Friday, July 30, 2010

Developing and Deploying Strategic Plans

Developing and Deploying Strategic Plans



Overview/Description

Successful organizations are founded on effectively developing and deploying strategic plans. Organizations must identify their primary goals and objectives based on their mission and vision statements. Other success factors include understanding market forces, internal strengths and weaknesses, stakeholders, relevant technology, and legal and regulatory factors. With these considerations, an organization's action plan can be developed and deployed, and its effectiveness evaluated. This course explores the concepts of strategic planning models, business environmental analysis, and strategic plan deployment. It is aligned with the Quality Management Division of the American Society for Quality’s Certification Handbook, and is designed to assist learners in preparation for the ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence certification exam.

Lesson Objectives:

  • Strategic Planning Models 
    •  identify the characteristics of a traditional strategic planning approach
    • recognize examples of the steps in the Hoshin planning model
    • identify what scenario planning is used for
    • identify descriptions of tools used to measure success against strategic goals

  • Business Environment Analysis 
    • recognize questions that should be asked at the various stages of SWOT analysis 
    • identify Porter's five forces that drive industry profitability 
    • identify some of the strategic implications of technology 
    • identify legal and regulatory factors affecting organizations 
    • sequence the steps in a stakeholder analysis framework 
    • recognize internal capability factors that should be considered in strategic planning

  •  Strategic Plan Deployment 
    • recognize the elements of an effective action plan 
    • identify the characteristics of tactics 
    • recognize examples of the main activities involved in successful resource allocation 
    • match each method of measuring performance to a description 
    • match key quality concepts to examples  
Applying the Five Forces Model to Your Business
  • Jockeying for position
    • Are there a small number of competitors in your industry?
    • Is there a clear leader in your market?
    • Is your market growing, stagnant, or shrinking? Threat of new entrants
  • Threat of new entrants
    • Do you have a unique process that has been protected?
    • Are there high start-up costs for your business?
    • Would it be difficult for a new entrant to have enough resources to compete efficiently?
  • Bargaining power of suppliers
    • Are there a large number of potential suppliers from which to choose?
    • Do your purchases from suppliers represent a large portion of their business?
    • Can you easily switch to products from other suppliers?
  • Bargaining power of customers
    • Do you have enough customers so that losing one isn't critical to your success?
    • Is your product differentiated from others on the market?
    • Is it difficult for customers to switch from your product to your competitors' products?
  • Threat of substitutes
    • Does your product compare favorably to possible substitutes? 
    • Is it costly for your customers to switch to another product?
    • Are customers loyal to existing products?

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Forming Effective Thinking Habits

Don Burch, one of the First Americans to climb several mountains in Russia, made it a habit to record important life experiences in what he called a learning log. He recorded details of both successes and failures. When he faced a tough problem, he would consult his log for inspiration.


  • view problems as opportunities
  • obtain a wide range of life experiences
  • learn from experience

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thinking Strategically


Understanding Strategic Managemen

  • recognize the importance of understanding strategic management 
  • match the key elements in business strategy to their strategic steps 
  • match corporate and competitive strategies to their examples 
  • identify the reasons why operational effectiveness alone is insufficient for organizational success 
  • match strategic positioning types to their examples 
  • match the five phases in the evolution of strategy development to their examples 
  • match each strategic management school of thought to its distinct characteristics 
  • identify examples of the steps of strategy formulation 

Strategic Thinking in Action 

  • recognize the benefits of strategic thinking 
  • recognize the insight-based approaches to strategic thinking 
  • match the five strategic thinking competencies to their examples 
  • match the competencies for transforming strategic thinking into action to their examples 
  • identify examples of questions used to define a strategic position 
  • identify examples of the steps used to prepare for strategic innovation 

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Leading and Motivating

(Core Concept)
The Challenge of Contemporary Leadership

Management Versus Leadership

Managing Leading
Planning and budgeting Setting a direction
Organizing and staffing Aligning people
Controlling and problem solving Motivating and inspiring

The Tensions Leaders Must Balance 

  • Encouraging collaboration without stifling the competitive urge
  • Facilitating group decision making without being indecisive
  • Fostering group participation without sacrificing the quality of the decisions.



Characteristics of Effective Leaders 


  • caring
  • comfortable with ambiguity
  • persistent
  • excellent communicators
  • politically astute
  • humorous
  • level-headed
  • self-aware enough to know how their own patterns of behavior impact others 
  • future-focused

Accepting the Assignment with Open Eyes 
Distinguishing the Challenges 
Crafting a Vision That Enlists Support 
Scouring the Terrain for Resources 
Keeping Your Staff and Allies Motivated 
The Personal Side of Leadership

(Steps)
Steps for Gathering Resources 
Steps for Formulating a Vision 
Steps for Creating Forward Momentum  

Course Matrix

Agile 110 89 71 14 5 10 2 19 7 3 330
Application Integration Architecture 94 92 68 40 2 4 2 2 1 - 305
Application Server - - - - - - - - - - 0
AutoVue 17 12 1 4 - 2 2 3 - - 41
Autovue - - 1 - - - - - - - 1
BEA 50 9 24 29 5 7 89 78 23 2 316
Cross-Applications 338 378 45 17 98 12 1 - 2 - 891
Database 518 175 36 812 75 44 470 273 205 36 2644
Development Tools 13 4 2 55 - 3 22 12 4 - 115
E-Business Suite 648 543 2636 989 61 247 428 387 72 10 6021
Empirix 5 - - 7 - - - - - - 12
Fusion 1 - - - - - 12 7 4 3 27
Goldengate - - - - - - 3 1 5 - 9
Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) 65 56 31 4 3 5 5 2 6 - 177
Haley - - - - - - - 3 - 1 4
Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management 196 80 99 22 4 9 80 48 15 1 554
Hyperion Performance Management - - - - - - - - - - 0
Industry Solutions 1514 644 249 108 29 19 62 116 8 12 2761
Interlace - 1 1 - - - - - - - 2
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 150 52 278 321 5 20 63 143 5 - 1037
JD Edwards World 8 4 65 84 - 1 - - 2 - 164
LogicalApps - - - - - - 4 - - - 4
Master Data Management 39 85 82 29 2 11 - - - - 248
Middleware 618 152 120 585 95 60 238 138 152 49 2207
Oracle Accelerate 11 80 1 2 11 9 - - - - 114
Oracle Beehive 10 1 - 1 - 3 - 1 - - 16
Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 68 45 9 21 6 19 - - - - 168
Oracle Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) 3 6 - - - - - - - - 9
Oracle Business Processes - - - - - - - - - - 0
Oracle CRM On Demand 151 44 126 47 5 7 5 3 1 - 389
Oracle Collaboration Suite 8 43 - 79 1 3 - - - - 134
Oracle Data Integrator 11 2 - 2 - - 7 5 - 1 28
Oracle Enterprise Manager 133 9 2 147 5 16 - - - - 312
Oracle Fusion Applications 30 7 503 - - - - - - - 540
Oracle Insight 1 4 - 1 - - - - - - 6
Oracle On Demand 71 21 1 11 1 - - - - - 105
Oracle Policy Automation 12 1 1 5 - 1 - - - - 20
Oracle Transportation Management (G-Log) 19 30 95 41 7 2 - - - - 194
Oracle VM 8 1 - - - 1 - - - - 10
PeopleSoft Enterprise 145 129 700 211 13 14 320 230 12 5 1779
Primavera 43 11 18 2 3 2 56 44 2 - 181
Public Sector (Industry) - - - - - - - - - - 0
Siebel 208 227 178 192 9 26 183 79 24 3 1129
Small to MidSize Businesses (SMB) - - - - - - - - - - 0
Social CRM 8 11 6 1 - - - - - - 26
Stellent/Content Server 15 3 1 15 - 6 7 3 1 1 52
Sun 164 22 887 393 1 1 279 54 39 14 1854
Technology Solutions 274 61 21 37 2 20 14 8 6 1 444
User Productivity Kit 10 25 19 1 2 6 8 7 - - 78
TOTAL 5787 3159 6377 4329 450 590 2362 1666 596 142 25458