School of Management, Unit Catalogue 2006/07

MN50307 Making strategy happen

Credits: 3

Level: Masters

Academic Year

Assessment: CW 100%

Requisites:

Before taking this unit you must take MN50117 or take MN50256 or (take MN50160 and take MN50164)

Aims: This course aims to expose students to the problems encountered in the implementation of strategy. It explores why some strategies fail, even when their formulation is sound. By focusing on the execution of strategy it gives students practical tools and frameworks that can be used to gauge and ensure the likelihood of successful implementation.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this unit, the student should be able to:
* Analyse an organisation's receptivity/readiness for strategic change
* Apply the diagnostic tool, the Change Kaleidoscope, to both prescribe strategy implementation and evaluate past successes and failures
* Apply project management techniques to the management of strategic transition
* Appreciate the complexity of making strategy happen throughout the organisation
* Understand their own personal strategic styles and how that affects their management practice.
Skills:
Intellectual skills - all T, A
* A critical awareness of the current organisational tensions that surround strategy implementation
* The ability to acquire and analyse complex organisational data in order to inform implementation plans
Professional Practical skills - all T, A
* Application of managerial diagnostic tools to current strategic challenges
* Understanding of what data needs to be collected by strategic planning units or senior teams prior to the roll out of a new strategy
* Presentation of such data and analysis in an accessible form to pracititioner audiences, plus proposed solutions and action plans
Transferable/Key skill - F
* Ability to immediately apply course content within a workplace either through running workshops or through acting as an internal consultant to the business
Personal/Interpersonal - F
* The skills required to recognise, hear, appreciate and understand different perspectives on strategic change within organisations
* Skills to understand different approaches to implementation based on personal preferences.
Content:
The course will follow the structure set out in the textbook, Exploring Strategic Change, Prentice Hall, 2nd Edition, by Hope Hailey and Balogun. Course content includes: presentation of a diagnostic tool, the Change Kaleidoscope; a consideration of key contextual features that may enable or constrain strategy implementation; presentation of the different design options available when planning strategy roll out e.g. should it be rolled out top down or bottom up , etc; analysis of live strategic case studies from leading edge companies such as Glaxo Smith Kline with senior practitioner input; consideration of how to sustain and embed strategy at the lowest levels of the organisation. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator will also be used to illustrate how students' personal preferences shape their attitudes towards strategy.

University | Catalogues for 2006/07