P92 Ch 3

• Strategic / corporate plans
• Operational plans
• Budgets

• setting objectives
• identifying what needs to be done for these objectives to be achieved
• creating the most appropriate structure
• allocating management duties and responsibilities to senior managers
• agreeing & establishing a consistent management style
• agreeing & setting budgets
• agreeing staff incentives
• setting sales targets
• planning the most efficient use of material resources
• setting timetables & deadlines
• identifying contingency plans

• objectives
• strategy for achieving objectives
• specific activities that will be undertaken
• allocation of specific responsibilities
• start & end dates of each activity
• estimated resource requirement
• expected cost of activities
• expected results

• management accounting
• budgeting
• critical success factor
• key performance indicators
• balanced score cards
• benchmarking
• management by objectives

CSFs are areas that are critical to a company realising their mission either by exploiting opportunities or by fending off dangers posed by external threats of internal weaknesses. Once a CSF has been identified it is aligned with an action point.

• results >> bottom line
• effort >> level of effectiveness being achieved

• financial
• internal
• customer
• learning & growth

...a financial or quantitative statement prepared in advance of a specific accounting period. It typically covers a short period of months (up to a year).

• Unification of effort
• Planning
• Motivation
• Control
• Basis of comparison
• Financial awareness

• Guidelines from the Chief Executive
• Consultation & preparation
• Review by budget committee
• Communication
• Monitoring

• "Top down"
• "Bottom up"
• Fixed
• Flexible
• Zero based budgeting (ZBB)
• Rolling budgets

• Inappropriate standard
• Inaccurate recording of actual costs and revenues
• Random events
• Operating efficiency

• Understanding why a decision must be taken
• Prior consideration & discussion of the options
• Taking the most appropriate decision
• Review

• Consider
• Consult
• Crunch
• Communicate
• Check

...the compilation and redistribution of an organisation's skills and experience for the benefit of the organisation as a whole. The two main strategies are codification and personalisation.

• Clarity is key
• Managers need to tailor their communication to their recipients
• Managers should ensure that info relating to impending action genuinely pre-empts any action
• Written information >> quick & easy to distribute but their is scope for interpretation and can be seen as impersonal
• Discuss issues at meetings with staff >> personal; opportunities for questions & clarification
• Planned changes that affect staff should be communicated as early as possible