor

Step 1. Solve for E

E = P - A

E = number of effective hours worked by average employee

P = number of paid hours per employee per year
A = number of hours of paid absences of employee per year

Step 2. Solve staffing factor using acquired E

Hours per year of operation

Staffing factor = -----------------------------
E

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Geographic and Management Information Systems: Friends of analysis

Graphic Information Systems

-a computerized mapping system that aids spatial analysis

Geographic Information Technology

-includes three forms of technology
- Geographic information system (GIS)
- Global positioning system (GPS)
- Remote sensing - remote semsing is a method of obtaning data of an
environment
or object using a sensor which is not incontact with that
environment or object

Management Inforation Systems

-tool for internal decision making and control

Interoperability
-the ability of systems to share information and work together
-benefits are
- effectiveness
- efficiency
- responsiveness

Contribution and Limitations of analysis

-Commitment from top management is crucial
-Financial support is needed
-organization must prominently be involved with the project if consultants are used
-Selection and definition of problem are extremely important
-Projects that are narrowly defined are morelikely to be successful
-The availability of data over time is always a problem
-Conflict between analyst's concern for complete stud and decision maker's need
for immediate results is inevitable