BMAN24442

Foundations of Innovation and Strategy

Week 2.2: The planning school

Dr Layla Alali
Layla.mohammed@manchester.ac.uk
 Premises of the planning school
Strategy development: formal planning → decomposition of steps
→ checklists and techniques
Overall responsibility = managers
Execution = planners
Focus on objectives, budgets, programmes and plans

Strategic planning takes the form of systematic analysis and

exploration to develop an organisation’s strategy

Mintzberg et al (2009)
 Strategic planning (I)
Setting goals - where do we
want to go?
Abstract: long-term vision, strategic mission
statements …
Specific: goals (‘stretch goals’), financial
targets, priorities …

Setting objectives - how will Business plans, action plans, budgets,

we get there? (Audits) resource allocations …

Macro: economic, long-range

environmental forecasts
FORMAL External and Internal
Micro: detailed forecasts for market
analysis (Auditing) trends, sales, firm growth …
Scenarios building and analysis

Mintzberg et al (2009)
 Forecasting

Johnson et al (2017)
 Scenarios
Scenarios are plausible views of how the environment of an
organisation might develop in the future

An organisation will typically develop a few alternative scenarios

(2–4) to explore and evaluate future strategic options

Scenario analysis is used in industries with long planning horizons,

for example, the oil industry or airlines industry

Johnson et al (2017)
 Strategic planning (II)

Mintzberg et al (2009)
Johnson et al (2017)