The Strategies

In this chapter we evaluate strategic planning considering its tangible and intangible effects. Our purpose is to offer a framework to examine why were the strategic plans made and what was – if any – their transformative impact on development strategies and governance models at the urban-regional level. In particular, we focus on two strategic plans that were respectively carried out in Bari and Taranto sub-regions following the Italian Government’s decision to fund strategic planning in order to promote a sustainable and competitive development in city-regions in Southern Italy. The strategic planning initiative in the Bari sub-region involved 31 municipalities out of 41 of the Bari Province; in the case of Taranto 28 municipalities of the Taranto Province voluntarily adhered to the strategic planning process. In both cases the strategic planning process attempted to think collectively in order to prepare the strategic plan. Our evaluation shows how dilemmatic it is to balance between tangible and intangible impacts in a strategic planning process in urban regions in Southern Italy with its history of political patronage, vested interests, and other institutional shortcomings. To conclude, our chapter discusses some lessons that could be learnt for future efforts in strategic planning.

This article describes the strategic planning process used to define the health care needs of a region and to prepare Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) to meet the needs of the 21st century. It presents key applications of continuous quality improvement in the development and implementation of the strategic plans for HFHS; explains how HFHS adapted the Deming/Shewhart cycle of continuous improvement for the purpose of improving its planning process; and delineates how the strategic planning, financial planning, and quality planning processes have been integrated.

Kathryn Alexander is manager for Strategy & Business Development at Sutter Health in Sacramento, California.

This research project will be a case study of the strategic planning process. More specifically, the project will "pattern match" (Yin, 1989) the actual strategic planning process of a non-profit organization, Seniors Helping Others, with the theoretical framework outlined by Backoff and Nutt in A Process for Strategic Management with Specific Application for the Nonprofit Organization (1988). The project will be presented in the following chapters: Chapter 1 - Literature Review: This chapter will describe the existing literature on the strategic planning process, beginning with the definitions of strategic planning and proceeding to the future of this technique. The chapter concludes with a formulation of this project and how the project is justified in the context of the current literature. Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework: This chapter will focus on a theoretical framework of strategic planning that is used to assess this project. Most of this chapter will be a detailed description of each step of the selected model, as well as a discussion on some of the planning techniques used in the process. In addition there will be a brief explanation of why this model was selected rather than other strategic planning models outlined previously in Chapter 1. Chapter 3 - Case Example: This chapter will examine the strategic planning process as experienced by the case-study, a non-profit organization. The chapter will begin with a description of the case-study, a nonprofit organization; its mission, goals and objectives; its clients; and its programs. The organizations rationale for undertaking the strategic planning process will next be discussed. Last, this chapter will detail the process that the organization undertook beginning with the decision to formulate a strategic plan through the completion of the process. Chapter 4 - Findings and Conclusions: This chapter will combine the findings of the case study example with the theoretical framework outlined by Backoff and Nutt (1988) and discussed in Chapter 2. The purpose of this is to assess how well the actual events fit the selected strategic planning model. The comparison between the case study example and the theoretical framework will be accomplished by employing a technique called pattern matching. The first part of this chapter will attempt to match Senior Helping Other's (SHO) process against the selected theoretical framework specifically looking for areas where SHO did not follow the model. The next section will address the issues that SHO encountered during the process that were not

Best planning day ever, green, fun, play, flexible ... are terms not usually associated with strategic planning. At the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), plans to open a new library building in 2016 have ignited discussions about the library of the future, its meaning and role in a digital world, and the implications of further rapid changes. The Library's strategic planning process in 2010 was an opportunity to take the collective energy further by involving library staff in the strategic thinking and planning. The process aimed to provide conditions for open conversation through Gadamerian play, and creative modelling based on ideas of revealing and imagineering. The planning started with a playful engagement to generate ideas and promote divergent thinking, and moved through several stages of increasingly convergent thinking to arrive at strategic actions, which were created and supported by all participants. The formal goals of strategic planning were maintained throughout the process and resulted in a client-focused annual plan. This article considers issues of organizational creativity and strategic planning, and relates them to experiences with the strategic planning at the UTS Library. It argues for a systematic approach to fostering creativity and innovation in libraries.

A critical review on current practices of the monitoring and evaluation in the preparation of strategic urban plans within the Egyptian context

The research described in this paper assembles a set of tools on the basis of experiences and best practices in a diverse set of states for linking strategic goals to resource allocation and implementation decisions using aspects of asset management. A survey of practices in each of the state DOTs explored documents and synthesized both strategic planning processes and asset management. With input from an expert advisory panel, five states were the subjects of detailed analysis: Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, and Pennsylvania. Each of the states was visited by a project team that spent 2 days on-site. Information on the strategic planning and asset management process was obtained through personal interviews with DOT officials and the acquisition of materials describing these processes. Based on detailed documentation of the practices in each of these states, a synthesis of best practices of the linkage between asset management and strategic planning was developed. The resulting model process does not represent any particular state, but incorporates elements from all five states. This synthesis can provide useful guidance to states interested in augmenting their existing processes.

The strategic planning process is dynamic and complex. Including a Group Support System (GSS) in the problem-solving process can improve the content quality of the strategic plan by allowing increased participation by more members of the organization. However, it can also add to the complexity of the problem by increasing the quantity of textual information that can result from group activity. Added complexity increases cognitive overload and frustrations of those participants negotiating the contents of the strategic plan. This article takes a multi-agent view of the strategic planning process. It considers group participants as multiple agents concerned with the content quality of the strategic plan. The facilitator agent is responsible for guiding groups in the strategic plan construction process as well as for solving process problems such as cognitive overload. We introduce an AI Concept Categorizer agent, a software tool that supports the facilitator in addressing the process problem of cognitive overload associated with convergent group activities by synthesizing group textual output into conceptual clusters. The implementation of this tool reduces frustrations which groups encounter in the process of classifying textual output and provides more time for discussion of the concepts themselves. Because of the large amount of convergent activity necessary for strategic planning, the addition of the AI Concept Categorizer to the strategic planning process should increase the quality of the strategic plan and the buy-in of the participants in the strategic planning process.

This paper explores whether the relationships among different dimensions of strategic planning outcomes are moderated by the predominant participation of top via middle managers in the strategic planning process. Drawing on survey data from 164 large firms, we use structural equation modeling to examine the relationships among four outcome variables. We provide support for three major findings. First, the Strategically Aligned Behavior of middle and lower managers is positively associated with both successful strategy implementation and the effectiveness of strategic planning, while the former is also positively related with the latter. These relationships are robust to accounting for the extent of participation by top or middle managers in the strategic planning process. Second, having top managers play a predominant role the strategic planning process fosters the positive relationship between successful strategy implementation and Organizational Performance. Third, having middle managers play a dominant role in the strategic planning process supports the significantly positive effect of Strategic Planning Effectiveness on Organizational Performance. Overall, we conclude that improvements in Organizational Performance result from the choice of participation of top and/or middle management in the strategy process.

Corporate Strategy, Planning and Performance Evaluation: A Survey of Literature Ilori David Babafemi Abstract In recent years, corporate organizations are increasingly paying attention to strategic planning in an attempt to establish the relationship between strategic planning and firm’s performance. This paper reviews the literature on strategic planning and performance evaluation, and summarises the key elements of planning in large organisations. These elements include the top-down communication of corporate vision, goals and core values. In this paper, based on a survey of literature, it has been established that effective strategic planning indeed has a positive impact on performance. Although formal planning only will not bring about better performance, effective implementation will suffice. The paper concludes that strategic planning is vital for ensuring continued good corporate performance and only those organizations that practice some form of strategic planning will survive. It recommends that the process of strategic planning should be given its deserved attention in terms of all the prescribed steps within the existing literature. Management should focus on the strategic issues, on the important issues facing the business as a whole, including where it is headed and what it will or should become. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jmpp.v3n1a6

The strategic planning of urban construction is an important component of the national development strategies.The engineering studies of the national development strategies should also take the strategic urban planning as a very important research area.In this paper, from the perspectives of engineering studies in the trends of "the empirical turn", through an analysis of the contradiction and conflict between theory and reality in urban planning in China, and through a reflection of the evolution of the western urban planning theory, the author tries to explore the new horizon of the urban construction strategic planning ideas.

The study was aimed to describe the need for management information systems on strategic planning processes in organizational growth in the health service sector. Health service organizations operate in constantly changing environment. To survive, organizations must respond and adjust to the social, economic, and political environmental changes that occur. Unfortunately, in most organizations especially in the service sector, strategic plans are not carried out and implemented properly due to lack of appreciation and knowledge of the relevance of strategic planning on organizational growth. Management Information Systems (MIS) is the key factor to facilitate and attain efficient decision making in an organization. This study explores the extent to which management information systems implemented make successful strategic planning process. The study examined whether the Libyan service organizations use Management Information Systems strategic planning purposes. The research adapted the quantitative research design to examine two research questions. The data were obtained from policy documents and mission statements, annual reports, minutes or meetings, codes of conduct, and any published journals and books. The results show that MIS was used to enhance strategic planning process in Libyan service organizations. However, it did not have very significant effect on the strategic planning process due to the lack of human resources and competence in information system, inadequacies of the capital components, organizational constraints on labor availability, stakeholder involvement, and government policy.

Community-level strategic planning for chronic disease prevention. To share the outcomes of the strategic planning process used by Mississippi Delta stakeholders to prevent and reduce the negative impacts of chronic disease in their communities. A key component of strategic planning was participants' use of the Prevention Impacts Simulation Model (PRISM) to project the reduction, compared with the status quo, in deaths and costs from implementing interventions in Mississippi Delta communities. Participants in Mississippi Delta strategic planning meetings used PRISM, a user-friendly, evidence-based simulation tool that includes 22 categories of policy, systems, and environmental change interventions, to pose what-if questions that explore the likely short- and long-term effects of an intervention or any desired combination of the 22 categories of chronic disease intervention programs and policies captured in PRISM. These categories address smoking, air pollution, poor nutrition, and lack of physical activity. Strategic planning participants used PRISM outputs to inform their decisions and actions to implement interventions. Rural communities in the Mississippi Delta. A diverse group of 29 to 34 local chronic disease prevention stakeholders, known as the Mississippi Delta Strategic Alliance. Community plans and actions that were developed and implemented as a result of local strategic planning. Existing strategic planning efforts were complemented by the use of PRISM. The Mississippi Delta Strategic Alliance decided to implement new interventions to improve air quality and transportation and to expand existing interventions to reduce tobacco use and increase access to healthy foods. They also collaborated with the Department of Transportation to raise awareness and use of the current transportation network. The Mississippi Delta Strategic Alliance strategic planning process was complemented by the use of PRISM as a tool for strategic planning, which led to the implementation of new and strengthened chronic disease prevention interventions and policies in the Mississippi Delta.

Although the purpose of strategic planning is straightforward - to outline where an organization wants to go and how it’s going to get there - its nature is complex and dynamic. Two techniques, the critical success factor (CSF) method and future scenario planning, can augment strategic planning efforts by illuminating an organization’s present situation and potential future. This paper explores the value of enhancing typical strategic planning techniques with the CSF method and presents an integrated framework for helping organizations understand the broad range of interrelated elements that influence strategy development for Information Technology (IT). Critical success factors are defined as the handful of key areas where an organization must perform well on a consistent basis to achieve its mission. CSFs can be derived through a document review, analysis of the goals, objectives of key management personnel and interviews with individuals about their specific domain and the barriers they encounter in achieving their goals and objectives. The paper synthesizes documented theory and research in strategic planning and CSFs and provides insights and lessons regarding the value and limitations of the integrated strategic planning framework in the context of IT. Through a method of in-depth literature review and contextual analysis, the paper incorporates suggestions for future work which include: exploring the use of IT in unit-level planning and organizational strategic planning, creating an integrated strategic planning process and connecting CSFs directly to one another in the monitoring stages to support the integrated framework, for an holistic strategic planning process.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of strategic planning as a sustainable tool for regulating both the protection and development of historic urban landscapes, as well as developing an adequate and effective strategic model and management instruments for implementation. The role and importance of strategic planning are examined in the context of global transformative actions in the urban governance of community and private sector engagement and sustainable development on the local level. We argue that a specific—tailor-made—integrated strategic urban planning approach could be a useful model, both for development and urban regeneration and for the preservation of protected valuable historic urban landscapes, thus contributing to a sustainable urban revival of wider surrounding territories including cultural, social and economic development. We stand on the position that the sustainable approach to the protection and revitalization of the historic urban landscapes has to be in line with the acknowledgment of specific local community values, contemporary needs, their involvement, and, eventually, their satisfaction. The case study method was based on the example of a protected historic center of Novi Pazar in Serbia to test the possibilities of applying strategic planning model and management for the implementation tailored to the local context. Eventually, the scenario method was applied to test the possibilities of a simulation of the strategic planning model and management instruments for a protected historic center. We found that the appropriate combination and utilization of regulatory, economic and informational management instruments have to be in place in the specific context. We conclude and draw out theoretical and practical remarks from our research that integrated strategic urban planning model should consider the logic and the functioning of the competitive real estate markets, and the sustainable environmental, economic and social effects, potentials and benefits for the locality where they originate, in order to be utilized as the new generative value both for the protection and for the revival of historic city centers. The paper develops a conceptual strategic planning and management model for the regeneration of historic urban landscapes that capture the physical, environmental, economic, and social effects and indicators of a given space. Based on this input, an adequate initial stage of the conceptual strategy by the authors of the paper was developed for the regeneration of the historic urban city center.