| A | B |
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| Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo | "We are not competing against Sony or Microsoft. We are battling the indifference of people who have no interest in videogames." |
| Three Types of Uncertainty | state, effect, and response |
| State Uncertainty | When the environment, or a portion of it, is considered unpredictable |
| Effect Uncertainty | A manager's attempt to predict the effects of specific environmental changes or events |
| Response Uncertainty | The inability to predict the consequences of a particular decision or organizational response |
| Planning | the process of coping with uncertainty by formulating future courses of action to achieve specified results; especially important for entrepreneurs |
| 4 Types of Organizational Responses to Uncertainty | defenders, prospectors, analyzers and reactors |
| Defenders | A defender can be successful as long as its primary technology and narrow product line remain competitive. Ex: Harley Davidson |
| Prospectors | Usually have a reputation for aggressively making things happen rather than waiting for them to happen. Ex: Amazon, who has now decided to lease its ample serve space out to other businesses |
| Analyzers | Essentially a conservative strategy of following the leader. Its a "me too" response to environmental uncertainty. Ex: Teva Pharmaceuticals, making generic forms of name-brand medicine. Many car companies, this strategy is generally too risky |
| Reactors | Wait for adversity and then decide to take corrective steps. These people are slow to develop new products to supplement their tried-and-true ones and are therefore the least profitable of the four. Ex: Kodak getting crushed by digital cameras. Xerox too. |
| strategic agility | a management strategy that emphasizes "thinking on your feet" |
| 3 Essentials of Planning | Mission, Objectives and Strategy |
| Essentials of Planning: Mission | Generally reflected in the company's mission statement. Should provide a focal point for the entire planning process |
| Components of a good mission statement | 1. Defines your organization for key stakeholders 2. Creates an inspiring vision of what the organization can be and can do 3. Outlines how the vision is to be accomplished 4. Establishes key priorities 5. States a common goal and fosters a sense of togetherness 6. Creates a philosophical anchor for all organizational activities 7. Generates enthusiasm and a "can do" attitude 8. Empowers present and future organization members to believe that every individual is the key to success |
| Objectives | Should define measurable goals that will be achieved in a certain time frame. Should be achievable by definition and also should be unitized to prevent the "Run for the horizon" mentality |
| Strategy | Roads you will take to achieve your objectives |
| Chick-fil-a's mission statement | Be America's best quick-serve restaurant |
| Starbuck's Mission Statement | To inspire and nurture the human spirit-one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. |
| Strategic Planning | the process of determining how to pursue the organization's long-term goals with the resources expected to be available. 1-10 Year planning. Used by upper management. |
| Intermediate Planning | the process of determining the contributions that subunits can make with allocated resources. 6 months - 2 years, generally a function of middle management |
| Operational Planning | the process of determining how specific tasks can best be accomplished on time with available resources. 1 week - 1 year, lower management |
| The importance of Objectives | 1. Targets: a specific target is easier to work for instead of simply an ideal 2. Measuring sticks: managers need an established standard against which they can measure performance. 3. Commitment: Objectives must be helpful in encouraging personal commitment to collective ends. 4. Motivation: Good objectives represent a challenge-something to reach for, and therefore have a motivational aspect |
| The Means-End Chain of Objectives | Working from bottom to top, supervisory-level objectives provide the means for achieving middle-level objectives that in turn provide the means for achieving top-level objectives. |
| A-B-C Priority System | A. Must do (Critical to successful performance) B. Should do (Necessary for improved performance) C. Nice to do (Desirable for improved performance) |
| 80/20 Principle | Asserts that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually leads to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards. (Example: Market Line Associate's top 20% of customer generate 6 times the revenue of the other 80%. Also, ING "fires" about 3,600 of its 2 million clients to say on customer service costs. |
| "Busyness Trap" | Managers sometimes confuse being effective and being efficient. Results are what really counts. |
| Planning/Control Cycle | Planning gets things headed in the right direction, and control keeps them headed that way. A. Formulate Plans B. Carry Out Plans C. Compare Preliminary and Final Results with plans D. Take Corrective Action. |
| Management by Objectives (MBO) | a comprehensive management system based on measurable and participatively set objectives. |
| Four stages of the MBO Life Cycle | 1. Setting Objectives 2. Developing Action Plans 3. Periodic Review 4. Performance Appraisal |
| Project | a temporary endeavor undertaken to achieve a particular aim |
| Project Life Cycle | Conceptualization, Planning, Execution, and Termination. Generally, when a project is "terminated" it is merely turned over to an end user and project resources are phased out |
| Project Manager Roles | Implementer, Entrepreneur, Politician, Friend, Marketer, Coach |
| Project Manager Roles: Implementer | Effectively plan, organize, and accomplish the project goals |
| Project Manager Roles: Entrepreneur | navigate unfamiliar surroundings, survive in a "sink or swim" environment, manage the unexpected |
| Project Manager Roles: Politician | understand two diverse corporate cultures (parent and client organizations) Operate within the political system of the client organization |
| Project Manager Roles: Friend | Determine the important relationships to build and sustain outside the team itself. Be a friend to the client |
| Project Manager Roles: Marketer | access client corporate strategic information, understand the strategic objectives of the client organization. Determine future business opportunites |
| Project Manager Roles: Coach | Blend team members from multiple organizations, motivate team members without formal authority, reward and recognize team accomplishments with limited resources |
| Gantt Charts | used today for planning and scheduling large projects such a moving into a new building or installing a new computer network. These charts allow the planner to specify the time to be spent on each activity |
| Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) | Invented by the Navy in 1958 to develop the Polaris missile project, it is a graphical sequencing and scheduling tool for large, complex, and nonroutine projects. These networks add up all of the optimistic, likely, and worst case completion times and average them to effective manage a project's timeframe |
