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Strategic Assumptions
Strategic assumptions are the assumptions that are held by decision-makers when building a strategic plan. All strategic plans should be built upon a grounded, validated and accepted set of strategic assumptions. Any strategic plan or decision is only as good as the strategic assumptions upon which it is based. Strategic assumptions surface and are usually identified when scenario planning is undertaken during a strategic planning process. The strategic assumptions surfacing and testing method (SAST) is one rigorous method of identifying strategic assumptions. Like other types of assumptions, strategic assumptions are the assumptions held by decision-makers about different types of factors and drivers of change that have influenced their thinking, decision-making or planning. Strategic assumptions may be assumptions about events that happened in the past, what is currently happening or what may happen in the future. There are nine categories of strategic assumptions. These nine ty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its relationship to the environment in which it competes. ''Strategy'' has many definitions, but it generally involves setting strategic goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, setting a timeline, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources) in a given span of time. Often, Strategic Planning is long term and organizational action steps are established from two to five year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scenario Planning
Scenario planning, scenario thinking, scenario analysis, scenario prediction and the scenario method all describe a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence. In the most common application of the method, analysts generate simulation games for policy makers. The method combines known facts, such as demographics, geography and mineral reserves, with military, political, and industrial information, and key driving forces identified by considering social, technical, economic, environmental, and political ("STEEP") trends. In business applications, the emphasis on understanding the behavior of opponents has been reduced while more attention is now paid to changes in the natural environment. At Royal Dutch Shell for example, scenario planning has been described as changing mindsets about the exogenous part of the world prior to formulating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategic Assumption Surfacing And Testing
Strategic assumptions surfacing and testing (SAST) is a method for approaching ill-structured problems. It can be applied as a dialectical approach to policy and planning. An ill-structured problem may alternatively be also labelled as a wicked problem. SAST may be applied as a technique of systems thinking. An ill-structured problem is "one for which various strategies for providing a possible solution rest on assumptions that are in sharp conflict with one another". The purposes for an SAST method are: * to help surface for explicit examination the underlying assumptions that analysts often unconsciously bring with them to a problem situation; * to compare and to evaluate systematically the assumptions of different analysts; * to examine the relationship between underlying assumptions and the resulting policies which are derived and dependent upon them; and * to attempt to formulate new, novel, and originally unforeseen policies based on previously unforeseen assumptions. Four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Groupthink
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation. Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory, as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour. Overview Groupthink is sometimes stated to occur (more broadly) within natural groups within the community, for example to explain the lifelong different mindsets of those with differing political views (such as "conservatism" and "liberalism" in the U.S. political context or the purported benefits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
