To be effective, an organizations strategic plans should focus on goals that are Quizlet

Strategy

A plan of action for accomplishing an organization's long-range goals.

Key point: long-term or long-range goals.

Strategic Planning

Process of setting goals and designing a path toward organizational success.

Strategic Management

System of actions that leaders take to drive an organization toward its goals and objectives.

Key point: the action of leaders

Strategic Planning and Management Process

1-Formulation: gather and analyze internal and external information to determine the organizations current position, capabilities, opportunities, and constraints.

2-Development: of strategic goals and tactics to form the strategic plan.

3-Implementation: of tactics, or the process of strategic management.

4-Evaluation: of the results, both at designed intervals and continually to determine effectiveness and make changes.

Strategy: Success Factors

1-Alignment of effort: across all business units to maintain organizational focus.

2-Control of drift: strategic drift is a phenomenon in which an organization fails to recognize and respond to changes in its environment that necessitate strategic change.

3-Focus on core competencies: the organization's unique advantages.

HR Strategy: Pivotal Talent Pools

Employees whose skills are critical to the organization's strategy; HR's key value to the value chain and organizational strategy is its ability to acquire, manage, and develop these employees.

HR Strategy: Statement

HR should develop its own strategic statement that supports the organization's mission:

1-Use the organization's high level goals to generate relevant, functional-level goals with specific initiatives.
2-Use value drivers to define the actions, processes, or results needed to deliver the desired value.
3-Objectives should be short-term and time-based.

Creates a "line of sight" from the organization's strategic goals to the HR department goals.

HR Strategy: Allocation of Resources

HR budget has 2 parts:

1-Operational budget: for ongoing activities directly related to staffing and HR services for internal customers: talent acquisition, L&D, comp and benefits, employee labor relations, health/safety/security, IT, planning, and philanthropy.

2-Strategic budget: for projects that align with the organization's strategic goals. One-time strategic initiatives are requested separately.

HR Strategy: Analyze and Understand Stakeholders

1-Customers: employees, functional managers, senior leaders, board of directors.

2-Suppliers: staffing agencies, vendors for benefits and IT.

3-Communities, Institutions, Government Agencies: legal and regulatory bodies, educational institutions, etc.

Systems Thinking

Process for understanding how seemingly independent units within a larger entity interact with and influence one another.

Organization's are composed of interacting and sometimes interdependent parts to create a dynamic internal environment. A change in one part of the organization affects the other parts.

Systems Theory

Breaks down an organization into two parts:

1-Internal Environment: Interacting parts, differentiated by the roles they play in the system and their unique challenges, values, and processes; also known as the differentiation of units.

2- External Environment: Separate systems that exert their own influence over the organization. This can be governments, laws, society, culture, or economics.

Challenge in strategic planning and management is to coordinate these parts to achieve goals.

Input-Process-Output Model

Used to analyze actions when planning and implementing strategy.

Based on:

-Inputs: internal and external constraints.
-Process: methods to maximize the ability to manage constraints.
-Outputs: the desired strategic effect.

Environmental Scanning

Process that involves a systematic survey and interpretation of relevant data to identify external opportunities and threats and to assess how these factors affect the organization currently and how they are likely to affect the organization in the future.

In other words, a process of systematically surveying and gathering data from internal and external sources.

PESTLE analysis

Tool used to search for (external) environmental forces, organized under these categories:

P-Political
E-Economic
S-Social
T-Technological
L-Legal
E-Environment

HR example: used in talent acquisition to look at external factors in recruiting.

SWOT analysis

Method for assessment of an organization's strategic capabilities through use of the environmental scanning process, by which internal and external factors affecting achievement of organizational goals are identified and considered.

S-Internal Strengths
W-Internal Weaknesses
O-External Opportunities
T-External Threats

Internal Strengths and Weaknesses can be leveraged.

External Opportunities and Threats are problems to solve; harder to control.

Growth Share Matrix

Matrix tool used by larger organizations to find where the greatest value in their organization lies.

Considers:
1- Market share
2-Market growth rate

4 Quadrants:
1-Star: The business line is growing and has dominant market share.
2-Cash Cow: The business line is static but has dominant market share.
3-Question Mark: The future is unclear; the business line could win or lose.
4-Dogs: The business line consumes resources without strong growth or market share.

Scenario Analysis

Comparing the impact of environmental changes on the organization's outputs.

HR Example: Examine the effect of changes to the applicant pool of new college graduates. What happens if you have 25-50% fewer applications? How would this impact recruitment costs, salaries, or unfilled positions?

Environmental Awareness: HR Tips

1-Read the business press: including international publications, such as "The Economist".

2-Stay current on academic HR research.

3-Review the organization's financial reports and strategic goals for the story they tell.

4-Monitor performance of other organizations, including competitors and large, local employers.

5-Use third-party information from government agencies, international bodies (like the United Nations), and professional associations (like SHRM).

6-Scan annual reports from comparable organizations.

Mission Statement

Concise outline of an organization's strategy, specifying the activities it intends to pursue and the course its management has charted for the future.

Describes what the organization does; communicates a sense of purpose and priorities.

Vision Statement

Description of what an organization hopes to attain and accomplish in the future, which guides it toward that defined direction.

Guiding image of the organization's desired future; what the organization hopes to attain through its strategy.

Designed to inspire and motivate.

Organizational Values

Beliefs and principles defined by an organization to direct and govern its employees' behavior.

Value Drivers

Actions, processes, or results that are needed to deliver a desired value.

Balanced Scorecard

Performance management tool that depicts an organization's overall performance, as measured against goals, lagging indicators, and leading indicators.

Achieve balance in 3, key areas:

1- Financial and non financial indicator of success.

2-Internal and external customers (stakeholders) in the organization.

3-Leading and lagging performance indicators.

Leading Indicator

Type of metric describing an activity that can change future performance and predict success in the achievement of strategic goals.

One of the 3, key areas of a balance scorecard.

HR example: Employee satisfaction indicates future retention rates.

Lagging Indicator

Type of metric describing an activity or change in performance that has already occurred.

The activity has already occurred and cannot be changed; one of the 3, key areas of a balance scorecard.

HR example: Turnover rate.

Performance Objectives

Focuses on an organization achieving certain levels of performance related to their overall strategic goals.

7 Qualities of Effective Objectives: SMARTER

S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Attainable
R-Relevant
T-Time bound
E-Evaluated
R-Revised

Benchmarking

Process by which an organization identifies performance gaps and sets goals for performance improvement, by comparing its data, performance levels, and/or processes against those of other organizations.

Benchmarking Process: 5 Steps

1-Define key performance indicators (KPIs).

2-Measure current performance.

3-Identify performance gaps between the organization and the benchmark organization.

4-Identify appropriate benchmarks and secure their performance data.

5-Set objective and implement necessary support activities.

Strategic Fit

A state in which an organization's strategy is consistent with its external opportunities and circumstances and its internal structure, resources, and capabilities.

Per Michael Porter:
1-Organization's activities are consistent with the strategy.

2-They interact and reinforce each other.

3-They are optimized to reach the strategic goal; the organization is willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

Two Types of Strategy

1-Business Strategy: how the organization will create a competitive edge and define value to its customers.

2-Corporate Strategy: where the organization will compete; in what markets and industries.

Business Strategy: Creating a Competitive Advantage

Two ways:

1- External changes: reacting swiftly to external factors, such as economic changes, customer demands and changing tastes, and market or industry changes.

2- Internal changes: innovate or create change; could be technological, discovering an unmet customer need, implementing new processes or a new business model.

Competitive Advantage: Red Ocean, Blue Ocean

Red Ocean: conventional innovation by competing in the existing marketplace through differentiation or lower costs.

Blue Ocean: creating a completely new arena within an existing industry. "Unknown market space, untainted by competition."

Porter's Competitive Strategies

1-Cost Leadership: capturing market share within the organization's industry with the lowest price. Examples: Wal-Mart and IKEA.

2-Differentiation: changing a higher price by offering something different or offering the same product or service in a different way; requires savvy marketing.

Corporate Strategy: Where We Compete

1-Horizontal growth: expand within the organization's industry.

2-Acquisition of competitors or similar businesses in new regions.

3-Global expansion: becoming a global enterprise.

4-Diversify into different industries.

Growth Strategy Options

List includes:
1-Strategic alliance
2-Joint venture
3-Equity partnership
4-Merger/Acquisition
5-Franchising
6-Licensing
7-Contract manufacturing
8-Management Contract
9-Turnkey Operation
10-Greenfield Operation
11-Brownfield Operation

Note: See page 46 in People-Book 1 for more details.

Divestiture Strategies

Selective "pruning" of parts of the organization that are underperforming or no longer in line with the organization's strategy.

For HR, the major challenge is retaining key talent during and after the process.

Communicating Strategy: 5 Elements

1-Communication outward to the entire team.

2-Communication inward to leaders.

3-Leadership support of decisions made by subordinates.

4-Free flow of information across organizational boundaries.

5-Enough information to allow team members to connect their work the the strategy.

Implementation of Strategy: Project Management Stages

Three stages: planning, executing, and closing.

Project Management Stage 1: Planning

1-Work with stakeholders to define strategically aligned project objectives.

2-Define the project's deliverables, which in turn leads to developing the project's budget.

3-Create a project schedule: may include a critical path analysis, showing the relationships between start dates, length of tasks, etc.

4-Assemble a team.

Project Management Stage 2: Executing

Meeting objectives of schedule, budget, and quality.

1-Establish and maintain channels of communication with the project team and stakeholders.

2-Provide leadership: keep the team focus.

3-Clear away obstacles to progress.

4-Manage internal and external stakeholders and their expectations.

5-Monitor and control the progress of the project; milestones towards goals, using variance analysis of actual vs. planned.

Project Management Stage 3: Closing

Assess projects at completion to determine whether the project yielded the desired results; part of the organization's learning process.

Method: team debriefing sessions.

Should be done even if the project is cancelled before reaching its objectives.

Lean Project Management

Focuses on eliminating waste by maintain a tight focus on intended value.

Six Sigma Project Management

Derives from quality principles. "Six Sigma" is a level of quality so high that few errors occur. Based on quantifiable return of value.

Agile Project Management

Used when project assumptions are unclear or may evolve as the project progresses.

Critical Chain Project Management

Used when resources cannot be increased to meet deadlines. Buffers are put in place to account for resource restrictions.

Evaluating Strategic Results

Measurement of outcomes is sound strategic management.

1-Demonstrates good governance of resources.
2-Allows for improvement of strategies and increasing knowledge and skills.

Evaluation occurs at all stages of strategic management.

Communicating Strategic Results

1-Use the information efficiently and effectively: quantity of data can overwhelm and the data should not drive the report.

2-Approach the results by presenting as a narrative supported by the data.

What is the goal of strategic management quizlet?

Strategic management involves: developing a strategic mission or vision, setting objectives, developing strategies to achieve the objectives, implementing the strategies, and evaluating the results.

What is true about strategic goals of an organization?

Strategic goals are important because they: Drive priority setting, resource allocation, capability requirements and budgeting activities. Inform individual and team objectives used to focus and align the efforts of all employees. Inform the marketing, operations, IT and human resources plans for the coming years.

What is the main focus of planning?

Planning is the function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives.

What type of plan involves making decisions about the organization's long

Strategic planning is a process in which an organization's leaders define their vision for the future and identify their organization's goals and objectives.