High Impact Tools and Activities for Strategic Planning: Creative Techniques for Facilitating Your Organization's Planning Process [Ring-bound]

Rod Napier (Author), Clint Sidle (Author), Patrick Sanaghan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0079137261 | ISBN-13: 978-0079137265 | Publication Date: December 1, 1997 | Edition: 1

Not just another book on the theory of strategic planning, here are dozens of recipes for creative group activities to facilitate strategic planning in any organization. Designed for use by consultants, facilitators, and management team leaders, step-by-step instructions guide you through exercises for gaining employee and management participation, gathering feedback from management about the current state of the organization, creating an organized mission, vison and values statement, and planning so that the vision becomes reality. Ready-to-use reproducible materials and handouts are also included.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Get management and emplyee support for your organization's new strategic direction with these electrifying group activities. Strategic plans are successfuly implemented only when the planning process itself engages every stakeholder and gives everyone a genuine sense of "ownership" of the new organizational strategy. High Impact Tools and Acitivities for Strategic Planning offers you all the practical resources to generate that passionate involvement, with dozens of radical group acitivities to help you facilitate the planning process for a team or an entire organization. This unique handbook for consultants, trainers, and managers brings you 40 creative, field-tested activities that jump-start strategic planning meetings, inspire new ways of thinking, and build the momentum critical to any change effort. Unlike most books on strategic planning, Hihg Impact Tools and Acitivities for Strategic Planning gives you step-by-step instructions for targeted activities to help an organization: Kick off planning efforts that create energy, hope, and clarity of purpose; Turn "data gathering" from employees and management into a forum for open communication; Clarify and create its core values, mission, and vision statements; Monitor and assess planning efforts to ensure accountability; Establish ongoing planning to allow proactive--not reactive--responses to changing environments and organizational priorities. Featuring case studies that detail how the book's activities galvanize planning efforts of various sizes and complexity, High Impact Tools and Activities for Strategic Planning enables you to pump new blood into even the most anemic planning process and build a greater sense of empowerment and commitment throughout an organization.

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Product Details

• Ring-bound: 424 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (December 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0079137261
• ISBN-13: 978-0079137265
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 10.6 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Planning First - Learning Always, August 13, 2001

By 

Tom Clark (College Station, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Impact Tools and Activities for Strategic Planning: Creative Techniques for Facilitating Your Organization's Planning Process (Ring-bound)

If you have ever been involved in a strategic planning effort that fell short of expectations then this book is for you. In plain language the authors lay out a planning framework with supporting involvement practices to gain organizational buy-in. They provide explanations and case study examples to show the connections between "what needs to be done and how to do it." A chapter titled "The Toolbox" covers the rational and procedures for involvement mechanisms that include "Nominal Group Process to generate ideas, Affinity Diagrams & Mindmaping to organize complex issues and Collapsing Consensus & Las Vegas Voting to help in problem solving & decision-making." There are valuable discussions on organizing the planning effort and post-planning followup / accountability. This volume supports any organizational effort to set goals, improve quality or enhance effectiveness in resource management through collaborative processes.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding "cook book" for change agents and leaders., August 26, 1998

By 

R. B. Hewertson "Executive Coaching" (Ithaca, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: High Impact Tools and Activities for Strategic Planning: Creative Techniques for Facilitating Your Organization's Planning Process (Ring-bound)

This book is fabulous! And I use it for much more than planning. The step by step "designs" are clear, flexible, and can be modified for nearly any audience. They can be layered upon each other for a variety of purposes. I have used this collection of great designs (which are easy to locate in the contents) many times with great success. The audience has varied from front line staff to senior leaders in education, business, and health care.

The information in this book is so easy to read and follow that even a novice group facilitator could get it right by reading the introductions and the steps.

There is NO other book on the market that has so much in such a useable format - And I've looked! It's really a bible for change agents who want fail safe designs that really excite and stimulate the audience as well as get the work done. This is a rare combination.

The authors have managed to package a "1 Stop Shopping" tool kit, cook book, workbook, all in one 3 ring binder that is a living book you can add to as you find other things that work or as you modify a design to meet a group's needs.

Simply irreplaceable and worth 2ce what it costs. I'll keep this book in front of me forever - it's already getting dog eared!

Roxana Hewertson -

Organizational Consultant and Change Partner -- Roxana Bahar Hewertson and Associates

And Also-- Director of Administration Facilities and Campus Services Cornell University.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly useful tools, September 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: High Impact Tools and Activities for Strategic Planning: Creative Techniques for Facilitating Your Organization's Planning Process (Ring-bound)

This book is an excellent resource for those involved in planning. In addition to the background and conceptual information provided in the book, the authors have included a variety of activities that can be employed to address specific objectives. There are numerous exercises with "easy to understand" instructions on how to facilitate the activities. I've used several of them recently and received excellent feedback about the process. More importantly, the outcomes were great!