Customer Reviews

Team-Based Strategic Planning: A Complete Guide to Structuring, Facilitating and Implementing the Process

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

 

 

This book has become my bible for developing strategic plans and marketing plans. It offers a great outline for strategic plans, as well as a detailed plan on how to facilitate the information gathering process. This book, however, is appropriate for not only team-based strategic planning, but also for those working on projects alone. I have recommended this book to several of my associates.

I have several years of experience in participating and leading strategic planning, and I have found this to be a very good reference guide. One that I still refer to with some frequency. It has high-level comprehensive concepts as well as detailed, practical steps. Not for everyone, especially if you are put off by "business speak", but if you live in that world and are comfortable with it, this can be a very good reference guide.

This is an excellent guide that allows a leader to structure a strategic planning process to fit a specific organization. It gives step by step instructions and real examples that make the process come alive. It also gives guides for facilitating collection of information and the meetings that must be held to get concensus on the organization's direction. In 30 years of federal government management, I have not seen any book as clear and as useful in directing development of a strategic plan. This book has been on the market since 1999, so I must not be alone in this opinion.

I've recommended this book to a number of my clients who were struggling with strategic planning. Unlike other books, it does not deal in vague generalities or unsupported principles. It gives all of the steps and instructions to choose from that companies need to create an excellent plan. The steps are explained simply and a strategy on how to make "it happen".


It is really useful because it gives a variety of examples from many different organizations and industries. It is the kind of book that you can use, sitting around with your staff, to agree on the process that you will take for your particular organization.

I highly recommend it to an organization that wants to make their strategic approach stick. My expertise is in leadership and management systems and training, and it fits well with my experience and philosophy-you can't do anything with an organization unless they have a view of the future and a plan to implement it.

"Team-Based Strategic Planning: A Complete Guide to Structuring, Facilitating and Implementing the Process" is one of those dense, impenetrable tomes blessed with having the American Management Association for its publisher. Hence, it smacks of authority.

Yet the book is written in a nearly unreadable language: the language of management-speak, uttered to obfuscate rather than enlighten, to deflect rather than engage.

One does not have to go far before running into verbal blockades such as this: "Organizations with an existing plan, however good or poor, should preface a plan update or total ground up revision with an upfront step: a review of the existing mission, plan, and accomplishments." Other similar all-star collections of jargon appear on nearly every page.

Shall we spend a moment considering this thought? First, people not organizations are the doers. Does "however good or poor" modify the existing plan or the organizations? Can there exist a nonexistent plan? Can a "ground up revision" be used for mulching the perennial garden? Can you actually preface and update, plus be upfront, in the same sentence? Finally, it's clear that organizations without existing plans will not be able to review their existing plans.

Language is not the only barrier. Some charts are full of type faces, sometimes six or more, calling to mind ransom notes assembled from letters clipped from magazines. Others are collections of thick symbols and unfriendly bold type and all caps that scream out MOCK IMPORTANCE.

My advice is to look for management advice that is dispensed in clear English with understandable graphics. [...]

This text was incredibly simple to understand. It was set up in a way that it had very easy guidelines to follow, and the applications were just as easy to work with. I completely recommend this text to all that are in the field of leadership. This is one text that is assured continual usage by all that purchase it.