Features of the Ten Major Strategy Schools
The Design School
The original view sees strategy formation as achieving the essential fit between internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities (see SWOT analysis). Senior management formulates clear and simple strategies in a deliberate process of conscious thought - which is neither formally analytical nor informally intuitive - and communicates them to the staff so that everyone can implement the strategies. This was the dominant view of the strategy process at least into the 1970s given its implicit influence on most teaching and practice.
The Planning School
This school grew in parallel with the design school. But the planning school predominated by the mid-1970's and though it faltered in the 1980's it continues to be an important influence today. The planning school reflects most of the design school's assumptions except a rather significant one: that the process was not just cerebral but formal, decomposable into distinct steps, delineated by checklists, and supported by techniques (especially with regard to objectives, budgets, programs, and operating plans). This meant that staff planners replaced senior managers, de facto, as the key players in the process. Today, many companies get little value from their annual strategic-planning process. To meet the new challenges, this process should be redesigned to support real-time strategy making and to encourage 'creative accidents'.
The Positioning School
This prescriptive school was the dominant view of strategy formulation in the 1980's. It was given impetus especially by Harvard professor Michael Porter in 1980, following earlier work on strategic positioning in academe and in consulting, all preceded by a long literature on military strategy, dating back to 500 BC and that of Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War. In this view, strategy reduces to generic positions selected through formalized analysis of industry situations. Hence, planners became analysts. This
The original view sees strategy formation as achieving the essential fit between internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities (see SWOT analysis). Senior management formulates clear and simple strategies in a deliberate process of conscious thought - which is neither formally analytical nor informally intuitive - and communicates them to the staff so that everyone can implement the strategies. This was the dominant view of the strategy process at least into the 1970s given its implicit influence on most teaching and practice.
The Planning School
This school grew in parallel with the design school. But the planning school predominated by the mid-1970's and though it faltered in the 1980's it continues to be an important influence today. The planning school reflects most of the design school's assumptions except a rather significant one: that the process was not just cerebral but formal, decomposable into distinct steps, delineated by checklists, and supported by techniques (especially with regard to objectives, budgets, programs, and operating plans). This meant that staff planners replaced senior managers, de facto, as the key players in the process. Today, many companies get little value from their annual strategic-planning process. To meet the new challenges, this process should be redesigned to support real-time strategy making and to encourage 'creative accidents'.
The Positioning School
This prescriptive school was the dominant view of strategy formulation in the 1980's. It was given impetus especially by Harvard professor Michael Porter in 1980, following earlier work on strategic positioning in academe and in consulting, all preceded by a long literature on military strategy, dating back to 500 BC and that of Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War. In this view, strategy reduces to generic positions selected through formalized analysis of industry situations. Hence, planners became analysts. This