Planning and Decision Making

Question 1

What is planning?

Answer 1

Choosing a goal and developing a strategy to achieve it.

Question 2

What is a S.M.A.R.T. goal?

Answer 2

A goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

Question 3

What is goal commitment?

Answer 3

The determination to achieve a goal.

Question 4

What is an action plan?

Answer 4

A plan that lists the specific people, steps, people, resources, and time period needed to attain a goal.

Question 5

What are proximal goals?

Answer 5

Short-term goals or subgoals.

Question 6

What are distal goals?

Answer 6

Long-term goals or primary goals.

Question 7

What is options-based planning?

Answer 7

Maintaining planning flexibility by making simultaneous, small investments in many alternative plans. Spreading your eggs across multiple baskets.

Question 8

What are slack resources?

Answer 8

A cushion of extra resources that can be used with options-based planning to adapt to unanticipated changes, opportunities, or problems. Likely resources that can be quickly allocated or reallocated to one or more plans if needed.

Question 9

What is a strategic plan?

Answer 9

An overall company plan that clarifies how the company will serve customers and position itself against competitors over the next 2-5 years.

Question 10

What is a purpose statement?

Answer 10

A statement of a company’s purpose or reason for existing.

Question 11

What is a strategic objective?

Answer 11

A more specific goal that unifies company-wide efforts, possesses a finish line, possesses a time frame, and challenges the organization.

Question 12

What is a tactical plan?

Answer 12

A plan created and implemented by middle managers that direct behavior, attention, and efforts over the next six months-2 years.

Question 13

What is management by objectives?

Answer 13

A 4-step process in which managers and employees discuss and select goals, meet regularly to review progress toward goal accomplishment, and develop tactical plans.

Question 14

What are operational plans?

Answer 14

Day-to-day, plans developed and implemented by lower-level-managers for delivering or producing the organization’s products and services over a 30-day to 6-month period.

Question 15

What are single-use plans?

Answer 15

Plans that cover unique, one-time-only events.

Question 16

What are standing plans?

Answer 16

Plans used repeatedly to handle frequently recurring events.

Question 17

What is a policy?

Answer 17

A standing plan that indicates the general course of action that should be taken in response to a particular event or situation.

Question 18

What is a procedure?

Answer 18

A standing plan that indicates the specific steps that should be taken in response to a particular event.

Question 19

What is a rule or regulation?

Answer 19

A standing plan that describes how a particular action should be performed or what must happen or not happen in response to particular events.

Question 20

What is budgeting?

Answer 20

A quantitative planning through which managers decide how to allocate available money to best accomplish company goals.

Question 21

What is decision making?

Answer 21

The process of choosing a solution from available alternatives .

Question 22

What is rational decision making?

Answer 22

A systematic process of defining problems, evaluating alternatives, and selecting optimal solutions.

Question 23

What is a problem?

Answer 23

A gap between a desired state and a existing state.

Question 24

What is absolute comparison?

Answer 24

The process in which each decision criterion is compared to a standard or ranked on its own merits.

Question 25

What is decision criteria?

Answer 25

The standards used to guide judgements and decisions.

Question 26

What is relative comparison?

Answer 26

The process in which each decision criterion is compared directly with every other criterion.

Question 27

What happens when a company tries to maximize?

Answer 27

Choosing the best alternative.

Question 28

What happens when a company tries satisficing?

Answer 28

Choosing a “good-enough” alternative.

Question 29

What is a groupthink?

Answer 29

A barrier to good decision making caused by pressure within the group for members to agree with each other. To take the path of least-resistance.

Question 30

What is a C-type conflict (cognitive conflict)?

Answer 30

A disagreement that focuses on problem-and-issue-related differences of opinion.

Question 31

What is an A-type conflict (affective conflict)?

Answer 31

A disagreement that focuses on individual or personal issue.

Question 32

What is the ______ advocate?

Answer 32

A decision-making method in which a sub-group or individual is assigned the role of critic of the group.

Question 33

What is dialectal inquiry?

Answer 33

A decision-making method in which decision makers state the assumptions of proposed solution/thesis and generate a solution that is the opposite/antithesis of that solution.

Question 34

What is a nominal group technique?

Answer 34

A decision-making method that ends and begins by having group members quietly write down and evaluate ideas to be shared with the group.

Question 35

What is the Delphi technique?

Answer 35

A decision-making method in which members of a panel of experts respond to questions and to each other until reaching agreement on an issue.

Question 36

What is brainstorming?

Answer 36

A decision-making method in which group members build on each others’ ideas to generate as many alternative solutions as possible.

Question 37

What is electronic brainstorming?

Answer 37

A decision-making method in which group members use computers to build on each others’ ideas and generate as many alternative solutions as possible.

Question 38

What is evaluation apprehension?

Answer 38

Fear of what others will think of your ideas.

Question 39

What is production blocking?

Answer 39

A disadvantage of face-to-face brainstorming in which a group member must wait to share an idea because another members is presenting an idea.