Plan -> Do -> Check -> Adjust is the Deming Cycle, which may be the source. [1]
I wouldn't call this strategy per se, as strategy should define the goals, whereas the cycle you've described below has the goals coming from external to the cycle. Deming Cycle's usually associated with continuous quality improvement - e.g. in the IT world you see it used in the ITIL Continuous Improvement function Cheers Ken [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Cycle -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ben Scott Sent: Thursday, 19 September 2013 11:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] RE: Think strategically, not tactically.. On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 7:43 PM, Ken Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote: > OK, in that case, you can probably approach this via a typical "gap analysis" > process: Hey, this relates to one of the bits of wisdom I know. The Decision Loop: Observe, Analyze, Plan, Act. 1 Observe: Look around, gather data, talk with people, etc. 2 Analyze: Organize data, think about how things are, compare to goals 3 Plan: Develop a road map to bring about change to achieve the goals 4 Act: Implement the plan 5 GOTO 1 It is an infinite loop, a cycle, continuous and unending. After you act -- indeed, as you act -- one must repeat the cycle to assess effectiveness and react to new info/changes. Many variations on the wording exist. Often the assess/adapt part are made into explicit steps. I see that as the above cycle done twice. While it's good to emphasize the need for assessment, I feel that should be stylized as a continuous part of the same process. "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act" and "Plan, Do, Check, Adjust" are two of the more popular variants. I'm not sure if this is "strategy" or "tactics" or both, but it's useful. -- Ben
