Customer Reviews

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement, 3rd Edition

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I certainly liked this book a lot, but I didn't love it. Ergo, it gets a 4 star rating. If you want a detailed account regarding strategic planning, then read this book. It is well documented and clearly organized. Unfortunately it is boring!

The author is a college professor whose expertise is strategic planning in the nonprofit and government sectors. It certainly is normal to see a college professor take a subject and break it down into tiny parts and then build a textbook around describing how the tiny parts all fit together. In the case of this book, the author has broken the subject of strategic planning into tiny parts and called the combination of the tiny parts the Strategic Change Cycle ("SCC"). To see his nice diagram of the SCC turn to page 33 of the text.

After letting the reader see what the SCC is, the author then takes the rest of the book to explain the diagram and how all of its parts fit together. There are three sections to the book:

1. Understanding SCC
2. Key steps to using SCC
3. Managing the SCC process

Each chapter has a summary at its end. Someone who wants to get through the book as quickly as possible will start by reading each chapter's summary and then go back and skim through each of the chapters. Much of the content is common sense, so it shouldn't take all that long to read. However, there will be sections where you will probably want to slow down and digest in depth some of the material.

Leaders must be effective strategists if nonprofits are to be successful. And leaders use strategic planning and its set of concepts, procedures and tools in order to make their nonprofits successful.

In its simplest form strategic planning is all about knowing where you stand and knowing where you want to be. Then you "strategically plan" how you are going to get to where you want to be. What action steps are you going to take to move from point A to point B? This book will help you understand that process if you are having trouble with it right now.

I have read this invaluable book to better understand the strategic planning process in public and nonprofit sector organizations and I can say proudly that I reached my objective. I think that the most important aspect of this book is that it distinguishes the planning process in public sector organizations from that in the private sector organizations very clearly. The basic concepts in planning process such as Mission, Vision, Objectives, Resources were explained correctly. If you think that a great majority of books in the field of strategic planning are very abstract and confusing, you must read this. I strongly reccommend.

Strategic planning for nonprofits is my area of interest and this book is the best ever written guide for practitioners, consultants, and researchers interested in the process and implementation of strategic planning in nonprofit (and public organizations). Dr. Bryson's wealth of knowledge and experience are in clear abundance for readers of this treasure.

This is a dry but business-like book that presents all the essentials of strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations. The book is well organized with concepts well explained. The book provides comprehensive coverage of the practical planning techniques and processes for those working for the common good. The author correctly highlights the critical importance of the link between strategic planning and leadership. John Bryson presents a useful planning process called "the Strategy Change cycle" which is a handy model successfully used in some public and nonprofit organizations.

This is a thoughtful, useful and helpful reference and guide book for those working in government, social workers or managers in non-governmental organizations. After reading the book, you will be clear about the differences between strategic planning process in the private sector and in the public and not-for-profit organizations. You will also learn how to reduce the costs of providing services whilst improving the quality of those services.

The book is well illustrated with insightful examples which will help practitioners learn about successful strategy formulation and implementation.

Excellent book for strategic management course. Along with the workbook, this textbook is a good resource for those developing and implementing strategic plans in public service and nonprofit organizations. It outlines and details valuable information to help public admininstration leaders use effective strategic plannig and implementation techniques.

The English word "strategy" is derived from the Greek strategos, "general of the army." Strategoi, elected political leaders, provided "strategic" advice on battle management to win wars rather than "tactical" advice on troop management to win battles. Given these origins, strategic planning focuses on outcomes rather than outputs and on how to achieve outcomes rather than how to define the outcomes.
Strategic planning's origins per se, as used in the public sector, can be traced to the late 1950s and early 1960s. The U.S. Department of Defense began to look for better and more useful ways to plan for its long-term needs while at the same time achieving cost savings. The advent of the Planning-Programming-Budgeting-System (PPBS) began what was to blossom into a series of varying strategic planning and budgeting systems.
The strategic planning is a process of developing a long-term plan to guide an organization, for example, a state agency, department or commission, towards a clearly articulated mission, goals and objectives. It is a process of assessing where an organization is presently, ascertaining the challenges and opportunities that present themselves, and determining what destination is most desirable and how to get there.
In the private sector, success measures relate to the profitability of the company. However, measuring performance in public sector organizations can often be difficult. Government managers can seldom measure success of strategic objectives in monetary terms; instead, they must frequently measure success in terms of the percentage increases and decreases.

This book features the Strategy Change Cycle - a proven planning process used by a large number of organizations. It also details how to implement the planning process and includes specific tools and techniques to make the process work in any organization. It discusses of how to create value, stakeholder analysis, strategy mapping, balanced scorecards, collaboration between different organizations etc. This book also includes information about the organizational designs that can enhance strategic thought and action throughout the entire organization. The book also contains some interesting cases/examples.

The book came in a timely manner and arrived in a better condition that it was listed for. Thank you guys....awesome!!!

This book, although required for the course I was enrolled in, was overall a waste of money. The reading material was very dry, making it a pain to follow. I learned more by showing up for class, taking good notes and involving myself in the group discussions, than what I learned from attempting to ingest the contents of this book.

This is a great strategic planning text book for government employees. If you are an executive officer in your organization this can bridge the corporate theory and application of strategic planning with how public organizations operate.

Excellent public sector response to what we normally see as a business model for strategic planning. Very practical and easy to follow for all managers in the public service, non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations doing charitable work for the common good.