Tag archives for Henry Mintzberg
Mintzberg’s 5Ps & Whittington’s 3Ps
I noticed that a number of the people visiting my blog are looking for strategy material. So I've trawled my unpublished archives and have put together some short posts on strategy topics. Here's one on looking to explain two ways of defining strategy. Mintzberg's 5Ps and Whittington's 3Ps. The main thing to bear in mind, with both Mintzberg's 5Ps & Whittington's 3Ps, is that they're not a process tool for producing strategies. However, they are both excellent tools for analysing and evaluating strategies. That is definitely worth doing if you have to devise strategy. Before you release a strategy you need to robustly take it apart to ensure that it is fit for purpose. If you find it weak then it isn't yet ready for prime time. Mintzberg's 5Ps Henry Mintzberg has described five ways of looking at strategy as plan, ploy, pattern, position and…
Book review – Strategy Bites Back by Henry Mintzberg
Strategy Bites Back: It Is A Lot More, And Less, Than You Ever Imagined by Henry Mintzberg My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read this as pre-reading before studying Strategy with the Open University. It was very clear and easy to read, explained things ownderfully, made me laugh in places, and was genuinely useful in getting my head round what strategy actually is. The book is a series of short articles, put into language most people can read rather than the drier academic style or cringeworthy business speak that these sort of books are often written in. This is a plain english text that works. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand strategy, read this before trying anything else (and as a second reading I would go for Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why…
Making Sense of Strategy (Open University B301)
I've just started an Open University course (B301) titled "Making Sense of Strategy" in an attempt to show that I understand the theory as well as having practical experience of developing Strategy. The latter is a matter of record (on my CV at any rate). Mostly I've done it using central government's policy perspective, which isn't terribly good at acknowledging various academic theories. I've also got a strong pragmatic streak, so I've never really held much stock by other people's formal methods. Nevertheless Making Sense of Strategy will marry up my practice with the theory. Making Sense of Strategy What my experience does is make me highly sceptical of the various models being held up. That is probably a good thing. Making Sense of Strategy is mostly about making people think for themself. While still showing that we understand the competing theories. I've been looking at…