Preparing for the future : strategic planning in the U.S. Air Force / Michael Barzelay, Colin Campbell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barzelay, Michael.

Contributor:

Campbell, Colin, 1943-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Military planning--United States.

Military planning.

Strategic planning--United States.

Strategic planning.

United States. Air Force--Reorganization.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 274 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Annotation While the Clinton Administration and federal agencies were busy making government cost less and work better in the near-term, the United States Air Force was regularly visualizing the competencies needed to assure the organization's long-term effectiveness. As a result of steady efforts to prepare for the future conducted under successive secretaries and chiefs of staff, the Air Force has developed a distinctive approach to strategic planning. This approach is fundamentally concerned with ensuring that the organization's future capabilities support effective performance of future tasks. Such tasks are shaped by ever-changing policy objectives and circumstances of implementation. After eight years, the Air Force has not only successfully refined its distinctive approach to strategic planning, but has also leveraged change in programmatic decisions, human resource management, and operational technologies. This study provides an inside look at how the Air Force came to formulate and declare its "strategic intent" for developing the organization's capabilities over a timeline of more than twenty years. Air Force strategic intent is not a plan, but a shared commitment to strengthening specific core competencies and critical future capabilities. Michael Barzelay and Colin Campbell reveal how one of the nation's most significant public organizations has reassessed its own strategic intent. Drawing lessons from the Air Force experience, this book provides a significant contribution to public management research on innovation and executive leadership. One key lesson is that preparing for the future is a responsibility that organizations can discharge effectively if they combine insights withpractical knowledge of executive leadership and the dynamics of policy change. Preparing for the Future provides a fresh argument about innovation and leadership in public management, while breaking new ground in the analysis o.

Contents:

1 Visioning, Strategic Planning, and Corporate Evolution 1

The Degree of Departure from Previous Approaches 3

The Role of Organizational Characteristics 10

Contending with Constricted Latitude 12

Expanding the Horizons for Strategic Planning 14

Steps for Effective Implementation 18

2 Precursors of Strategic Visioning: Discontinuous Change in the Early Post-Cold War Period 27

The Rice-McPeak Era: Supplying the Air Force with a Strategic Vision 27

The Gulf War: Changing the Air Force's Self-Conception 29

Alliance Reversal: The Impact of the Gulf War on the Defense Policy Subsystem 32

Space-Based Provision of Military Intelligence 33

Origins of the Fogleman-Era Strategic Vision 35

3 Planning with Dialogue and Passion: The Fogleman Round 37

Strategic Visioning and Long-Range Planning as Policy Management 39

The Strategic Planning Agenda 41

Moving toward the Corona Conference 52

From Strategic Vision to Long-Range Plan 58

4 The Ryan-Peters Round 62

Taking Stock of the Fogleman Round 63

The Next Round: Unfinished Business 75

The Ryan-Peters Visioning Process: General Ryan's Approach 82

5 Understanding Strategic Visioning as a Practice 95

Innovating the Strategic Visioning Practice 97

Analyzing Process Designs for Effective Strategic Visioning: The Fogleman Round 101

Explaining Performance in the Ryan-Peters Round 113

Case Comparison: Toward Generalization about Strategic Visioning Practice 115

The Air Force Experience in Broader Focus 119

6 Continuing Institutional Issues: Planning, Resourcing, and Governance 121

Planning and Shifts in Fiscal Circumstances 122

Persistent Disjunctions between Planning and Programming 131

Fixing the Corporate Structure 136

7 The Process of Implementing Strategic Intent 155

Origins of the U.S. Air Force Predator Program 156

Predator and Strategic Intent 159

Concurrent Visioning and Implementation 160

8 Processes for Corrective Visioning 169

The Aerospace Integration Task Force Case 170

The Space Commission: Corrective Visioning in the Defense Policy Subsystem 182

The Air Force Futures Games Case 192

9 Lessons from the Air Force's Efforts to Overcome Incrementalism: Toward Revitalized Governance 211

Taking the Lessons to a Wider Audience 213

Revitalizing the Role of Public Service in Government 215

Linking Policy Foresight and Strategic Intent 220

Linking Strategic Visioning with Policy and Expenditure Planning and Human Resources and Organizational Planning 231

Linking Strategic Planning and Policy Management to Implementation 238

Over to Policy Entrepreneurship 238.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-256) and index.

ISBN:

0-8157-9607-2

OCLC:

559386913