Chap 8 - Summary on Planning Tools & Techniques môn Principles of Management | Trường Đại học Quốc tế, Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

Chap 8
Planning Tools and Techniques •Forecasting
–Attempts to predict the future
–Qualitative forecasting uses expert opinions
–Quantitative forecasting uses mathematical models and statistical analysis of historical data and surveys •Contingency planning
–Identifying alternative courses of action to take if an emergency or disaster strikes
–Examples of emergency or disaster include: natural disasters, like hurricanes; crime.
–Contingency plans anticipate changing conditions
–Contingency plans contain trigger points Scenario planning
–A long-term version of contingency planning, anticipating gradual change, such as a loss of revenue over time.
–Scenario planning is about analyzing the future (economics, social, environment,
technology) increasing organization’s flexibility and preparation for future shocks. •Benchmarking
–Use of external and internal comparisons to evaluate current performance and identify
possible ways to improve for the future
–The purpose is to find out what others are doing very well, and then plan how to
incorporate these ideas into your operations.
–Adopting best practices: things people and organizations do that lead to superior performance.
•Staff planning
–Use staff planners to help coordinate and energize planning.
–These specialists are experts in all steps of the planning process, as well as in the use of
planning tools and techniques.
–They can help bring focus and expertise to a wide variety of planning tasks.
IV. Implementing Plans to Achieve Results
•Communication between team leaders and team members at each step are essential to achieving the goal alignment.
•The conversations should result in agreements on:
–Performance objectives for a given time period,
–Plans through which they will be accomplished,
–Standards for measuring whether they have been accomplished,
–Procedures for reviewing performance results.
•Management by objectives: the intent is to improve employee motivation and organizational
communication by focusing on aligning individual goals to corporate objectives.
•MBO is a top-down management tool, hence, there are critics: managers focus more on creating
goals than on helping the employee achieve them.