Business Management and Strategy (Mod 1) Flashcards
Gantt Chart
aka horizontal bar chart, milestone chart or an activity chart
Visual benefit is that it supports ongoing awareness of how completion of subtasks impacts potential for success
PERT Chart
Program evaluation and review technique chart
Tasks that must be completed in sequence are called dependent or serial tasks – aka the critical path. Parallel or concurrent tasks take place simultaneously but don’t have to be completed sequentially to critical path
Four Phases of Strategic Planning Process
Strategy Formulation: vision and mission statements developed; organizational values defined
Strategy Development: SWOT analysis, long-term organizational objectives established; strategies defined
Strategy Implementation: short-term objectives established; action plans developed; resources allocated; focus on motivating employees to manage plan
Strategy Evaluation: strategies reviewed; performance measured
Why Strategic Planning?
Helps an organization focus on how to succeed in the future; integrates goals and activities of the major business functions of an organization in order to achieve organizational success
Three Questions Strategic Planning Addresses
Where is the company now?
Where does the company want to go?
How will the company get there?
Define vision, mission and values
Vision statement: vivid, guiding image of the organization’s desired future
Mission statement: specifies what activities the organization intends to pursue and what course management has charted for the future
Values: what is important to the organization
SWOT Analysis Process
Simple and effective process for collecting info about an organization’s current state
S = Strength (internal) W = Weakness (internal) O = Opportunities (external) T = Threats (external)
Timeframes for short, mid and long term objectives
Long-term = 3-5 years
Mid-term = 1-3 years
Short term = 6 months-1 year
HR’s Role in Strategic Planning
Serve needs of organization as a whole and its constituent functions
Expert on strategic human resource planning (organizational and functional levels)
Fulfill basic mission
Understand roles of other functions
Build partnerships across organization/relationships with key people in the organization
Learn organization’s industry
Use facts and data to support suggestions
Contribute to measuring strategic success
Balance Sheet
Statement of the organization’s financial position (assets, liabilities, equity) at a PARTICULAR TIME.
Assets = Liabilities + Equity Equity = Assets - Liabilities
Income Statement
Compares revenues, expenses, and profits over a SPECIFIED PERIOD OF TIME (usually a year or quarter)
Provides the “bottom line” or net income/profit
Revenues - Expenses = Net Income
Operations:
What does this department do?
Central focus of operations is the provision of goods and services to the customer.
Productivity, quality, cost, delivery and performance are primary responsibility of operations
Human Capital
Combined knowledge, skills and experience of a company’s employees
Four Stages of Organizational Life Cycle
Introduction
Growth
Maturity
Decline
Environmental Scanning Process
Systematic survey and interpretation of relevant data to identify external opportunities and threats and to assess how these factors affect the organization currently and how they are likely to affect the organization in the future.
ROI
Return on Investment
ROI = value received from an investment - cost of investment/cost of the investment
PERCENTAGE
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Measure financial value of an action
Cost-Benefit Ratio = Value of project or received benefits/cost
RATIO
Balanced Scorecard
Designed to provide a concise yet overall picture of an organization’s performance as measured against goals in four areas (finance, customers, internal business process, learning and growth) and from the perspective of various stakeholders
Why use quantitative and qualitative
Quantitative provides numeric data analyzed with statistical methods (BREADTH)
Qualitative is based on research that supplies non-numeric data (DEPTH)
Measures of Central Tendency
Describe groups by how much of a certain characteristic they have in common
Mean = average score
Mode = value that occurs most frequently
Median = middle point above and below which 50% of the scores lie
Measures of Variation
Provide an indicator of variation around central tendency values
Range: distance between highest and lowest scores; range = highest score minus lowest score
Percentile: specific point in a distribution that has a given percentage of cases below it
Standard deviation: how much the scores are spread out around the mean
The broadest answers come from open-ended or closed-ended questions?
Open-ended
Reliability and Validity
Reliability = ability of an instrument to measure consistently; ability to repeat an experiment and obtain similar results
Validity: ability of an instrument to measure what it is intended to measure
A reliable instrument is not necessarily valid; however, a valid instrument is always reliable
Relationship of Committees and Subcommittees
Bills go to a committee, who then referred to a subcommittee.
Subcommittees review, mark-up and send back to committee. If subcommittee votes not to report to full committee, bill dies.
Number of votes needed to override a Presidential veto
2/3 roll-call votes of members present in sufficient numbers for a quorum
