Reflective Analysis

This is a reflective, applied analysis of material covered in the course. The rationale for the assignment is that one of the most important steps in the learning process is conscious reflection on the material to which you've been exposed. Accordingly, as we near the end of the course, I'd like you to spend some concentrated time reflecting on what you have learned over the course of the semester. Your specific assignment is to write a 6-9 page (double-spaced) analysis of how 4-6 of the central lessons, concepts, and/or management tools you've seen in PAD 681 help you understand strategic management in your own organization (or any organization of your choice).

There are effectively two ways to write this reflective analysis. The first is to choose any 4-6 strategic management tools, topics, issues, or concepts to which you've been exposed in class, in the simulation, or in the readings (i.e., anything from strategic planning, balanced scorecards, SWOT analyses and industry analysis, to environmental scanning, organizational strategy-making, organizational goal-setting, logic models, decentralized decision-making, "Judo strategy," and "maneuver warfare"). Then write a brief analysis covering how each of these tools do or do not help you understand something about the strategic management of your organization. You may also want to discuss the ways in which the Foundation simulation has and/or has not helped you learn about organizational strategy and the application of strategic management concepts.

The second way to write the analysis (similar in spirit to the above method) is to build directly on work you were preparing for the "Competitive Forces and Strategy" paper. In this version, you will examine how a specific set of analytical tools help you understand and evaluate your organization's strategic efforts. Specifically, you will begin with an "industry analysis" of competitive forces affecting your organization and place your organization on Porter's grid of competitive positioning. Second, you should discuss how a SWOT analysis helps you understand your organization's strategic capabilities, limitations, and opportunities. Third, take Porter's notion of organizational strategy -- in which organizations consciously choose to pursue competitive advantage based on cost leadership or differentiation -- and discuss how it holds valuable (or not) lessons for your own organization. Fourth, based on your industry analysis and your understanding of the organization's strategy and competitive positioning, write a brief "strategic plan" to survive and thrive. Specifically, delineate a strategy with a mission statement, three broad goals, and two quantifiable action objectives for each goal. In crafting your plan, you should make comparisons with the organization's currently existing strategy, mission, goals, and objectives, and argue how your plan is superior. In short, what you're doing in this version is applying the industry analysis and competitive position tools and using this information to craft an organizational strategy that makes the most sense to you; your plan, goals, and quantifiable objectives then follow logically from the strategy you have chosen.

With either of the two versions, what you're doing in the bulk of the paper above (4-7 pages) is taking several of the central analytical tools from this course and using them to examine "strategy" and "strategic management" in your organization and, where appropriate, discuss the changes you would make in your organization based on what you have learned. In either version of the paper, you should then save 1-2 pages at the end for more general reflections on the value of any intellectual, cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal experiences you've had in Strategic Management and how you have applied or will apply these lessons to your work. In this final section you may also wish to project forward your concerns about your future professional expectations/experiences given your experiences in the class. Please note that all information is kept confidential. Only the instructor has access to your papers.

As we discussed in class, this paper is now worth 30% of your final course grade, and is due 12/05.

For examples of similar assignments from Public Policy and Research and Program Evaluation, please see the material available at the Writing Memoranda page.