The Practice of Making Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide

The Practice of Making Strategy takes the student through the process of making strategy with a management team. This is a highly practical book based on a wealth of organizational applications in large and small organizations, public and not-for-profit as well as commercial settings. It presents techniques that can be used to develop a business model, and manage key strategic issues. The techniques are used to develop strategies for units, departments and operating companies, as well as for a complete organization. For those teaching strategic management the book provides links to the major texts in the strategy field, and includes ancillary materials to guide student learning. The material making up this book has been used successfully with new practitioners - consultants, and practising managers. Many managers use the material to guide the development of a strategy for their own group within a larger corporation. The book reflects powerful theories from the fields of strategic management, social psychology, psychology, operational research, and organizational behaviour that are brought together in Eden and Ackermann's Making Strategy: the Journey of Strategic Management (1998, 2nd Edition forthcoming). The Practice of Making Strategy extends this material into a step-by-step process with examples and real cases. The book includes chapters on: how to get started with a management team; surfacing and structuring strategic issues; developing a goals system; working with patterns of distinctive competencies; developing and testing the business model; achieving closure. This book will be set reading for MBA students, to be used alongside the main textbooks in strategy courses. It will also fit perfectly with managers wanting to do their own strategy making, and with consultants working in this field. A web site to accompany the book can be visited at www.journeymaking.net

Table of Contents:
Introduction Getting Started First Steps - Getting a Team Together Getting at Beliefs about Possible Strategic Futures Using Cognitive Mapping to Capture Interview Material Surfacing and Structuring Strategic Issues in Groups Building up a Distinctive and Realistic Goals System Developing a Business Model or Livelihood Scheme Identifying Distinctiveness and Core Distinctive Competences Agreeing Strategies Sustaining the Business Model or Livelihood Scheme and Resolving Key Strategic Issues Making a Statement of Strategic Intent and Other Aspects of Making Strategy Managing an Incomplete Process to Achieve Strategic Change

About the Author :
Fran Ackermann is Professor and Head of Department of Management Science at Strathclyde Business School, and an adjunct Professor at Curtin Graduate School of Business. She has written widely, publishing 4 books, over 20 book chapters and 150+ articles (ranging from strategy, stakeholder management, competency mapping to problem structuring, disruption and delay and risk management). She has been an adjunct professor at University of Georgia, Grenoble Business School and Bordeaux Business School. She is a member of the British Academy of Management, the Operational Research Society and is active at the Academy of Management (having served on one of the divisional executive committees). She is currently on the British Academy of Management Council. Fran has also been an ESRC Post-doctoral Fellowship Assessor and a Commonwealth Grant Advisor.