Learning would have been fun if only I am not absent

Let us have a rewind…

It was first Saturday of December and first day of class of my course IT Seminar and Organization Analysis under Randy S. Gamboa (a.k.a. RSG) as he returned from his seminar in Japan. I wake up early 4 am in the morning since my class will start at 8 am – a three hours travel allotment including a one hour self-preparation, because I startled to know that maybe he will implement his one of his classroom rules that if ever you will be late in class, you will treat the whole class for a breakfast. This is the fear that motivates me as well as my undergraduate classmates before to come early because we are not that rich to treat forty individuals (if I am not mistaken that we are forty in a class) fill their stomach, if you are the only absent or late. So I ate my breakfast, took a bath, prepared myself until ready to head Tagum by means of jeep and then Davao by means of bus. This is where the tell-all begins.

As I stand along the highway waiting for a jeep, I am so anxious while watching my wrist watch. It’s been an hour that no jeep passes on that way. I said to myself, “Why I am tease this way? Gosh, I will be late if another hour will pass and still no jeep.”. Few minutes later, a passenger jeep passes by. As I ride on, I have this complaint in my mind, “Why is this too slow? It’s like a funeral march. Tsuh!”. As we reach the municipality of Asuncion, the speed has suddenly change and said to myself, “Wooh! Thank God!”. It took me ninety minutes to travel Kapalong to Tagum. Then I headed to bus station then took a ride. As we approach in Bunawan, there is a bridge that is under construction so it caused heavy vehicle congestion since it has only one lane considering vehicles coming in and going out Davao City. We’re stranded and another thirty minutes was consumed and another forty-five minutes as we drove until Buhangin. It was passed 9am when I waited for about thirty minutes for a jeep to come along, traveled forty-five minutes as I reached Bankerohan and walked for about fifteen minutes. “What a heart-pounding travel”, I said to myself as I reached the classroom door while RSG were busy discussing the topic and it was passed 11 am already. After all the hardships I have experienced in my journey going to school and turned me late, it made me think and decided not to enter the room.

Since I was not around during discussion, I ended up looking and downloading presentation slides of the topic for me to know the content.

Straight to topic matter…

The questions that stunned me as I start reading the presentation slides are, “What is Strategic Planning?” and “Why do Strategic Planning?”. Those questions triggered me into deep thinking as my memory educes the event from the past that caused a big trouble in the company where I worked. I remembered that it was started also with this so called “Strategic Planning” and wondered if it was really a strategic plan because it ended to a hurtful parting of colleagues. But before I let my tongue slip to some kind of confidentiality, I continue reading the slides for me to gauge the said topic.

It is certainly important that strategic planning must be considered to apply on every organization. As it says, “Fail to plan, means plan to fail”. By the way, “What is a plan?”, I knew that this was being thrown to the class. According to Encarta v2009, it is synonymous to proposal, design, disposition, scheme and idea to work out, develop and formulate for the betterment of an organization. Yes, it is deemed to fail if we fail to plan, because without proper planning the organization will be out of its track.

Addressing critical performance issue, creating right balance between what the organizations is capable of doing versus what the organization would like to do, and covering sufficient time period to close the performance gap are the bases of a good strategic plan. Merely addressing, creating and covering without taking it into actions will surely planned to fail.

Strategic Planning has this ABCDE model. ‘A’ stands for assessment, ‘B’ for baseline, ‘C’ for components, ‘D’ for down to specifics and ‘E’ for evaluate. Assessment has two kinds; (1) Internal Assessment deals with strengths and weaknesses of organizational assets, resources, people culture, systems, partnerships, and suppliers (2) External Assessment deals with opportunities and threats of marketplace, competitors, social trends, technology, regularity environment and economic cycles. Baseline refers to; (1) Operating Environment (2) Business Relationships (3) Key Performance Categories. Components are represented in pyramid in which mission is on the top addressing why the organization exists and Target is on the bottom addressing the desired level of performance and timelines. Down to specific means that from conceptualization to taking into action. It identifies the specific steps that will be taken to achieve the initiatives and strategic objectives. Evaluate is a continuous examining feedback, and management performance on how well the organization is doing.

Those were the points that I have learned after reading the presentation slides. Upon reflecting, the event from the past turned to failure because it fails to apply ABCDE model which is the key basics to be on track of the progress. Also, persons who are in higher position are not committed anymore to pursue what had we planned. Moreover, skipping one of the model basics will lead to organization’s breakdown.