1) What do the terms "program planning" and "delivery and outcome management" mean to you in the context of strategic planning?
Program planning involves identification of program need and capacity. It also involves planning for resource allocation and use and also preparing to respond to critical issues. In order to have the information required for program planning, a long term strategic planning process needs to be undertaken. Program planning is a very vital aspect in an organization’s financial status as it helps in giving a detail schedule of activities. (Mintzberg 2005)
Delivery management is an approach for ensuring the success of a project through thorough application of tools techniques, skills, future approach towards delivery management and integrating strategies. This aspect helps in ensuring a timely delivery of goods and services within the organization.
Outcome management is a strategic approach which ensures that initiatives are designed around departmental and government outcomes and that the intended outcomes are achieved. Outcome management is a collection of information and tools which are used to achieve business success. They include: preplanning process, the real planning process and a good method used for managing the plan. This aspect will in the handling of issues resulting from the completion of the project. (Mintzberg 2005)
2) How do data on each of the organization's current programs, including information about attendance, staffing, facilities, revenues versus costs and any type of informal evaluations or satisfaction surveys affect the recommendations you will make as the agency's outside consultant?
Information about attendance, staffing, facilities and revenues has a direct relationship in determining the type of business establishment. A regular staff attendance, good number of facilities and high revenues depict a more stable business enterprise. The evaluations of the firm and satisfaction surveys also show a more stable business establishment. A lesser stable business will lack most of the above attributes and thus not very reliable in terms of its revenue. I am not likely to recommend such a business enterprise due to its low return. (Vijay 2005)
3) Programming changes, especially the creation of new ones, cost money. Therefore, before making any specific recommendations a clear picture of KIC's financial position is needed. What will you be looking for?
When looking at KIC’s financial position, it is necessary that the following items to be looked at thoroughly: substantial assets, investments and cash deposits.
4) What is an "environmental scan"? What specific questions come to mind?
Environmental scan is a process of collecting and analyzing information specifically for strategic purposes. It involves acquisition of both subjective and factual information on the business environments.
Questions
a) How frequent is the scan done?
b) What initiates a scan?
Summary and conclusion
Planning is a very vital aspect in a business establishment. Business establishments which do not have any form of plan drafted and followed, usually end up not succeeding. It is therefore necessary to have a proper plan in place so as to ensure the success of a particular business enterprise.
In conclusion, in order to ensure that the Institution does not close down, it is very important to have some managerial decisions which will protect the establishment. The decisions range from planning strategies to ways of pumping more capital in the firm to ensure its success.
REFERENCES
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2007
Henry Mintzberg (2005) Strategy Safari: A guided Tour through the wilds of strategic Management. Free Press
Vijay, G. (2005) Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators. From Idea to Execution. Harvard Business Press
