Participatory Strategic Planning System
for Complex Service Environments
Thesis
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree Master of Science in the Graduate School of
The Ohio State University
By
Ajay Mulay, B.E.
Graduate Program in Computer Science and Engineering
The Ohio State University
2011
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Jay Ramanathan
Academic Advisor: Dr. Rajiv Ramnath
Copyright by
Ajay Mulay
2011
ABSTRACT
Strategic planning within complex service organizations (universities, cities, and
other large service – oriented organizations) is extremely challenging due to
1) tensions between top-down versus bottom-up needs,
2) number of different stakeholders and goals at each level of the organization,
3) current and future goals, and
4) continuously evolving environments and changing goals.
Also keeping track of and modeling the interactions between different units within the
organization is another hard task. While most of the industry uses top-down strategic
planning, the disadvantage is that many details often fail as they are too farfetched and
unrealistic. Most of the plans are developed for long term and these timelines don’t
demand immediate actions from the middle and lower level employees. Top-down
approach is good to communicate the management’s objectives and aims explicitly to
lower levels. But it lacks a feedback loop to get inputs from ground level workers.
Whereas in case of bottom-up approach, endless iterations to consolidate the final
plan and resolve the negotiations between business owners and management delays &
kills stakeholders interest in coming up with solid strategic plan.
ii
In this thesis, we study software features and benefits of developing a ‘Participatory
Strategic Planning System’ (P2S2), based on a hybrid approach combining top-down
control and bottom-up creativity. We identify how P2S2 helps in knowledge mining,
decision making processes and improves the resource and people collaboration. The
system (P2S2) we designed and modeled has bi-directional flow of information coming
from top level executives and bottom level front line workers. It sets standards to collect
and convey the information and it is also a single point of information related to any
strategic planning efforts in the organization. P2S2 is a two phased, multi iteration system
based on the enterprise domain model that we developed for The Ohio State University
strategic planning. We illustrate the flexibility of this model through its application in
another business enterprise.
iii
DEDICATION
To my family and friends.
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Jay Ramanathan for her patience, enthusiasm and
continued support in completion of this thesis. Her guidance, critical thinking and
reviews of the work have been of great value to me.
Thanks to Dr. Rajiv Ramnath for initiating this project, support throughout the project
& mentoring in my masters. His insights and suggestions related to thesis and otherwise
are highly appreciated.
I wish to express sincere thanks to Matt O’Rourke for his valuable contribution in
data collection, understanding the process and discussions about the system, all of which
have definitely helped to shape up this thesis. Also Thanks to Chris Hocker for helping
me in collecting and understanding the data related to strategic planning efforts at his
work environment.
v
VITA
Jul 2003 - Jun 2007 .......................................B.E. Computer Engineering,
University of Pune, India
Sept 2006 - May 2007 ...................................Project Intern, Sybase Software
Pune, India
Aug 2007 - Jul 2009 ......................................IBM Global Business Services
Pune, India
September 2009 - present...............................Graduate Student, Department of Computer
Science and Engineering,
The Ohio State University, Columbus OH
FIELD OF STUDY
Major Field: Computer Science and Engineering
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………......ii
Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………….iv
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………..…...v
Vita……………………..………………………………………………………………………………vi
Table of contents……………………………………………………………..…………………….vii
List of figures………………………….……………………………………………………………..ix
List of table……..........................……………………………………………………………………..x
1.
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
1.1
1.1.1
Strategic planning .......................................................................................... 1
1.2
Emerging methods ..................................................................................... 2
Problem .......................................................................................................... 3
1.2.1
It’s a complex environment ....................................................................... 3
1.2.2
Need for a new software environment ....................................................... 4
1.3
1.3.1
Domain model of P2S2 .............................................................................. 5
1.3.2
Flexibility of our domain model ................................................................ 6
1.4
2.
Solution .......................................................................................................... 5
Thesis overview ............................................................................................. 6
Related research ..................................................................................................... 8
2.1
Strategic planning .......................................................................................... 8
2.2
Combination of top-down and bottom-up.................................................... 11
vii
3.
2.3
Domain modeling and Model-driven programming .................................... 13
2.4
Complex environments ................................................................................ 15
Participatory Strategic Planning System .............................................................. 17
3.1
OSU strategic planning ................................................................................ 17
3.1.1
Top-down approach ................................................................................. 18
3.1.2
Bottom-up approach................................................................................. 19
3.2
4.
Modeling the units and information flow .................................................... 22
3.2.1
BIOS and stakeholders ............................................................................. 22
3.2.2
P2S2 domain model ................................................................................. 24
3.2.3
Modeling associations .............................................................................. 25
Implementation of P2S2 ...................................................................................... 28
4.1
Use of domain model ................................................................................... 28
4.2
Current state of P2S2 ................................................................................... 32
4.3
Future benefits and features of P2S2 ........................................................... 40
4.4
Wider applicability of our domain model .................................................... 41
4.4.1
Abercrombie & Fitch ............................................................................... 41
4.4.2
P2S2 and A&F strategic planning............................................................ 43
5.
Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 45
6.
Future Scope ........................................................................................................ 47
References .................................................................................................................... 49
Appendix A: P2S2 implementation details .................................................................. 52
A.1 Extracting data from college strategic plan....................................................... 52
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1 : UNIVERSITY STRATEGY NUMBERING PATTERN
19
FIGURE 2 : 3 LAYERS OF DATA COMMUNICATION- UNIVERSITY ROADMAP
DOCUMENT, COLLEGE PLANS, COLLEGE RESPONSE TEMPLATE
21
FIGURE 3 : CAUSE-AND-EFFECT BIOS MODEL OF OSU STRATEGIC PLANNING
22
FIGURE 4 : EXPANDED BIOS MODEL RELATING STRATEGY PLANNING TO
STRATEGY EXECUTIONS
24
FIGURE 5 : DOMAIN MODEL CAPTURING ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY AND
STRATEGY COMMUNICATION
25
FIGURE 6 : DETAILED DOMAIN MODEL OF OSU STRATEGIC PLANNING
27
FIGURE 7 : DATABASE ER DIAGRAM
33
FIGURE 8 : WORDLE CREATED FROM COLLEGE STRATEGY TITLES
39
FIGURE 9 : FUTURE SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY USAGE
40
ix
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1 : TOP 10 MANAGEMENT TOOLS OVER THE YEARS
TABLE 2: OSU ROADMAP DOCUMENT - 6 HIGH LEVEL GOALS
TABLE 3: ACCESS CONTROL LIST FOR SYSTEM USERS
TABLE 4: STRATEGY REFERENCES DISTRIBUTION ACROSS COLLEGES
x
10
18
30
34
1. Introduction
Strategic planning is organization‟s way of defining its future direction, making
decisions about resource allocation, including money and people.
More formally – „Strategic management is an ongoing process that evaluates and
controls the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its
competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors;
and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine
how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a
new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a
new economic environment, or a new social, financial, or political environment.‟ [1]
Every organization strives to be more competitive and efficient. Systems can not
improve with changes only in policy, priority and service changes. There are many
interdependencies that can have unexpected results. Even the well thought-out and
carefully detailed plans fail to achieve the goals due to unforseen events typically
faced by worker participants dealing with non-routine events. So planning should be
dynamic taking into account the unexpected stimuli that changes course of current
events.
Therefore, planning entails continuous improvement at all levels of the
enterprise, which in turn requires visibility into the planning process and achievement
of goals in comparison with previous cycle‟s performance.
1.1 Strategic planning
The word „strathgia’ meant the art of generalship, of devising and carrying out a
military campaign, in ancient Greek. The English word, „strategy‟, came from its
1
military origins to business world in the years when military career was considered a
good qualification for a manager. Strategic planning was thought to be a high-level
function fit only for small group of top managers. Strategic planning domain attracted
some of the best minds in business and academia, but they all have not agreed on
single practice that works in all circumstances [24].
Strategic planning went through so much transformation over the years. Strategic
planning was popular in 1960‟s and gave rise to business of management consulting
back then. By late 1980‟s, strategic planning was out of fashion till mid-1990‟s when
strategic planning was reviving again. Planning methodologies and planning tools
have changed a lot with rise of internet, e-commerce.
1.1.1
Emerging methods
Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning including
SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) [19], GE/
McKinsey matrix [20], Scenario Planning [21], Mission-Vision statements [22],
Porter‟s 5 Forces model [23] etc.
There are different approaches to strategic planning – Goal based strategic
planning where you start with organization‟s Mission, Vision as opposed to Issue
based strategic planning where you try to address the issues that organization is facing
on priority basis.
In top-down strategic planning approach strategic plans are initiated from top of
the organization and distributed down. Top management sets the guidelines, project
objectives, future plans and takes all major decisions. Status communications are
funneled up in organization through the same channels and they are mostly high level,
focused on schedule & financial metrics [12].
2
Bottom-up approach incorporates the ideas and strategies from lower levels of the
organization in defining the organization‟s strategy.
It allows individuals to
participate with operational level suggestions that are more proactive and reality
based. Bottom-up approach follows team decision-making and crowd sourcing [11].
1.2 Problem
While most of the industry uses top-down strategic planning, the disadvantage is
that many details often fail as they are too farfetched and unrealistic. Top-down
approach is good to communicate the management‟s objectives and aims explicitly to
lower levels. Most of these plans are developed for long term and these timelines
don‟t demand immediate actions from the middle and lower level employees. Thus,
the lower level‟s commitment to new strategies is less and they continue to work in
their comfort zones.
Whereas in case of bottom-up approach, endless iterations to consolidate the final
plan and resolve the negotiations between business owners and management delays
and kills stakeholders interest in coming up with solid strategic plan.
1.2.1
It’s a complex environment
If we follow the characteristics defined for complex systems in „Contemporary
Strategy Analysis‟ book [3], all large organizations are complex adaptive systems.
You plan for long term and short term but being a complex system, large number of
independent agents interacts within the system and with its environment. Many
factors keep interacting and reshaping the future i.e. system is continuously evolving
along with its own environment. Goals keep changing and original vision gets lost
along the way. Every few months or every year you revise the strategies and keeping
track of these changes becomes a problem.
3
1.2.2
Need for a new software environment
There are many software systems available off the shelf but though their features
are interesting they are hardly customizable. And they are not really designed to
combine top-down and bottom-up principles. Some of them are more like project
management softwares with timelines and tasks. E.g. strategicplanningMD [14],
Profix softwares [15], ManagePro [16], SAP ERP: SAP Strategic Enterprise
Management [17], 2-Plan management software [13] etc.
With limited view of the system, opportunities of collaboration are not visible to
lower levels of the organization, which is essential to improve the organization‟s
performance. So we concluded that we need a new software environment which will
support combination of top-down and bottom-up strategic planning efforts.
New system should account multiple revisions, modifications and corrections in
strategic plans. It should also serve as a central repository for all strategy related
documents and information. Organizations need to be able to make their strategy
related data available to all levels of employees and should also collect inputs/
feedbacks from lower levels, about the organization‟s future goals and objectives.
Once Management starts collecting data from every possible source, correlating all
that data and taking right decisions backed by correct data is another hard task.
So the questions we are addressing in this thesis are how can we model and
engineer the interactions happening in organizational units while developing a new
strategic plan? What are the features needed to support combination of top-down and
bottom-up strategic planning? And how do we provide these features?
4
1.3 Solution
To overcome the inherent problems of top-down and bottom-up, simplest solution
would be to combine both approaches and use the positives of both to negate the
disadvantages.
The Participatory Strategic Planning System (P2S2) that we designed is based on
a hybrid model, combining top-down guidance and bottom-up inputs. P2S2 is a two
phased, multi-iteration system. Each iteration will have one top-down and one
bottom-up phase. System will go through iterations till all stakeholders agree on a
final strategic plan.
1.3.1
Domain model of P2S2
Domain model is an object model incorporating behavior and data of the domain.
It can be thought of as a conceptual model of the domain of interest which describes
the various entities, their attributes and relationships plus the constraints that govern
the integrity of the model elements comprising that problem domain [10].
We chose domain model to represent our system as it can give an overall picture
of the organizations that participate in strategic planning with different levels of
abstraction. Every year new strategies will be proposed. Existing strategies, strategy
planners and stakeholders are also subject to change every few years or so. Domain
model representation of all this helps to decrease total cost of changes as all the
minute behavioral changes could easily be encapsulated in a single component.
Encapsulation of changing behaviors and minimum coupling between components are
major features of domain models i.e. domain models are high-level designs which
localizes code changes, avoiding possible ripple effects in other parts of the system
modeled, thus decreasing the time it takes to stabilize the system.
5
1.3.2
Flexibility of our domain model
Domain model we designed for P2S2 is based on strategic planning efforts at
OSU. But the model is flexible enough to be applied to other large enterprises. We
studied our model in relation with two strategic planning efforts. First is an academic
setup at The Ohio State University (OSU), second is an apparel retailer Abercrombie
& Fitch (A&F). In this thesis, based on the requirements of OSU‟s strategic planning
process, we explore the idea of using domain-specific architecture and content
management system (CMS) for developing strategic planning system. Most of our
insights are based on OSU‟s efforts. We will talk in detail about the implementation
done at OSU based on this model and benefits realized by that. We started analyzing
A&F‟s strategic planning very recently.
We will also show how technology can assist with the discovery of areas for
collaboration among sub-levels of the organization, by mining the responses of
employees within the organization. Top management generally coordinates all efforts
but the information flows in from employees at all layers of the organization. The
model provides a platform for stakeholders/ actors to interact and come up with an
optimal plan to project the organization in right direction with goals rooted in reality.
1.4 Thesis overview
This thesis is organized in seven chapters. First chapter „Introduction‟ opens up
with introduction to the strategic planning and approaches. It also talks about problem
and solution scope. Chapter two „Related research‟ talks in depth about the related
areas and relationships of these concepts with the problem at hand. Chapter three
„Participatory Strategic Planning System‟ will discuss in detail the domain model we
promise to deliver in this thesis. It draws parallels between OSU strategic planning
efforts and integrated top-down and bottom-up strategic planning approach. Chapter 4
6
„Implementation of P2S2‟ gives features and benefits realizable by implementation of
this system. Applicability of our domain model to other enterprises is also discussed
in this chapter. Chapter 5 „Conclusions‟ summarizes the results and highlights
important contributions. Chapter 6 „Future scope‟ will give leads to future research
direction and experiments happening in the domain. Finally chapter 8 „References‟
lists the references used in this thesis.
7
2. Related research
In this chapter we will talk about some of the current and past trends in strategic
management, experiments and corporate experiences. We will acquaint you with
domain modeling and Model-Driven Architecture concepts as we use the same to
represent our integrated top-down and bottom-up strategic planning system. The
system we are planning to build is complex system. We will discuss what it means by
a complex system and how knowing that a system is complex can help us in
developing it.
2.1 Strategic planning
To know the domain better, we looked at strategic planning tools available in
market and the ones that industry uses. One such global survey of tools, that top
executives and management uses, is done by Bain & company [2]. Bain & Company
is one of the most prestigious global management consulting firms. And they do this
survey every year since 1993. The objective is to identify the current application of
management tools and how it compares to the other tools being used across the
industries and around the globe. Secondly it helps executives to select, implement and
integrate optimal tools to improve company‟s performance. Based on their study, they
have some important insights –

No tool is cure-all

Decision makers achieve better results by championing realistic strategies, using
tools simply as a means to a goal
8

Overall satisfaction with tools is moderately positive, but the rates of usage, ease
of implementation, effectiveness, strengths and weaknesses vary widely

Management tools are much more effective when they are part of a major
organizational effort

Managers who switch from tool to tool undermine employees‟ confidence
TABLE 1 gives you a glimpse at the trend of management tools over the years.
Their 2009 report [29] states strategic planning tools have topped the tool usage list
since 1998 and are used heavily regardless of the economic cycle.
As per their 2011 report [28] successful strategic planning process should:

Describe the organization's mission, vision and fundamental values;

Target potential business arenas and explore each market for emerging threats
and opportunities;

Understand the current and future priorities of targeted customer segments;

Analyze the company's strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors and
determine which elements of the value chain the company should make versus
buy;

Identify and evaluate alternative strategies;

Develop an advantageous business model that will profitably differentiate the
company from its competitors;

Define stakeholder expectations and establish clear and compelling objectives
for the business;

Prepare programs, policies, and plans to implement the strategy;

Establish supportive organizational structures, decision processes, information
and control systems, and hiring and training systems;

Allocate resources to develop critical capabilities;
9

Plan for and respond to contingencies or environmental changes;

Monitor performance.
Top 10 Management Tools
1993
2000
2006
2008
2010
1. Mission and
Vision
Statements
1. Strategic
Planning
1. Strategic
Planning
1.
Benchmarking
1.
Benchmarking
2. Customer
Satisfaction
2. Mission and
Vision
Statements
2. CRM
2. Strategic
Planning
2. Strategic
Planning
3. TQM
3.
Benchmarking
3. Customer
Segmentation
3. Mission and
Vision
Statements
3. Mission and
Vision
Statements
4. Competitor
Profiling
4. Outsourcing
4.
Benchmarking
4. CRM
4. CRM
5.
Benchmarking
5. Customer
Satisfaction
5. Mission and
Vision
Statements
5. Outsourcing
5. Outsourcing
6. Pay-forPerformance
6. Growth
Strategies
6. Core
Competencies
6. Balanced
Scorecard
6. Balanced
Scorecard
7.
Reengineering
7. Strategic
Alliance
7. Outsourcing
7. Customer
Segmentation
7. Core
Competencies
8. Strategic
Alliance
8. Pay-forPerformance
8. Business
Process
Reengineering
8. Business
Process
Reengineering
8. Change
Management
Programs
9. Cycle Time
Reduction
9. Customer
Segmentation
9. Scenario and
Contingency
Planning
9. Core
Competencies
9. Strategic
Alliance
10. SelfDirected
Teams
10. Core
Competencies
10. Knowledge
Management
10. Mergers
and
Acquisitions
10. Customer
Segmentation
BAIN & COMPANY
TABLE 1 : TOP 10 MANAGEMENT TOOLS OVER THE YEARS
10
2.2 Combination of top-down and bottom-up
Everyone has different approach towards strategic planning and there are many
factors like size of company, complexity of organization‟s processes, leadership etc.
that affects implementation of strategic planning.
There have been considerably less efforts to use best of both strategic planning
approaches. Though there are more blogs or articles posted online surrounding the
same idea, actual efforts are still ad hoc.
A Harvard Business Review article titled‟ How IT shapes Top-Down and BottomUp decision making‟ [4] was published in Nov 2010, based on a study by Asst Prof
Raffaella Sadun. She says, what determines where the decisions are made – top,
bottom or middle of the corporate ladder is the technology that a company deploys.
Information based systems such as ERP softwares, will push decision making towards
bottom whereas communication systems such as email and IM applications will push
the decision making process towards the top. Technologies that make the acquisition
of information easier at the lower level of hierarchy are associated with a
decentralization of the decision making process. On the other hand, communication
technologies do the opposite. Earlier when communication channels were not that
well established; it was hard for someone in headquarters to make educated decisions
and communicate them to branch offices or plants in time. In those cases, it was
natural to cede control of daily operations to a local manager. However with today‟s
networking solutions, there is reduction in the cost of transmitting information. It's
easier for person down in hierarchy to communicate with Chief Executive Officer
(CEO). CEO can monitor constantly what this person is doing and just give orders,
rather than rely on the judgments of those below. Network may actually deter
11
innovation and either top layers starts micromanaging or workers may find
themselves pestering their bosses with emailed questions throughout the day.
Though this paper favours bottom up, it does not give a concrete solution in terms
of what to use and what not to use. So balancing top-down and bottom-up flow of
information is actually hard.
Then there is a working paper by a post doctoral student from INSEAD – a top
ranked international graduate business school in Europe. Paper is titled – „How Topdown and Bottom-Up strategy processes are combined in manufacturing
organizations‟ [5]. They studied 6 mature German manufacturing organizations in
depth. And he states – product market positioning and large technological investments
initiatives typically come from top, method initiatives from the middle and process
improvements from the front line. Out of the six they studied, two had lower
performance (in terms of productivity improvements) because they lost potential from
bottom up driven initiatives, third suffered a significant profit reduction because of
insufficient coordination from top. And rest three had a balanced view with direction
from top and either autonomy for middle and bottom management or strategic
initiative content flowing in from all layers in organization.
So studying methodologies of the three well performing organizations could be
another starting point. But again it underlines the fact that combination of both topdown and bottom-up works better than individual approach.
We could only find couple of more examples and studies regarding the combined
approach.
E.g. „Combining top-down and bottom-up change management strategies in
implementation of ACP: the My Wishes program in South West Sydney, Australia‟ [9]
12
- a healthcare application idea where they tried to employ both top-down and bottomup strategies.
OR
„Top-down or bottom-up? : Decentralization, natural resource management, and
usufruct rights in the forests and wetlands of western Uganda‟ [8]. Authors talk about
how local resource use is governed by prescriptive national legislation and regulations,
local by-laws and perceived ownership of local residents. They suggest that better
operational success of resource management at the local level could be achieved by
disseminating information at multiple levels.
Again it emphasizes the fact that information needs to be distributed to all layers
and feedback needs to be collected in response to planned goals and strategies.
2.3 Domain modeling and Model-driven programming
As said earlier, domain model provides a structural and semantic view of the
domain. An important advantage of domain model is that it describes and constraints
the scope of problem domain. Domain models can be effectively used to verify and
validate the understanding of the problem domain among various stakeholders. It is
especially helpful as a communication tool and a focusing point both amongst the
different members of the business as well as between the technical and business teams
[10].
Domain models can represent different levels of abstraction for particular
domain. You can use high-level abstractions for clients or non-technical staff and
low-level abstractions for developers.
In UML, class diagrams are used to represent the domain model. It provides a
structural view of the domain that can be complemented with dynamic views like Use
Case diagrams.
13
Model-driven architecture (MDA) is a kind of domain engineering, wherein you
reuse domain knowledge in the production of new software systems. It was launched
by Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001 [25]. Most organizations work in only
few domains. They repeatedly build similar systems within a given domain with
variations to meet different customer needs. Rather than building each new system
variant from scratch, significant savings may be achieved by reusing portions of
previous systems in the domain to build new ones.
MDA is concerned more with the means of translating a model into code for
different technology platforms than with the practice of defining better domain
models [26]. OMG focuses Model-driven architecture on forward engineering, i.e.
producing code from abstract, human-elaborated modeling diagrams (e.g. class
diagrams).
The Model-Driven Architecture approach defines system functionality using
a platform-independent
model (PIM)
drawn
with
appropriate domain-specific
language (DSL).
Then, given a platform definition model (PDM) corresponding to CORBA, .NET,
the Web, etc., the PIM is translated to one or more platform-specific models (PSMs)
that computers can run. Automated tools generally perform this translation. This
requires mappings and transformations and should be modeled too. The PSM may use
different DSLs, or a General Purpose Language like Java, C#, PHP, Python, etc.
However MDA approach has not yet gained mainstream industry acceptance. The
vision of MDA allows for the specification of a system as an abstract model, which
may be realized as a concrete implementation (program) for a particular computing
platform (e.g. .NET/ Java). But there are concerns over incomplete standards,
14
interoperability between different MDA vendors i.e. vendor lock-in, requirement of
high-level of expertise for MDA practitioners etc.
In this thesis we give a domain model for strategic planning system which is based
on workings of top-down and bottom-up approaches. Though it is possible to use
tools by external vendors for modeling languages and code generators, many use their
own specifications or tools built by their organizations, as it allows tight fit with exact
domain. It also reduces learning time of developers and the model can evolve with the
organization.
2.4 Complex environments
As defined in „Contemporary Strategy Analysis‟ book [3], chapter 17 – „Current
trends in Strategic Management‟;
weather, ant colonies, flock of birds, human
crowds, and seismic activity are all complex systems – open systems in which a large
number of independent agents interact. Organizations are also complex systems.
Complexity theory shows that complex systems display common and predictable
patterns of adaptive behavior. Some of the common features of complex systems are:
1. Unpredictability - The behavior of complex adaptive systems cannot be
predicted in any precise sense. There is no tendency of stable equilibrium.
Cascades of changes are constantly interacting and reshaping competitive
landscapes. Exogenous changes are subject to a power-law distribution
whereby small changes typically result in small consequences but may also
trigger major movements.
2. Self-organization - A key feature of biological and social systems is their
capacity for self-organization. As with other living organisms – bee colonies
and shoals of fish – companies have the capacity to self-organize, adapt to
15
change, and create new structures and systems in the absence of formal
authority.
3. Inertia and chaos - Evolutionary processes can produce three types of
outcomes: an orderly outcome where change is so limited that the system
suffers inertia, disorder where changes produce chaotic outcomes, and an
intermediate region where small changes that result in a power-law
distribution results in small and large shifts and this achieves the most rapid
evolutionary adaptation.
The implications of these ideas for strategic management are radical. If large
organizations are complex systems, then it is inherently unpredictable. None can
predict the outcomes of actions that managers or organizations take. Rather than
systematic and rational decision making as in strategic planning, strategies may be
formed unintentionally as decisions are made over the years based on intuition and
decentralized processes – called emergent strategies [27].
16
3. Participatory Strategic Planning System
The overall goals of domain modeling presented here are to provide a framework
for integrated top-down and bottom-up strategic planning system. In this chapter we
will be seeing how P2S2 uses the same domain model and performs better than
individual approaches. As said earlier, it is a two phased, multi-iteration system.
A high level view of how the system works is as follows:
1. Top management initiates the process, sets up direction and guideline goals for
next planning cycle of strategic planning. This is top-down half of the process.
2. Secondly, we collect responses from colleges and individual units within colleges
about university guideline goals. This is bottom-up half of the process, where you
engage bottom levels and let them influence the decision making.
3. Third step is to analyze current process and also to collect feedbacks about
previous planning cycle and performance insights. This supports the continuous
improvement of system and gives better visibility into the process. This also
makes the process more adaptive and operationally flexible.
3.1
OSU strategic planning
Our domain model is based on The Ohio State University‟s recently established
standard process for strategic planning. These efforts were conducted by Office of
Academic Affairs (OAA) and Office of Strategic Planning (OSP). Previously, as most
institutions, the process was manual and often ad hoc, especially at the lower levels.
Contribution of lower levels in the strategic planning was minimal and not all colleges
17
had their own strategic plan. University strategic plan was not getting percolated to
lowest levels and many were not even aware of its existence.
In 2010, OSU decided to automate some of the strategic planning efforts and
make information more widely accessible through the use of dedicated web tool. The
idea was to have a central repository of strategic plans and let everyone know about
what others are doing.
This would also provide a platform for employees and
students to voice their opinions.
By observing the communication patterns during strategic planning at OSU, we
were able to develop a domain model for more flexible system - P2S2 - one that
would support both top-down and bottom-up approaches. This communication is
described next along with the domain model that we derived subsequently from it.
1. One University
2. Students First
3. Faculty and Staff Talent & Culture
4. Research prominence
5. Outreach and Collaboration
6. Operational and Financial Soundness & Simplicity
TABLE 2: OSU ROADMAP DOCUMENT - 6 HIGH LEVEL GOALS
3.1.1
Top-down approach
OSU started with „The University Roadmap Strategic planning goals, objectives
and initiatives‟ document. It has six high-level goals capturing in essence the future
direction for university strategies. These six goals are shown in TABLE 2. Each goal
has sub-goals - objectives, strategies, and initiatives. Sub-goals are numbered
18
hierarchically as 1.1, 1.2, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 etc. FIGURE 1 shows the numbering of
university goals and strategies. All the efforts were organized and followed standard
numbering for goals and sub-goals. We will see later how the numbering standard
helps in the system design.
High-level goals shown in TABLE 2 also give you a general idea about the
stakeholders or actors of planning process viz. students, faculty, administration staff
and external communities both local and global.
1 One University
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.2.1.1
1.2.2.1
FIGURE 1: UNIVERSITY STRATEGY NUMBERING PATTERN
This roadmap document was distributed to all colleges and departments on
campus, along with a college response template which they were supposed to fill and
return it back to university.
The response template that colleges received was designed specifically to capture
the life cycle of strategies and initiatives which go through Requirements & Analysis,
Execution and Delivery (RED) phases. Data collected from colleges was therefore in
a standard structured format. This was leveraged by P2S2 as we shall see later.
3.1.2
Bottom-up approach
Once colleges received the guideline goals and response template, they started
collecting comments, suggestions, and requirements from individuals in the college.
19
At this stage, we call all inputs as „request elements‟, which will be filtered and
refined later by strategic planning team at college level.
This is a Requirements & Analysis phase for strategies. Here we would collect
information like initiator/ owner, primary & secondary university cross references,
description etc. The numbering standard followed while creating new university/
college level strategies, helps here to make cross referencing of strategies easier.
At the end college plans are sent back to university. Strategic planning team at the
university level does a review of college plans. It can either accept the college plans
as it is, or request amendments. It may also happen that university level plan needs to
be modified based on what the colleges/ departments/ individuals in university
demand. At this stage, inter- or intra- college/ university level communications
happen and a mutually beneficial university strategic plan is drawn.
Creation of final strategic plans marks the end of requirements phase and start of
Execution phase. We collect performance metrics, milestones, and resource
requirement & usage data in this phase.
And at Delivery, we verify the progress and performance indices against metrics.
This data is sent to university or colleges as a feedback to this operation.
20
1 One University
1.1
ENG
1.1.A
1.2
1.3
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.2.1.1
1.2.2.1
...
JGSPA
1.1.A
1.1.A
1.1.B
....
1.1.B
....
....
6.3.B
6.4.B
FCB
6.5.B
6.3.D
ENG 1.1.A
• Title:
• Owners:
• Primary cross-reference: 1.2.1
• Secondary cross-reference: 6.2.1.1
• Metrics:
• Milestones: X- Jan 2010, Y- May 2010
• Resources: $$$ for - - -; realignment of
existing - - - resources.
• Initiative description:
FIGURE 2 : 3 LAYERS OF DATA COMMUNICATION - UNIVERSITY ROADMAP DOCUMENT,
COLLEGE PLANS, AND COLLEGE RESPONSE TEMPLATE
FIGURE 2 shows a 3-layered structure of documents that university and colleges
work on. Layer 1 shows a university roadmap document numbering structure. Layer 2
is a representative collection of college level strategic plans as submitted in standard
college response template illustrated in layer 3. Each college is identified by a
designated code e.g. College of Engineering as ENG etc. Each strategy will have its
owner, primary and secondary references, metrics, milestones, resources, timeline etc.
All the data in this template is stored in central repository against that strategy.
21
3.2
Modeling the units and information flow
Next we look at the interactions between different units and flow of information
originating from various components of the system.
3.2.1
BIOS and stakeholders
To capture the influence of university and college goals on business operations,
we used BIOS cause and effect model and cycle [7].
In FIGURE 3, we present a simple version of the overall cause and effect of
strategic planning and execution where “Business sets goals for Infrastructure which
in turn enables Operations to execute the Strategy which determines in what direction
Business is going in future.”
Putting all - stakeholders, strategy, operations and infrastructure - together in
single picture allows us to get more insights about the entire process.
FIGURE 3: CAUSE-AND-EFFECT BIOS MODEL OF OSU STRATEGIC PLANNING
22
FIGURE 4 is a detailed version of the BIOS model shown in FIGURE 3. This
puts the strategy planning, execution and feedback in different perspective.

STRATEGY P LANNERS: At the top, we have actor‟s or stakeholder‟s layer. Each of
these actors are associated with a very high level goal or aim of their own to get
involved in the process, shown in bracket below each actor. These aims are not
exactly quantifiable but with this association getting a feedback from right people
and measuring the right entities to analyse the planning efforts gets easier.
Ultimate aim for faculty could be ranking in peers or funding, for students it might
be academic excellence and shaping up their career and life. City residents care
more for improvement in quality of life due to addition of this educational and
research institute in their city, where as administration staff care more for
operational soundness and simplicity of university operations etc.
More
importantly these are the strategy planners - people generating request elements or
strategies.

REQUEST ELEMENTS: When we first collect data from individuals for strategic
planning, we call it „Request Elements‟. Requests elements are transformed into
requirements and strategies/ initiatives for college or university later on. It needs
to be validated by planning team and approved as strategy for that unit. These
strategies are passed on to operations using some interface (human, computer etc.).

EXECUTION: FIGURE 4 middle layer is a business and operations layer. This is
where actual execution of strategy happens. Execution of strategies is a job of root
level owners. At this stage we are not focusing on how this is accomplished.

DELIVERY: Delivery is an outcome of execution. It gives results (in the form of
product, data etc.) and metrics back to the requester. Delivery step is also used as
a feedback collector to measure the performance of system against the stated
23
goals. Current performance data – metrics, milestones, and resources used - helps
to decide whether the business is progressing competitively or not and also to
improve future operations. Resources can be prerequisites or things that are
required along the way to fulfill the operation in consideration.

SUPPORT LAYER: At the bottom, we have support layer which enables the
operations of business by providing infrastructure and facilities, which could be
laboratories, equipment, roads, classrooms, wireless connectivity, intranet,
libraries etc.
FIGURE 4: EXPANDED BIOS MODEL RELATING STRATEGY PLANNING TO STRATEGY
EXECUTION
3.2.2
P2S2 domain model
We next introduce the P2S2 domain model which is an object model incorporating
behavior and data of the domain based on the concepts introduced in previous
sections. Also this domain model is represented in detail with different abstraction
levels.
24
We derive the internal organizational hierarchy and communication domain model
from discussions in previous section and capture this in FIGURE 5 and 6.
Contains
*
*
Unit
1
1
Owns
*
*
*
1
Request Element
Faculty, Admin & Staff
*
Crossreferrenced
by
Initiates
FIGURE 5: DOMAIN MODEL CAPTURING ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY AND STRATEGY
COMMUNICATION
A „unit‟ represents any entity in the scope of university. Unit can have multiple
sub-units E.g. colleges, departments, faculty, facilities, administrative cells etc. A
unit can be expanded down to its children up to any level. Structure of a unit at any
level in the hierarchy will be very much similar to its parent or children units i.e. unit
has fractal nature. Self similarity and extensibility of units is shown by a self-loop in
FIGURE 5. Each unit has its own supporting faculty, staff and administrators and it
also has its own request elements. This structure addresses the reality that any
enterprise has many levels in its operational hierarchy.
Request Elements also shows fractal nature. Each request element will be
submitted in college response template.
3.2.3
Modeling associations
So how does the strategic planning work in the overall enterprise environment including many levels and many units, using both top-down and bottom-up consensus
25
building approaches to finalize the strategic plan is shown by the domain model in
FIGURE 6.
In FIGURE 6, at the top we have university level Goals, Objectives, Strategies,
and Initiatives in „University Roadmap Document‟ which is a starting point for
strategic planning efforts. This roadmap document along with response template is
passed down to colleges and departments. As seen in section 3.1.1, this is the topdown approach where top management sets the goals and guidelines for lower levels.
Departments, individuals - faculties/ students/ staff etc. - prepare their own request
elements. All of which are cross referenced against the university level strategies as in
FIGURE 6. This is where you collect feedback, suggestions, or comments about
university level guidelines and initiatives. College level strategic plans are prepared
based on data gathered from the departments and other units reporting to colleges. All
colleges send their plans back to the university level planning team. This part of the
process comprises bottom-up approach towards strategic planning. Section 3.1.2
discussed this in more detail.
FIGURE 6 also shows all three types of relationship (Reporting, Virtual and
Temporary) that units can form amongst them.
Units in same hierarchy report directly to their parents. We call this a
REPORTING relationship between the units. E.g. different departments (Computer
Science & Engineering, Mechanical Engineering etc.) report directly to College of
Engineering in OSU.
Units which don‟t belong to the same hierarchy can be grouped/ shared to form a
relationship, called VIRTUAL relationship. E.g. college placement cell is important
26
for all departments in college, so every department has their representatives working
with this unit.
Different units can team up temporarily to achieve a common goal by forming a
TEMPORARY relationship. E.g. inter disciplinary project team working together for
6 months or a year and then getting dissolved.
University Roadmap
Objectives
Goals
Strategies
Referred
by
Referred
by
*
Initiatives
*
*
*
College of Engineering
Strategic Plan
College of Arts & Sciences
Strategic Plan
College
Placement
Geo Game
Project Team
VIRTUAL
RELATION
TEMPORARY
RELATION
ME
Request
Elements
Faculty
Request
Elements
CSE
Request
Elements
Faculty
Request
Elements
REPORTING
RELATION
FIGURE 6: DETAILED DOMAIN MODEL OF OSU STRATEGIC PLANNING
27
4. Implementation of P2S2
Based on the proposed domain model introduced above, we started implementing
Participatory
Strategic
Planning
System
(P2S2)
for
OSU.
Through
our
implementation and discussion of its features we show how the domain model is used
to enable all the interactions shown above.
4.1 Use of domain model
As discussed in previous sections planning process starts at the top. Top
management also coordinates the planning efforts of colleges and departments.
Collection of request elements starts at the lowest level of unit‟s hierarchy as
shown in FIGURE 6. Suggestions, opinions about university guidelines along with
individual‟s requirements or needs are solicited using college response templates.
This data is shared with other associated units depending on the relations that these
units share.
Based on domain model and planning process, we identified 3 phases which the
strategic plans go through.
1. In process: This is writing and documentation period of the request elements.
Data is only shared and collected from associated units. Planning team will
scrutinize the request elements and it will come up with a strategic plan for the
college.
2. Published inside university: This phase will start when an agreement is
reached on college plan and it is sent to university for review. Individual
28
college plans will be shared with other colleges and departments. This gives
an opportunity for everyone to see what others are doing in university. This is
where inter unit communication happen. Units can look for strategies with
similar interests or goals and try to establish collaboration bonds. If units have
a reporting, virtual or temporary relations, as discussed in section 3.2.3, they
can all work together to revise individual strategies and come up with
mutually beneficial plans.
3. Published outside university: When entire strategic planning process is over,
plans will be published to outside world through university website for
interested external entities like local administration, parents of students etc.
Domain model clearly makes use of the hierarchical organization structure to
standardize the process.
Next we list different roles played by users in the system and their access rights.
The operations allowed on strategic planning content are CREATE, READ,
UPDATE, DELETE and COMMENT i.e. CRUD + Comment. These operations are
applied/ used by different roles as follows in the above phases.
1. Planner: Units will choose their own planners in team of 2/ 3. There will be
different access levels for planners E.g. university, college, department etc.
Planner A at any level will be able to READ the data coming from planner B
of any other unit related (as in section 3.2.3) with planner A‟s unit. Planner A
will only be able to COMMENT on Planner B‟s data but he can UPDATE /
DELETE his own unit‟s data.
We don‟t want everyone to have full access rights to database because if
everyone starts updating the plans, then credibility of the content will be lost
29
and tracking the owner of changes will be difficult. So everyone in unit will be
able to see the unit‟s working draft of strategic plan. They can comment on the
draft through a forum or blog but any suggestions to add or change the content
will be rerouted to planners.
2. Internal University User: is any authorized user within the scope of
university.
3. Anonymous user: This is any user outside university. Anonymous users are
able to READ/ COMMENT on the public data without logging in to the
system but they won‟t be able to UPDATE/ DELETE any data. E.g. parents of
a student.
4. Administrator: Administrator of the system will have full access to the
system. He will be able to perform all – (CRUD + COMMENT) - operations
on entire database.
TABLE 3 shows above data about users, access rights, and planning phases in more
formal way.
Planning Phase
CRUD+
Published
Inside
University
CRUD+
Published
Outside
University
CRUD+
Comment
Comment
Comment
CRUD+
CRUD+
CRUD+
Comment
Comment
Comment
R+ Comment
R+ Comment
R+ Comment
R+ Comment
R+ Comment
-
R+ Comment
In Process
Access Level
Admin
Planner
Members of Same
Unit
Members of Different
Unit
Anonymous users
-
TABLE 3: ACCESS CONTROL LIST FOR SYSTEM USERS
30
Each strategic plan is made up of many Request Elements, which are initiated by
any authorized users. We need to store the request element initiation, progress along
the RED, milestones and metrics calculations generated at the delivery. Following are
some of the factors that can be used as metrics for customer satisfaction in this
system. (This list is not exhaustive but representative.) These metrics are identified
from the data collected through college responses. We have grouped and categorized
these metrics against the stakeholders:


Business stakeholder

Usage of resources

Funds

Time (Schedule, Milestones)

Staff size

Budget ( Financial performance against plan)
Administration, Staff, and Faculty stakeholder

Utilization of services

Improvement in facilities

# of engagements with private sector

# of global partnerships

Community services

Amount of external funding, proposals submitted

# of programs taught
31

Program awareness, Program incentive and performance, Program
termination


# of new / interdisciplinary programs

Faculty recruitment, % of minority and women faculty
Student stakeholder

# of students

# of applications, acceptance rate

Enrolment rate

Fellowship awardees, recruitment rate

# of international students, % of minority students

Boys to girls student ratio

# of grad and undergrad students participating in research, participation in
student organizations
4.2 Current state of P2S2
Having addressed users and access through the domain model, we next look at the
logical information that we will have to store to use the system efficiently.
We took incremental approach while developing the system. First increment
comprised of backend layer. Based on the conceptual domain model and college
response template, we designed a database for P2S2. This database acts as central
repository for strategic planning information. FIGURE 7 shows an ER diagram of this
preliminary database.
We started with simple model having data about Colleges, University Goals,
College Goals and a table of Goal Cross-references. Not all colleges had their metrics,
32
milestones or resources listed at this stage, so we omitted that data from this
increment. Rather there were many plans with other missing attributes too.
Database in current increment has strategic plans of 31 colleges, grouped in 5
categories -Arts and Sciences, Health Sciences, Professional, Regional Campuses, and
Support Units. Strategy database also has 976 college level initiatives and 110
university level initiatives.
I used standalone Java code to parse the plans and put the extracted data in
MySQL database using Java‟s „regex‟ & „sql‟ packages. Appendix A contains the
same code used to parse college plans. The numbering standard and college response
template described in section 3.1.2 are particularly used here. As we already knew
college response data pattern, we could write regular expressions to extract data. Data
extraction still was not easy because even though colleges were supposed to follow a
template that did not happen as planned. Many colleges used wrong versions of
template, improvised the template or used their own numbering and data standards.
Besides all this, there were typos, copy paste or repetition in the college plans
submitted.
FIGURE 7: DATABASE ER DIAGRAM
We started building the system with backend layer first. On top of database, we
have a MODx Content Management System and then a web interface at front. As we
33
were planning to host our web tool on OIA‟s server, we had to go by choice of
technologies already in place - WAMP package - Windows, Apache, MySQL and
PHP along with MODx Content Management System.
I developed static pages of the web tool in MODx using PHP, HTML, and
Javascript but we faced various challenges while developing dynamic web pages due
to the firewall and security issues. So currently we are testing the options to host the
tool and we don‟t have a fully working prototype at hand to test the results. But we
have strategy database and we tried to make best use of the same. More insights based
on the data at hand will be discussed in coming sections.
Total
University
Goals
Referred
Total
DISTINCT
University
Goals
Referred
# of College
Initiatives
Support Units
14
8
8
OHR
Support Units
31
19
11
OLA
Health Sciences
25
18
14
COD
Regional Campuses
21
10
17
NEWARK
Professional
50
29
18
CSW
Professional
8
8
18
JGSPA
Health Sciences
34
18
19
COO
Arts and Sciences
41
21
20
CMPS
Support Units
22
13
20
TGS
Arts and Sciences
43
21
21
CBS
Group
Collegecode
CONTINUED…
TABLE 4: STRATEGY REFERENCES DISTRIBUTION ACROSS COLLEGES
34
TABLE 4: CONTINUED
Total
University
Goals
Referred
Total
DISTINCT
University
Goals
Referred
# of College
Initiatives
Professional
32
25
22
FCB
Support Units
35
20
22
ANP
Support Units
40
18
22
UC
Professional
21
17
24
CFAES
Arts and Sciences
67
26
30
COH
Arts and Sciences
65
27
30
COTA
Support Units
72
19
31
OCIO
Support Units
71
36
33
OSL
Arts and Sciences
68
31
35
SBS
Health Sciences
69
34
35
CON
Health Sciences
40
22
36
CPH
Health Sciences
66
29
37
COP
Health Sciences
88
21
37
COVM
Support Units
49
19
44
OES
Support Units
21
16
45
OR
Professional
90
43
46
ENG
Regional Campuses
95
35
47
MANSFIELD
Professional
110
44
50
MCL
Group
Collegecode
CONTINUED…
35
TABLE 4: CONTINUED
Total
University
Goals
Referred
Total
DISTINCT
University
Goals
Referred
# of College
Initiatives
Support Units
52
36
53
OOE
Regional Campuses
120
45
57
MARION
Professional
145
30
74
EHE
AVERAGE
55
24.45161
Group
Collegecode
TABLE 4 gives a better idea about the distribution of strategies among colleges.
There are total 114 distinct goals/ strategies/ initiatives at university level. But college
level plans lack to cover all these university goals. On an average college plans refer
only 55 university level initiatives and if we exclude the repetitions, average comes
out to be only 24 distinct university level initiatives referred per college plan.
One immediately realized benefit of this centralized database is that it keeps all
the strategic plans in searchable and sort-able format. With a relational database
verifying the completeness and alignment of college level strategies against the
university level goals became easier.
This also made it easier to share the plans
among colleges or other units.
Following are some of the insights derived from the database use:
1. University strategies not referred by any college plans. There were 9
university level goals which were not at all referred by any college on campus.
So they were just listed in university level strategic plans but no action was
taken on it by any sub levels.
36
E.g. facilitate partnerships between the Ohio Supercomputer Center and
industry to advance private sector capabilities.
It is very likely that university is working on this initiative and undertaking
projects in collaborations with private industries. But apparently they are not
getting noticed. University needs to track all efforts towards fulfillment of
strategic goals and let everyone know about what they can do to help.
2. Goals missing in university plan. On the other hand, there were goals that
were not present in university level plans but are still referred by college level
plans. This was because either university level plans missed on some
important strategies, or may be because these strategies were only relevant to
specific group of colleges and were not generic enough to be included in
university level plans.
3. We could also easily find out which are the most referred university level
strategies.
E.g. enhance the teaching and learning environment, instill life and
professional preparedness skills in students to enhance post-degree success.
This is a good sign that the students and faculty are at the center of most
college strategies.
4. Fourth category would be of strategies that were referred by least number of
colleges. So strategic planning team should look into why it is not acted upon
by many colleges or is it genuinely not that valuable and should it be removed
from university level plans.
E.g. develop a comprehensive, university-wide risk assessment system
37
5. There were many colleges with total # of strategies <= 20. Whereas university
roadmap guideline document has 6 high level goals and 114 lower strategies/
initiatives. It is highly likely that either plans are incomplete or colleges are
not taking the planning process seriously.
6. In some of the plans entire university high level goals were missing. This is
another sign of incomplete or ignored plans. E.g. College of optometry did not
have any strategies corresponding to university goal 5, 6 and goal 4 had just 1
strategy against it.
7. Many plans did not mention the primary and secondary university references
in initial versions, which made the tracking of strategy coverage difficult.
These plans had to be revised in later iterations.
8. Most plans cut short on one or the other strategy attributes like title,
description, owner, timelines, metrics, milestones, resources. Not having this
data becomes a problem when you try to visualize a single picture for entire
university. Missing data would corrupt the status reports.
9. Some of the colleges which fell under same umbrella like arts and sciences
schools or health sciences schools had very similar plans. In later iterations, all
5 arts and sciences plans were merged to single strategic plan.
10. We could search the database by keywords like NSF, green initiatives,
international, global etc. This made the job of finding and relating similar
strategies, based on same ultimate goal, same audience or sponsors etc, lot
easier.
11. FIGURE 8 shows one of many ways in which existing strategy database can
be used innovatively to visualize the strategies in more picturesque way.
38
Figure shows a „wordle‟ in which word‟s font size is proportional to the
frequency of that word in particular text. I used all strategy titles as text for
this wordle. Though this is not a very accurate measure for anything, we can
still most certainly say that there is more focus on „research‟, „faculty‟,
„students‟, „programs‟ etc. as they appear the maximum number of times in
strategy titles.
FIGURE 8 : WORDLE CREATED FROM COLLEGE STRATEGY TITLES
12. Finally with the available database about strategies, timelines, owner, metrics,
status etc., we can easily pull out current events happening in response to
strategies, university wide status reports, over-achieving or low performance
strategies. This way you can keep track of efforts and direct the right resources
in right direction.
39
4.3 Future benefits and features of P2S2
• PHP
User
• JavaScript
Interface • HTML
CMS
Db
• Content Management
System
• MODx
• MySQL
FIGURE 9 : FUTURE SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY USAGE
FIGURE 9 shows the technologies used in building the system. We have a very
basic working prototype for backend layer. We also have static web pages built with
CMS. But we could not fully extend the web interface to do the linking between
database and CMS due to firewall and security issues of our university web server.
Still we could very well see the future benefits of building such a system. Some of
which are listed below:
1. Flexibility in creating request elements through distribution of work and
web access. Different planners from same college can create different request
elements and it will all come together into a single virtual college plan in
central repository.
2. Each user will have a different view of strategy data based on his access
levels. Each role or user will have different set of allowed actions out of
CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE (CRUD) and COMMENT. Document
visibility rules could be set easily. Publishing data to selected audience or
making it publicly available will be easier.
40
3. We could very easily keep log of strategic planning efforts, if all the
strategies and performance data is at single place. Also central repository
makes it lot easier to fetch consolidated performance metrics and drill down
if required.
4. Optimal use of resources will be possible at every level. As strategies are
accomplished, we update the database with feedback and recalculate
performance metrics at delivery. Based on this data, we can identify low
performing initiatives and change the policy, reallocate resources or use
alternative processes to get optimum results.
5. We could set up alerts for underperforming, malfunctioning, ignored, not in
use, above or below performance threshold strategies. You can either alert the
owners or let management know about such troubled strategies.
6. Find more innovative ways to mine meaningful data and put it in more easily
understandable format. E.g. Wordle shown in FIGURE 8.
4.4 Wider applicability of our domain model
From a broader applicability perspective we also asked ourselves whether the
model based on OSU‟s strategic planning efforts was too customized or it can be
applied to other enterprises. To check this, we explored the applicability to a business
enterprise as discussed next.
4.4.1
Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) is a specialty retailer of classic All-American apparel
with stores in the United States and internationally. A&F has annual revenue of over 4
billion dollars.
41
We conducted a short survey of A&F associates to gain more insights about their
current processes. This survey highlighted how A&F‟s current strategic planning
processes work, how the strategy is defined, how communication of objectives flows
through the organization, and the opportunities for improvements.
Like many other enterprises, A&F implements a top-down approach to strategic
planning. Strategic objectives aligned with company‟s mission are defined by
executive leadership team. These objectives are then distributed down the
organization, becoming more and more focused at every level. This iterative process
continues down the organization till associate level objectives are defined.
Opportunities for collaboration are apparent at levels near top of the organization, but
as the objectives are refined, ability to identify the overlap becomes less apparent,
creating silos. Also traceability of individual and department level objectives back to
enterprise strategy is lost in the process.
An example of silos at A&F can be found in a recent situation; the infrastructure
and applications teams were both pursuing cloud computing initiatives separately.
While ultimately the connection between the groups was made at the top, there are
opportunities to close that gap earlier in the process. This is one example where A&F
could benefit from a means to identify such relationships. P2S2 would definitely help
to improve the collaboration and knowledge sharing across the organization.
Communication from the bottom up occurs on a weekly basis at executive level
while reporting on the status of departmental objectives. These reports include sales
related data, value-add initiatives, benefits realized, and schedule status. This is the
only communication flowing up in the organization, but it lacks individual objective
feedback.
42
A&F is putting processes and tools in place to improve their internal and external
collaboration networks. An internal blog is being used by designers, which allows
designers across departments and brands to collaborate on inspirational trips, photos,
and design ideas. This has bridged some gaps between design teams and it also
provides potential cost savings by reducing the number of inspiration trips of
designers.
Secondly an IT staff council was created recently to give IT associates a voice
directly to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to communicate ideas and areas of
concern through anonymous channels.
While both initiatives are still in their infancy, A&F can expect to see
improvements from the increased collaboration and communication channels created.
4.4.2
P2S2 and A&F strategic planning
What A&F lacks in their planning process is the bottom potential in generating
new strategies for business improvement.
With P2S2 in place, A&F could expect to see considerable level of knowledge
discovery by both associates and executives alike. Associates can view what other
departments are working on first hand as well as tie their current responsibilities back
to the enterprise strategy. This would allow associates to provide feedback about
department objectives and increase the influence over enterprise strategy. Various
user levels and their access rights in P2S2 could be used to let all employees raise
their concerns and suggestions anonymously or otherwise. They will be able to see
what company is doing and put in their inputs about what could be improved and
how. The strategic planning system will also provide executives a direct view of
43
lower levels of the organization. It would increase agility of the organization by
recognizing changes in market sooner.
P2S2 provides a central repository for all strategic planning data. Same could be
used for designers to share ideas, photos etc.
With the integration of collaboration, tracking of objectives, knowledge discovery
and sharing achieved through P2S2; A&F would transform from a top-down approach
to a hybrid model. Use of P2S2 would encourage inputs from macro and micro point
of view of the organization, both influencing the enterprise strategy in constructive
way.
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5. Conclusions
There are many strategic planning approaches and tools available today. Each one
has its own advantages and disadvantages. Most of the industry uses top-down
strategic planning but it misses out on inputs from bottom layers. So the plans drawn
by top management turns out to be unrealistic and farfetched. On the other hand there
is bottom-up strategic planning which follows team decision making and crowd
sourcing of information and ideas from front line workers but it may go out of control
without coordination from top management. Software systems available in market are
hardly customizable and are based on one particular approach instead of using best of
both.
This thesis gives a domain model to combine top-down and bottom-up strategic
planning approaches. Our implementation of „Participatory Strategic Planning
System‟ for OSU is based on the same domain model and it shows to work better than
individual approaches. We also discuss in detail probable features and functionalities
of such a system. P2S2 that we modeled and implemented is a tight fit for strategic
planning needs of OSU. We also show the adaptability and applicability of our model
to other enterprises with an Abercrombie & Fitch‟s example.
Some of the key features and characteristics of P2S2 are as follows:
1. Bidirectional flow of information which helps to balance top-down control
against excessive autonomy of bottom-up approach
45
E.g. opportunity for front line workers to voice their opinions about strategies,
and ideas for process improvements
2. Standards set to collect & convey the information will make it easier to
generate scorecards and performance measures
E.g. college response template for strategy information
3. Tracking and monitoring of progress and performance of strategic planning
efforts will lead to better alignment of enterprise strategy, resources and actors.
E.g. keeping log of strategic planning efforts will help to get status report
anytime you want and generate performance metrics
4. P2S2 as a central repository and single point of information will give bottom
level employees access to strategy related data which helps to identify the areas of
collaboration & coordination at root level rather than waiting for top management
to make these connections.
E.g. all strategic plans, working versions, previous year‟s plans, and all related
documents will be kept at single place, so data could be fetched easily in future
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6. Future Scope
Strategic management remains highly dependent on concepts and theories drawn
from the basic disciplines of economics, sociology, psychology, biology, and systems
theory. Emerging theories of complexity, Self-organization, knowledge management,
and leadership can possibly augment our existing standard tools of strategic
management. Experimentation and innovation could offer lessons that will seed new
principles and frameworks to manage complex, high-velocity environments.
We would like to complete the P2S2 implementation by providing a web interface
to add/ update new strategies, generate reports from existing data and implement
access control lists and visibility rules. This would give us an opportunity to test the
system performance by initiating next planning cycle based on this year‟s data,
generate status reports and performance metrics on regular basis. Establishing
feedback loop routines to make the system more adaptive and dynamic is another
major requirement. We are also looking for creative and innovative ways to present
the strategy data using easy to understand visualizations to aid the process of decision
making and knowledge discovery.
Considering the rapid growth of social media users in recent years, social
marketing has become an essential part of many business‟s marketing policies. Many
are even trying to use social media as a business tool for improving results, getting
employees involved in planning process and defining company strategy. Social media
programs allow individuals and organizations to interact with their employees,
friends, customers and partners electronically across a range of devices. Social media
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is used primarily for four purposes: communication (driving awareness, sharing
content and providing customer service), commerce (selling products directly),
collaboration (sharing ideas and getting feedback) and communities (fostering
connections with partners, employees and customers) [2]. Social media options
include everything from online community pages and micro-blogging platforms to
company-operated websites and forums to social gaming. Many more companies are
expected to explore social media and networking applications as business tools in
future.
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References
1. Lamb, Robert, Boyden “Competitive strategic management”, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984
2. Bain & Company. http://www.bain.com/
3. Robert M Grant, “Contemporary Strategy Analysis” 7th Edition, chapter 17,
Current Trends in strategic management
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/grant/files/CSAC17.pdf
4. Harvard Business Review, Carmen Nobel, “How IT Shapes Top-Down and
Bottom-Up Decision Making” http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6504.html
5. Fabian Sting, Christoph Loch, 2009 Working Paper, “How Top-Down and
Bottom-Up Strategy Processes are Combined in Manufacturing
Organizations”
http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=42949
6. Jay Ramanathan, “Fractal architecture for the adaptive complex enterprise”,
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 48 Issue 5, May 2005
7. Jay Ramanathan, Rajiv Ramnath, “Co-Engineering Applications and Adaptive
Business Technologies in Practice”, Information Science Reference, 2009
8. Joel Harttera, Sadie J. Ryanb, “Top-down or bottom-up?. Decentralization,
natural resource management, and usufruct rights in the forests and wetlands
of western Uganda”, 2010 Land Use Policy, 27 (3), pp. 815-826
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837709001835
49
9. C Shanley, L Johnston, A Walker, “Combining top-down and bottom-up
change management strategies in implementation of ACP: the My Wishes
program in South West Sydney, Australia”, Shanley et al. 1 (1): 67 - BMJ
Supportive & Palliative Care. http://spcare.bmj.com/content/1/1/67.3.full.pdf
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_model
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_management
13. “2-plan management software”
http://2-plan.com/free-project-management-software-2-plan-desktop/topdown-planning-design-bottom-up-processing-strategic-approach.html
14. “strategicplanningMD”
http://www.strategicplanningmd.com/strategyplanner.php
15. “Prophix strategic planning software”
http://www.prophix.com/solutions/performance-managementsoftware/planning/
16. “Managepro strategic management software”
http://www.managepro.com/strategicmanagement.html
17. SAP ERP: SAP strategic enterprise management
http://www.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/erp/sapsem.epx
18. http://www.wordle.net/
19. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
20. David J. Collis, Andrew Campbell, Michael Goold, “Harvard Business
Review on Corporate Strategy”, Harvard Business Review Paperback Series
21. Schoemaker, Paul J.H. "Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic
Thinking.” Sloan Management Review, Winter 1995, pp. 25-40
50
22. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning
23. Harvard Business Review, Michael E. Porter, "The Five Competitive Forces
that Shape Strategy", January, 2008, p.86-104
24. The Economist, “Strategic planning”
http://www.economist.com/node/13311148
25. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-driven_architecture
26. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-driven_design
27. H. Mintzberg, B. Ahlstrand, J. Lampel, “Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour
through the Wilds of Strategic Management”, New York: Free Press, 1998
28. “Bain & Company : 2011 Executive‟s guide”
http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/management-tools-2011executives-guide.aspx
29. “Bain & Company : 2009 Executive‟s guide”
http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/management-tools-2009-anexecutives-guide.aspx
51
Appendix A: P2S2 implementation details
A.1 Extracting data from college strategic plan.
Following java code is used to parse college strategic plans line by line and extract
data following college response template format. It takes strategic plan file namelocation as input and sends the output data to console or inserts it into the database
based on flag settings. Each input plan is little bit different than others so this code
needs to be tweaked at few places based on college response template that was
followed.
//------------------------------------------------------------import
import
import
import
import
import
import
import
import
import
java.io.*;
java.sql.Connection;
java.sql.DriverManager;
java.sql.ResultSet;
java.sql.Statement;
java.sql.Timestamp;
java.text.DateFormat;
java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
java.util.*;
java.util.regex.*;
// Each college plan is identified by 'CollegeCode + VersionNumber'.
class objective{
String collegeCode = "XYZ";
String docVer = "0.00";
String id;
String description;
List<String> priRef = new ArrayList<String>();
List<String> secRef = new ArrayList<String>();
void clear(){
this.id = "";
this.description = "";
this.priRef.clear();
this.secRef.clear();
}
public String toString(){
String out ="";
52
out = this.collegeCode +" "+ this.docVer +"\n"+this.id +"
"+ this.description +"\n";
Iterator<String> itr = this.priRef.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
out = out + itr.next()+ " ";
}
out += "\n";
itr = this.secRef.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
out = out + itr.next() + " ";
}
out += "\n";
return out;
}
}
public class ExtractData {
//Set 'debug' to TRUE while testing the output of program on
console. Set debug to FALSE when you want to send the output to
database.
static boolean debug = false;
//Connect to the database. Returns connection object.
public static Connection getMySqlConnection()throws Exception{
String driver ="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";
//database name " uniStrategy "
String url ="jdbc:mysql://localhost/dummy";
String userName ="root";
String password ="tiger";
Class.forName(driver);
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url,
userName, password);
return conn;
}
public static void main(String args[])
{
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd
HH:mm:ss");
Date now = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis());
int flag = 0;
objective data = new objective();
Pattern colGolPattern = Pattern.compile("^[0-9] ?\\. ?[0-9]
?(\\. ?[a-zA-Z] ?)(\\. ?[0-9] ?)?");
Pattern priRefPattern = Pattern.compile("^Primary
University (strategy)?.*cross.*reference.*$" ,
Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE );
Pattern secRefPattern = Pattern.compile("^Secondary
University (strategy)?.*cross.*reference.*$" ,
Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE );
Matcher cgMatcher;
Matcher priMatcher;
Matcher secMatcher;
53
List<String> priTokens = new ArrayList<String>();
List<String> secTokens = new ArrayList<String>();
try{
Connection mysqlConnection = getMySqlConnection();
if(!debug)
System.out.println("Database connection
opened.\n");
//Takes strategic plan file name as input
FileInputStream fstream = new
FileInputStream("COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 2010.doc");
// Get the object of DataInputStream
DataInputStream fin = new DataInputStream(fstream);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(fin));
String strLine, temp;
int count = 0;
//Open another file to write
File file = new File("output.txt");
FileWriter fout = new FileWriter(file);
//Read input file Line By Line
while ((strLine = br.readLine()) != null){
strLine = strLine.trim();
cgMatcher = colGolPattern.matcher(strLine);
priMatcher = priRefPattern.matcher(strLine);
secMatcher = secRefPattern.matcher(strLine);
if(cgMatcher.find()){
if(flag == 1){
if(!debug){
//Add new college goals to
table
Statement stmt =
mysqlConnection.createStatement();
stmt.executeUpdate( "insert
into college_goals values ('" + data.id+ "', '" +
data.collegeCode + "', '" + data.docVer + "',' " +
dateFormat.format(now) + "','" + data.description + "')");
//Set primary references for
college goal
Iterator<String> itr =
data.priRef.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
stmt.executeUpdate( "insert
into goal_reference values ('" + data.id+ "', '" +
data.collegeCode + "', 'pri', '" + itr.next() + "')");
}
//Set secondary references for
college goal
itr = data.secRef.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
stmt.executeUpdate( "insert
into goal_reference values ('" + data.id+ "', '" +
data.collegeCode + "', 'sec', '" + itr.next() + "')");
}
54
}
System.out.println(data.toString());
count++;
System.out.println(count +
"..................................\n");
//Clear the previous data
data.clear();
flag = 0;
}
flag = 1;
fout.write(strLine+"\r\n");
System.out.println(strLine);
//Remove leading or trailing white-spaces
in id
data.id = cgMatcher.group().trim();
//Remove all extra white-spaces in id
data.id = data.id.replaceAll(" ", "");
//Remove excessive words used by some of
the colleges in id.
data.id = data.id.replaceAll("Strategy",
"");
data.id = data.id.replaceAll("Initiative",
"");
//Remove the extra trailing '.' E.g. 1.1.
if(data.id.endsWith(".")){
data.id = data.id.substring(0,
data.id.length()-1);
}
System.out.println(data.id);
data.description =
strLine.substring(cgMatcher.group().length()).trim();
if(data.description.charAt(0)== '.' ||
data.description.charAt(0)== ':' || data.description.charAt(0)== '–'
){
data.description =
data.description.substring(1).trim();
}
//Limit the description length to 500 char
max.
if(data.description.length() > 500)
data.description =
data.description.substring(0, 500);
//Escape ' and " characters.
data.description =
data.description.replaceAll("'","\\'");
data.description =
data.description.replaceAll("\"","\\\"");
//Remove excessive words in some of the
college plans.
data.description =
data.description.replaceAll("OCIO INITIATVE:","");
data.description =
data.description.replaceAll("OCIO INITIATIVE:","");
data.description =
data.description.replaceAll("OCIO STRATEGY:","");
data.description = data.description.trim();
data.description =
data.description.toLowerCase();
System.out.println(data.description);
55
}
else if(priMatcher.find()){
fout.write(strLine+"\r\n");
System.out.println(strLine);
String[] array = strLine.split("
|:|,|and|_|;|-");
for(String str:array){
if(!str.isEmpty())
priTokens.add(str.trim());
}
Iterator<String> itr =
priTokens.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
String element = itr.next();
System.out.println(element);
if(element.matches("[0-9]\\.?[09]?\\.?[0-9]?\\.?[0-9]?\\.?")){ //("[0-9]\\.?[0-9]?\\.?[0-9]?\\.?[09]?\\.?")
//Remove extra trailing '.'
if(element.endsWith(".")){
element =
element.substring(0, element.length()-1);
}
data.priRef.add(element);
}
}
//Clear priTokens
priTokens.clear();
}
else if(secMatcher.find()){
fout.write(strLine+"\r\n");
System.out.println(strLine);
String[] array = strLine.split(" ||:|,|and|_|;");
for(String str:array){
if(!str.isEmpty())
secTokens.add(str.trim());
}
Iterator<String> itr =
secTokens.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
String element = itr.next();
System.out.println(element);
if(element.matches("(([0-9]\\.?[09]?\\.?[0-9]?\\.?[0-9]?\\.?)|N/A|NA)")){
//Remove extra trailing dots
if(element.endsWith(".")){
element =
element.substring(0, element.length()-1);
}
data.secRef.add(element);
}
}
//Clear secTokens
secTokens.clear();
}
else{
56
//System.out.println("NO MATCH");
}
}
//Write the last element
if(flag == 1){
if(!debug){
//Update college level goals
Statement stmt =
mysqlConnection.createStatement();
stmt.executeUpdate( "insert into
college_goals values ('" + data.id+ "', '" +
data.collegeCode +
"', '" + data.docVer + "',' " + dateFormat.format(now) + "','" +
data.description + "')");
//Update primary references
Iterator<String> itr =
data.priRef.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
stmt.executeUpdate( "insert into
goal_reference values ('" + data.id+ "', '" +
data.collegeCode +
"', 'pri', '" + itr.next() + "')");
}
//Update Secondary references
itr = data.secRef.iterator();
while(itr.hasNext()){
stmt.executeUpdate( "insert into
goal_reference values ('" + data.id+ "', '" +
data.collegeCode +
"', 'sec', '" + itr.next() + "')");
}
}
System.out.println(data.toString());
count++;
System.out.println(count +
"..................................\n");
data.clear();
flag = 0;
}
//Close the input stream
fin.close();
fout.flush();
fout.close();
mysqlConnection.close();
if(!debug)
System.out.println("\nDatabase connection
closed.");
}catch (Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
//----------------------------------------------------------------
57