Systems for action planning

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Formal management systems start at the point where policy is received from top management and translated into a long-term plan of action or strategy.  No formal system is able to fully prescribe the steps of the strategy formation stage itself, which will always be more an art than a science, but some systems describe techniques for strategy formation, such as SWOT analysis and gap analysis.  Following this stage, the strategic plan is developed into a series of objectives and budgets, usually by other departments, which are in turn developed into targets and more detailed plans and budgets to be carried out at an operational level.

The expected practice in any management system is that planning precedes action and, in most cases, strategy is passed from the centre to functional units and used to drive projects and programmes.  However, with the exception of major acquisition or disposal programmes, most realised property asset management strategies are the cumulative result of a series of decisions by mid-level managers rather than top management - accommodation is often an afterthought in most business organisations.  Theory and practice also conflict when capital projects are underway but the strategy that initiated the project is changed or made obsolete; and ideas such as ‘management by objectives’, where managers involve staff in setting their own objectives, tend to move in the opposite direction to most formal management systems.

Formal methods for action planning assume an orderly, deliberate process where each step leads logically and smoothly to the next.  But a claim that only 10% of intended strategic plans were successfully realised was famously dismissed by Tom Peters as being ‘wildly exaggerated’. [10] According to Professor Barwise at the London Business School: ‘While the mainstream of management thinking is still towards further development of this structured, analytical approach, we are also … seeing some powerful counter flows.’  The top down analysis, planning, implementation and control model, where strategies appear fully developed and are passed down the hierarchy to be put into operation, is still regarded as the text book approach but, as Professor Barwise concludes, the formal concept of action planning: ‘… is seen as a useful abstraction rather than an accurate description of what managers actually do.’ [12]

Henry Mintzberg is one of the few management writers to study in detail what managers actually do.  His interpretation of more than thirty years’ data across a range of management roles in various countries suggests that the difference between theory and practice is not so much proof that managers are neglectful in adopting theory, but more likely an indication that the textbooks do not have all the answers.  He notes that strategic planning is a dynamic activity – ‘the process of integrating decisions at a point in time becomes not strategy making, but simply planning’s approach to strategy making.’  Mintzberg’s insights into emergent strategy points towards the practical need for a business management system to permit the ‘counter flows’ to formal, top-down planning - see inset and opposite page.[10]

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