Any major building project begins with a plan or blueprint. It is necessary to insure that the general concept or vision can be constructed. It also helps to insure that the building process runs smoothly and that the building process does not constantly have to overcome obstacles. The strategic planning process for any business serves the same purpose. It communicates what needs to be done to try and accomplish the aspiration objectives of the organization while being aware of the organization's resources. Management planning takes this process one step further by setting specific goals to reach the organization's aspiration goals. In this paper, I will discuss some of the problems with strategic and management planning, compare and contrast strategic planning and management planning, relate the concept of planning to my own organization, Verizon Wireless, and explain the relationship among environmental and social considerations of management planning.



Constructing a plan for a business is not as easy as it may seem. Strategic planning can be an involved process. After hearing comments and conversations of the people who attended his seminar, the author of the article ?Effective Strategic Planning,? concluded that there is a concern that ?strategic planning efforts is time consuming, perhaps expensive, and not particularly effective in the real world.? (Lefkowith)

This concern may be true. According to Lefkowith, ?there is often a ?disconnect? between the strategic planning efforts of an organization and any real world action steps.? This is because the strategic plan may set objectives or goals that do not relate to the daily operation of the organization or those goals may be set beyond achievement. Setting goals to low can build complacency and hinder development of the organization.

Most organizations strategic planning is one directional. It is so focused on the goals and objectives of the organization that it is often ?blind-sided? by problems that arise during the actual day-to day operation of the organization. Effective strategic planning is just as much about what you avoid as it is about what you pursue. (Lefkowith) Verizon Wireless has developed action plans that provide direction to the organization's employees for almost every type situation that may be a problem. For example, our management planning has included a method and procedure for dealing with the press, handling a medical emergency in one of our retail stores or administrative offices, and procedures for dealing with inclement weather.

One of the best ways an organization can gain the discipline to pursue an aspirational plan is create concrete performance measures for each strategic goal. This is where management planning steps in. Management planning sets the criterion that measures the participation and production of each member of the organization.

According to the author, there are three important things to consider when developing performance measures.

The first is objectivity of the performance measures. Performance measures should be based on data that cannot be manipulated. For example, I am measured by the number of new and renewing customers I activate each month at Verizon Wireless.

Second, performance measures should be credible. They should truly relate to the goals that you are trying to reach. To explain this I will use one of the performance measures Verizon Wireless uses to measure my accessory sales performance each month. Verizon measures how many accessories we sell in relation to the number of wireless phone handset we activate each month. This is known as an accessory take ratio. If I sold 14 accessories and only activated 2 new accounts, I would have an accessory take ratio of 7%. This is an excellent ratio. By looking only at this ratio, the whole story is not told. By looking at both numbers individually, my manager would be able to tell that I have high accessory sales but a low number of activations.

Finally, performance measures should be timely to ensure relevancy. If my store did not receive it's sales data monthly but instead received it yearly, it would be hard to judge if we were making progress towards meeting the goals set by the company.