Exam 7: Foundations of Planning

Amana Highway Collaborative (Scenario) The Regional Planning Council convened a group of stakeholders, including the Department of Transportation and the Department of Community Affairs, who are interested in working together on improving a major highway called Amana Highway. Firas is the senior planner for the Regional Planning Council. Firas successfully obtained a technical assistance grant. The intent is to organize the 15 small communities along Amana Highway into an intergovernmental unit. All of the communities will share the same visioning processes of mission, objectives, and tasks. Firas is now charged with developing a strategic plan for this group, called the Amana Highway Collaborative. -Firas told the Collaborative's members that the more current plans affect future commitments, the longer the time frame is for which managers must plan. This concept is also known as the ________.

Studies of actual MBO programs find mixed results in terms of its effects on overall employee performance and organizational productivity.

Planning involves defining the organization's goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals, and developing a comprehensive set of plans ________.

When managers emphasize one goal, they ________.

The conflict in stated goals exists because organizations respond to a variety of ________.

What is defined as a group of planning specialists whose sole responsibility is helping to write the various organizational plans?

In studies in which formal planning did not lead to higher performance, ________.

________ planning dominates managers' planning efforts at lower levels of the organization.

Directional plans ________.

Three contingency factors that affect planning are level in the organization, degree of environmental uncertainty, and ________.

Official statements of what an organization says and what it wants its various stakeholders to believe are referred to as ________.

A Business Plan (Scenario) Imagine that you are the owner of a small company that sells typewriters, business equipment, and computer hardware. You employ about 40 people. You know that the organization needs to move in a different direction, and you want to set some long-term goals for the company. You want to write a plan that will cover the next three years only, knowing that business needs change somewhat frequently. Your goal is to write a plan that provides direction but does not contain extremely well-defined, potentially restrictive objectives. -The fact that your plan covers three years suggests that your plan is most consistent with what type of plan?

Even without planning, departments and individuals always work together, allowing organizations to move efficiently toward their goals.

A-Z Planning (Scenario) Organizations ABC and XYZ are both in the same industry and compete for the same set of customers in the marketplace. At ABC, the plans are made at the top level of management each year and then are formulated for and announced to each of the mid-level and first-level managers. At XYZ, the plans are made at the top, and then those managers meet with their subordinates at the next level and mutually agreed-to goals are established with them. The mid-level managers then meet with their first-level managers and mutually agreed-to goals are established with them. Finally, the first-level managers meet with each of their employees and mutually agreed-to goals are established with them. -The goals setting approach used at the ABC organization is ________.

We can best understand how an organization plans, by looking at ________.

In a typical MBO program, successful achievement of objectives is reinforced by performance-based rewards.

E-Biz Dreams (Scenario) Raja has just completed a Master of Science degree in computer science at Major University. He now wants to begin a new internet business selling his services as a website maker for companies in his home city. He estimates that, if his business idea is a success, within one year he will be employing at a minimum 10 programmers and 2 analysts. -To ensure that the organization's objectives are clearly defined and do not leave room for interpretation, Raja will have to develop what type of plan?

The process of writing goals ________.

In a short essay, define planning and discuss the characteristics of formal planning as it is used in various organizations.

Planning provides direction to managers and nonmanagers alike.