Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/24788

Title

Scenario planning : an innovative approach to strategy development

Author(s)

Conway, Maree

Abstract

Strategic planning is about developing a plan to implement strategy. It is not about planning strategically. As Mintzberg (1994:5) suggests, ‘strategic planning’ might well be an oxymoron. The need for organisations to plan and monitor activities in order to focus resources and effort and ensure future survival and growth has spawned an industry of practitioners, consultants and education programs. Planning practitioners have their own professional associations and have assumed a critical information role in organisations, consultants sell a wide range of strategic planning approaches and tools, and strategic planning is a core component of university business courses. Strategic planning is a routine part of business practice, with an accompanying set of eliefs and protocols that underpin day-to-day practice. Yet, as Mintzberg (1994:7) indicates, ‘planning lacks a clear definition of its own place in organizations’. The need to plan is generally accepted, but the resulting plans themselves are often not successful in driving implementation of an organisation’s strategy. Indeed, ‘while the need for planning has never been greater, the relevance of most of today’s planning systems and tools is increasingly marginal’(Fuller, 2003:2). Traditional strategic planning models are increasingly viewed as not producing strategy that can deal with complexity, uncertainty and rapid change in the external environment. While understanding the external environment and then determining strategy to enable the best ‘fit’ in that environment is acknowledged as a primary reason for planning, traditional models are decreasing in effectiveness. The apparent failure of corporate strategy even after extensive planning, and the inability of many organisations to read signals in the external environment, suggests that there is something missing from existing planning models. [Introduction]

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Chancellery

Source

Paper presented at Better the DEVIL you know : 2004 Australasian Association for Institutional Research (AAIR) Forum, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, September 2004

Publication year

2004

Keyword(s)

Foresight;  Management;  Organisations;  Strategic planning

Publisher

Australasian Association for Institutional Research

Publisher URL

http://www.aair.org.au/jir/2004Papers/Index.htm