Strategic Management Essays - Strategic Management, Management

Strategic Management What is Strategic Management? Strategic planning is a process to provide direction and meaning to day-to-day activities. It examines an organization's values, current status, and environment, and relates those factors to the organization's desired future state, usually expressed in five- to ten-year time periods. The organization may be a program, school, school district, public or private agency, or any other institution that wishes to control its future. If the organization existed in a static environment in which no change was necessary or desired, there would be no need for strategic planning. But, our environment is changing -demographically, economically, and culturally. Thus, strategic planning is both a reaction to, and a tool for adapting to, those changes and creating an organization's future within the context of change. McCune describes strategic planning as a process for organizational renewal and transformation. She identifies another difference between long-range planning and strategic planning: in long-range planning, goals and projections are based on the assumption of organizational stability, while in strategic planning; the role of the organization is examined within the context of its environment. Strategic planning provides the means for an organization to adapt its services and activities to meet changing needs in its environment. It provides a framework not only for the improvement of programs but also for the restructuring of programs, management, and collaborations, and for evaluation of the organization's progress in these efforts. (1) What Does It Involve? As a process, strategic planning involves an orderly sequence of activities, each vital to the success of the whole. Strategic planning activities include: 1. Assessing the external environment. 2. Assessing internal capacity. 3. Developing goals and objectives. 4. Implementing the plan. 5. Measuring progress and revising the plan.(1) The planning process depends on a formal information system. The external and internal assessments provide a reality base on which to build future plans. The vision or mission identifies the organization's purpose and its desired future state. The process of internal assessment and future visioning may uncover, with in an organization, differing views of its purpose, its current level of effective ness, and its potential for the future. Thus, consensus building may be an important element of these phases. Once consensus is reached, the practical steps necessary for reaching that future state over a given period of time - the goals and objectives of the organization can be identified and actualized in the implementation phase. Evaluation and revision occur at the end of the planning cycle, but may occur at any stage with in the planning process. Why Do It? In the simplest terms, a strategic plan can help improve performance. School staff or members of any organization, can become so bogged down in routine functioning and daily challenges, they can lose sight of the organization's purpose. A strategic plan cannot only refocus members' sense of purpose, but can stimulate future-oriented thinking based on a shared sense of mission. Collaboration between members of an organization is more effective when everyone is working with in the same set of assumptions and toward the same goals. Today's educational system must cope with changes in demographics, family patterns, and workplace requirements. Many of these changes provide interrelated challenges to the system. Viewing them as a web of problems may be overwhelming; putting them in the perspective of an organized strategic plan allows the organization to deal with them in a coordinated way, addressing pieces of the problems as part of a progression toward a total solution.(3) This allows the organization to influence its environment and take control of its future, rather than reacting to it. Strategic planning is not an appropriate activity for every organization at all times. When an organization is in crisis, when its very existence is in question, the crisis must be addressed before any other activity is initiated. Strategic planning makes no sense when the organization's future is in doubt. Developing goals and objectives. Who, what, when, where, why, and how is not only the mantra of journalists, it is also the guideline for developing goals and objectives. And, the future vision of the organization- the why- is the guiding force in their development.(1) Specific goals, what is to be achieved, are identified to help move the organization from its current