Homework Question on Bottom-up and Top-Down Strategic Planning
- Your textbook states that “strategic planning is more bottom up than top down”.
- For your first post by Wednesday, discuss what this quote means to you, give an example of what bottom up planning looks like and then compare it to top down planning.
- Which do you think is the approach of the future and why do you believe it will be more effective?
- If you have a life example of either approach, tell us about it.
Homework Answer on Bottom-up and Top-Down Strategic Planning
In my view, this quote highlights the kind of planning that is inclusive of every stakeholder in the organization. Before executing a plan as a manager in real life situations, it is paramount to seek the opinions, views, and ideas of those who will be implementing the plan. For example, an organization should seek the opinions of the employees in cases where computer equipment is to be acquired.
This will provide insightful information on how the employees will implement their usage, the kind of training that they might need and other issues that might arise. If they are not involved in the process, there is a possibility of experiencing resistance from some of them.Bottom-up will ensure collective creativity and expertise of the members of the organization is taken into account.
This would encourage the employees to submit ideas that should be included in the plans and therefore ensuring the development of plans that are able to identify possible problems and the strategies to solve as well as implement the plans (Ghobadian et al., 2008).Top-down is where the top management formulates rules, procedures, goals and objectives to be achieved by the organization without involving the employees and subordinates.