Version Two: Decision making
By the start of the 1960s, many successful leaders were thinking about the operations of their organization in a more systemic or comprehensive manner. They engaged in a systematic process of relating information regarding budgets, human resources, technology, sales and marketing, research and development, and new product development. This process usually required establishment of a Management Information System (MIS) in the organization. These MIS systems proved to be quite valuable to many late 20th Century organizations, and often provided leaders with data that clearly aided the strategic planning process. This version of strategic planning proved to be of value not only because it enabled leaders to form a more comprehensive plan (that was not just based in finances), but also because it encouraged conversation and planning across departments, thus breaking down some of the isolation (“silo” mentality) that was building up among increasingly specialized operational units in many organization.
Version Three: Futures thinking
During the last two decades of the 20th Century, some organizational leaders began to recognize that the setting in which their organization operated was becoming increasingly complex, unpredictable and turbulent. They began to recognize the value of thinking about and perhaps even anticipating differing versions of the future with reference to their own organization’s strategic plans. They began to do contingency planning—fleshing out several different possible plans that would be responsive to several different changes in the setting of their organization. These leaders engaged in a systematic process of thinking about the future. They used accumulated and integrated management information (version two) when thinking about the future. These version three leaders kept asking “what if . . .” and “what are the chances that . . . “ They recognized that strategic planning concerns a future that will be even more complex, unpredictable and turbulent than current realities.
Version Four: Organization learning
During the first decade of the 21st Century, increasing emphasis was placed in many organizations on the processes of ongoing organizational learning. We must not only think about the future, we must also learn from the mistakes and (in an appreciative manner) the successes of our organization throughout its history. Leaders who are organizational learners engage in a formal, systematic process for the identification and use of management information. What they learn from this management information is made explicit, so that they might make a series of decisions that achieve explicit outcomes. This process incorporates all relevant domains of the organization and is responsive to future conditions that face the organization. While the world of the 21st Century is increasingly complex, unpredictable and turbulent, it also exhibits patterns that can be appreciated and used to leverage effective action. This fourth version requires that all three of the other versions are fully understood and incorporated in an integrative, learning-based model of strategic planning.
Planning for Planning
While there are several different ways in which strategic planning is defined and there are certain fundamental principles that underlie virtually any successful planning process that is engaged in a modern organization. I turn again to Henry Mintzberg and his analysis of successful and unsuccessful strategic planning projects in the identification of these keys.
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