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Strategic Alignment Worksheet Operations and Production Functional Area
Strategic Alignment Worksheet: Operations and Production Functional Area
Your Name:
Overview
Use this strategic alignment worksheet (SAW) to complete your management activities in planning, organizing, leading, and controlling for the Atha Corporation scenario. Refer to each course assessment for further instructions.
Checklist for the Operations and Production Area SAW
Mary Atha, CEO, has provided this checklist of overall organization goals for the operations and production area. Read the checklist and use it as a point of reference for your development of this SAW.
Double current production rate.
Add one production line.
Reduce scrap and waste.
Organize the newly increased staff to efficiently use resources and create a new organizational chart.
Lead the employees by providing a clear mission and goals through carefully crafted communications.
Create adequate controls and communicate performance to the company to ensure organizational focus.
Section 1: Goals and Activities
Develop goals for this functional area and create supporting activities for achieving each goal. (Add more rows if needed.)
Goals: Supporting activities:
1. Retain existing employees. What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
2. Hire eighteen new employees. What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
3. Create new organizational chart for the operations and production area. What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
4. Improve employee performance. What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
5. Social responsibility What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
Provision of matching funds Increase support 3 months
Paying employees for extra hours Improve employee determination 3 months
Providing training to offer additional knowledge Provide necessary knowledge 3 months
6. Managing employee performance What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
Providing necessary trainings Improve knowledge 3 months
Acknowledging efforts employed Increase employee output 3 months
Coordinating employee output Improve teamwork 3 months
7. Financial and physical resources What are the supporting activities? How will this activity achieve the goal? What is the achievement deadline?
Renovation and maintenance of equipments Maintain support of the project 3 months
Increasing flow of cash Provide support to the project 3 months
Providing assistance Improve output 3 months
Section 2: Purpose Statement
Write a purpose statement for this functional area of the organization.
Most of us are aware of the term purpose statement, but we may be unsure of what its real meaning is within an organization. It is a statement describing the organization or functional team’s purpose, or the reason for its existence. The purpose of an organization reflects a desired position in the marketplace. It should be a written summary that accurately answers the four questions outlined in the table below. The most effective purpose statements are short, concise, and direct. A good purpose statement should be between 2–3 sentences in length.
Purpose Statement
Who are we? What do we do? For whom do we do this? How do we know when we are getting it done?
Compile your answers to the four questions above into a concise (2–3 sentence) summary statement. This is your purpose statement.
[Insert your purpose statement here.]
Section 3: Performance Standards
Identify performance standards for measuring this functional area team’s performance. (Add more rows if needed.)
Performance standard: Rationale for including this performance standard:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Strategic communication
Strategic communication:
Name:
Institution:
Introduction
A strategic communication audit can be defined as a methodical review that contains evaluative and decisive value. These values facilitate the determination of the organization smooth running, the problems and difficulties experienced and the possible adjustments. As a result, different approaches and analysis are included in a strategic audit. It is therefore, very essential to identify and define these approaches and analysis as well as their strength and weaknesses and how best they can be applied in a workplace.
The strategic communication audit includes, a questionnaire approach, interview approach, focus group approach, data collection and long-sheet methods, communication network analysis and electronic and social media analysis.
Questionnaire approach:
This is a job scrutiny method done by jobholders and approved by their leaders. This method can either use open- ended or ordered questionnaires or both.
Strengths: It is fast and easily manageable, permeates the workers’ participation and affordable.
Weaknesses: the quality of the information depends heavily on the quality of the questionnaires, must be conducted by a person who can read and write, demands a follow-up of other interviews and observations, it has a low response rate, might have incomplete responses and may be hard to compile.
How to apply it in the workplace: It can be done occasionally whereby all workers are required to fill a questionnaire either in a group or individually.
Interview approach:
This is an official meeting whereby a group or individual question, confer with, or assess the employee’s or the managers in an organization with an aim of obtaining a desired information.
Strengths: Allows the interviewers to obtain thorough information, and it is easy to document the results.
Weaknesses: Demands skillful and qualified interviewers, if done in a hurry it may be invasive to study those being interviewed and its time and energy consuming especially for information administration and evaluation.
How can it apply in the workplace? A group of employees and employers should be interviewed separately
Focus group approach,
This is a well-organized, realistic, and applicable approach of gathering information.
Strengths: it is of use for weighing the variety of judgments and values about the organization, it is easily adaptable to aid the outcome and useful while investigating the matters at hand.
Weaknesses: the acquired information can not stand on its own, presents complexity in information administration and assessment and time consuming while there is a language barrier.
How can it apply in the workplace: The group of employees should be given questions and requested to write their responses
Data collection and long-sheet methods:
This is a kind of a research study aimed at obtaining information inside the organization: This method may require the researcher to participate in the setting, observe directly, interview in depth and analyze documentation and materials.
Strengths: it is a thorough method, its practical and can encompass many areas of study.
Weaknesses: It may not be accurate, time consuming, demands a skillful and well trained researcher.
How can it apply in the workplace: Each person in the organization is obliged to fill in some information pertaining to work on a daily basis.
Communication network analysis and electronic and social media analysis.
This is a method that uses a digital mechanism to obtain the information. It demands the use of private or public domain for information gathering.
Strengths: It is easy to compile, can involve a lot of people and it is reliable.
Weaknesses: A person conducting the research and those used to obtain information must be in a networked area, it is not always accurate.
How can it apply in the workplace: Employees are encouraged to join the social media groups for the organization discussion and sharing of essential and frustrating information.Other applicable methods:
Sample survey: it is a method that uses samples for data gathering
Strengths: It is reliable, it is easy to get the actual feeling of the participants.
Weaknesses: information might not be accurate due to the mixed feelings.
How can it be applied in the workplace: The employees and the managers are given a case study or a scenario and asked to analyze and then give their feedback.
Conclusion:
Strategic communication audit is a vital necessity for its facilities change and expansion of the organization towards the right direction.
References:
Borysowich, C. (2008, March 20). Identifying problems with current business processes.
Retrieved April 8, 2014, from toolbox.com: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/identifying-problems-with-current-business-processes-23203
Fieber·, T. (2013, February 4). What is the real problem. Retrieved April 9, 2014, from
Youtube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgWXWzMlOeg
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Strange News from another Star is found to be a story which contains numerous symbols which in many cases contain some import
Strange News from another Star is found to be a story which contains numerous symbols which in many cases contain some important, abstract information. Symbolism is something which is very difficult to explain due to the fact that not everyone sees the so mentioned symbol. They don’t quite see it as you, because no two minds are the same, which implies the fact that they don’t react equally to something which must be internally interpreted as it is not present as mere information. On this essay I will try to back up with concise words, why I believe that something is representing something abstract, as well as with information from the author.
One of the first symbols that we may find, is actually the star. A star is known as a gaseous sphere, which with nuclear fusion and fission may actually give out huge amounts of energy. Obviously a star is a inhospitable place, so I believe that the star actually represents a planet or a country.
The flowers, which have a very important part in the plot of the book are a symbol as well. They, have always, as least as far as I know, had a special message. A message of love, tranquillity, joy and they represent the harmony of nature itself. In the first stage of the book, we may see how a problem, the earthquake, has made the people in the star loose a vast amount of flowers. They lost some of the tranquillity and joy that had invaded their lives. And when they look for a messenger to go find flowers, they’re talking about re-finding the tranquillity and lack of fear that they wanted.
I believe that the burials, actually represent life. It may sound a bit peculiar, but in real life once you get accustomed to living a happy, joyful life, you then will not be able to live without it and so, you will need to do practically anything, as the people in the star did, to find the “flowers”.
The symbol of the deity that the youth saw in the temple, I understand that by the way in which the story progresses the symbol is actually representing the fact that war, or trouble (the bird of prey) destroys all happiness or good hearted feelings. I think that the representation is what I mentioned above, because when the messenger “goes” to the foreign star he sees destruction and a total lack of joy.
We may find another symbol which goes from pages 55-59. It’s the conversation that the youth holds with the king who’s nation is in war. It’s apparently a symbol because even-though it has important, concrete information for the story, there’s more to the phrases themselves. They can be abstracted and that’s when I see that the conversation is actually trying to explain the way in which the humanity is being erratic by trying to find happiness. To achieve happiness, you must first get rid of sadness, poverty, trouble, etc (war is the symbol used to represent all of them). It may not be found just by ignoring the others. In the king’s star they weren’t happy because all of the nouns mentioned above were present. A proof of that may be the fact that when trouble, the earthquake, arouse in the province of the youth then they lost the peace and tranquillity, represented by the flowers that they had had.
And ultimately I will mention the symbol which the black bird represents, it’s what I believe is the image of the harshness, horror and terror of war. Which may reach such levels of futility that it may apparently only be seen as a dream, or even more correct, would be to say that it’s like a nightmare.