Effective strategic action planning: a process and tool

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe an interactive action planning software tool (TAPS) for manufacturing objective deployment, and to report the results of its application in five companies.

Design/methodology/approach

A process approach based on action research was adopted in this research. Under this approach, a series of four to five workshops were conducted in each company. Each workshop took half a day and involved a multi‐disciplinary team of four to six managers. Besides direct observation in the workshops, a structured questionnaire was also used to elicit managers' feedback at the end of each workshop.

Findings

The TAPS approach (integration of Burbidge's connectance concept and the analytic hierarchy process) helps managers to visualise and represent their perceptions of the relationships between variables and objectives through a sequential, analytical process. Results from the case studies indicate that TAPS provides the following benefits to managers: it improves collective understanding, reduces the complexity of strategy deployment into manageable steps, facilitates discussion, and manages organizational knowledge.

Research limitations/implications

The research is so far limited to application in five case studies. Future research will involve further cases and improvements to the usability of the software tool.

Originality/value

For practitioners, the paper provides them with an interactive software tool (TAPS) for effective strategic action planning. For academics, this paper provides an approach for researching strategy deployment, and a potential classroom teaching tool for operations management.

Citation

Hua Tan, K. and Platts, K. (2005), "Effective strategic action planning: a process and tool", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 137-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/14637150510591147