walden wmba6990 full course 2019

Discussion 1: Case Analysis With Discussion: What Are the Core Skills, Competencies, and Capabilities of Trader Joe's?

Wolfe (2009, p. 63) calls on leaders at all levels of an organization to “view the organization as a living system, directing the flows of energies [passions and skills] within that body of people and transforming their collective energy [relationships and shared values] and effort into the products and services brought to the marketplace [to meet the organization's Soulful Purpose].”

As such, it is critical to analyze what skills, competencies, and capabilities an organization actually has, and how these energies can best be tapped to ward off external threats, seize on opportunities, and navigate into new “blue oceans” of value creation. Indeed, all strategic (or not strategic!) action, and all value creation by an organization, is done through the application of skills (what individual people can do [think in terms of active verbs]), competencies (what groups of individuals can do[think organization functions]), and capabilities (what supporting plant, machinery, software, and systems/processes, etc.) can do.

Indeed, in the iterative, feedback and feed-forward five-question strategy playbook framework, one of the central questions is, which capabilities must be in place (to win)? (What skills, competencies and capabilities do you need now, and in the future?) It is to this central question that we turn to this week's case study.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week’s case study. You can, and should, scan it multiple times.
• Retrieve and review the Value chain of activities template.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography.
• Utilize information in the case study, and other basic industry research data you can find in the Walden Library (Hoover's database would be a good place to start, as would Business Source Complete). Remember, you will have to search for information on the most relevant Trader Joe's competitors, as well as Trader Joe's to be able to make an appropriate relative ranking of resources.

By Day 3

Post a polished skills, competencies, and capabilities analysis that responds to each of the prompts below:

1. Use your best judgment, based on the information in the case and your research, and rate Trader Joe's current profile of skills, competencies, and capabilities, as identified in the detailed value chain in the case supplemental document. Fill your rating in the table and explain your rating. Use the following scale to rate and state any assumptions you make:
   • If the skill, competency, or capability is “World Class” (clearly best in industry and could be benchmark for other industries), rate the item a 10.
   • If the skill, competency, or capability is “Industry Best” (clearly number 1 or 2 in the industry), rate the item an 8.
   • If the skill, competency, or capability is “Industry Average,” rate the item a 5.
   • If the skill, competency, or capability “Needs Improvement,” rate the item a 3.
   • If the skill, competency, or capability is a “Critical Deficiency,” rate the item a 1.
2. What is your average rating (which assumes that all the skills, competencies, and capabilities in the value chain were equally important)? Does this average tell you anything? What?
3. What three skills, competencies, or capabilities, across all categories, do you think are strategically the most important in the industry? Why?
4. Based on your responses above, does Trader Joe's have the capabilities in place to win? To continue to win? Why?
5. What should Trader Joe's do right now to leverage its competitive strengths and mitigate or improve upon competitive weaknesses?

Be sure to integrate concepts and quotes from this week’s readings. To obtain an exemplary assessment, you must also integrate at least one resource from the Walden MBA Program Capstone Bibliography as well.

General Guidance: Your original post, due by Day 3, will contain two elements:

1. Your summary response to questions 2–5 above (4 single-spaced paragraphs) that will be the body of the Discussion text area
2. Your completed version of the Trader Joe's supplemental table, which you should attach to your response (make sure to rename the file and append your last name first initial to the file name)

Refer to the Week 3 Discussion 1 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 5

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your colleague's analysis that is new to you.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your colleague might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

 

 

Assignment: Individual Reflection: Blue Print for Professional and Personal Growth Part One: Executive Summary of MBA Program

As you begin this Assignment, review the broad range of topics that you have examined and what you have learned throughout the MBA program. For Part 1 of this final Individual BPPG Reflection, select concepts or topics that resonated with you the most during your program. What can you do now to integrate the experiences and insights you've had in the MBA program with your personal and professional development goals?

By Day 7

Submit an Executive Summary that spans the entire range of topics within your MBA program and that integrates prior learning, experiences, and insights gained throughout the MBA program, with personal and professional development goals by addressing the following questions:

• Page One: The MBA and Your Goals and Contributions to Social Change
  • Which content, conceptual ideas, frameworks, tools, and assignments in your MBA improved your understanding and skills in ways that will enable you to achieve your professional goals?
  • What impact has your improved understanding had, or what impact do you anticipate your understanding will have, on the value you will bring to your role within an organization and the world at large, particularly with respect to being an agent for positive change (at the individual, organizational and communities level)? NOTE: This is a very important element of your response, please be deliberative in your response.
• Page Two: The MBA Program’s Content & Your Practice of Business Administration
  • How have the content and assignments changed the way you think of your role within the organization and the way you will practice your profession?
  • How have the content and assignments shaped your goals now and how do you anticipate they will shape your goals in the future?
  • How has your MBA helped you appreciate the role that an individual manager or a business has in facilitating positive social change?

General Guidance on Assignment Length: Part 1 of your BPPG, your MBA program Executive Summary, should be approximately 2 single-spaced page(s).

 

Discussion 1: Case Analysis With Discussion: Stakeholder Analysis of Tesla Motors and the Global Automobile Industry

To develop effective strategies, a business must thoroughly understand its ecosystem, and the stakeholders within it, that can affect its success. To this end, effective businesses often analyze the political, economic, social, and technological forces (sometimes called P.E.S.T. analysis) and perform a comprehensive stakeholder analysis. Businesses can use each analysis to survey opportunities for strategic action, as well as to evaluate threats to current resource capabilities and strategies.

This week, you use a large-scale, industry-level case study to analyze critical forces and stakeholder interests and needs that shape the ecosystem of an organization and industry. You then examine the strategic implications of the critical forces and stakeholder analyses concepts as they apply to your Capstone Strategy Playbook.

Stakeholder Analysis of Tesla Motors

P.E.S.T. analysis is an important way to capture the general forces that affect industries and companies. Another way to obtain a more comprehensive perspective of the general ecosystem that a company like Tesla Motors works within, is to identify, as explicitly as possible, all the stakeholders that have an interest in a given business.

You might want to think about this from the “outside-in.” That is, given each of the major P.E.S.T. forces noted above, ask yourself, “Who are the people (stakeholders) behind each major force and how must I relate to them strategically?” So, for example, it is clear that international and national political figures may be relevant stakeholders in any given case, as would government regulators at local, regional, national, or international levels. You can't change a local, regional, or national/international regulation directly—you have to know who to see and the action occurs among people—so a stakeholder analysis is, in many ways, a "personified" version of your P.E.S.T. analysis.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week's case study. You can, and should, scan it multiple times.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Program Capstone Bibliography.
• Consider the elements of P.E.S.T. analysis that you learned earlier in the MBA program. These elements include:
  • Political (Legislative) and Legal Elements (regulatory environment, market access, technology regulation, zoning restrictions, industry specific, company specific legislation, anti-trust laws, insurance/liability requirements, safety regulations, child workforce protection laws, immigration laws, etc.)
  • Economic Elements (interest rate and equity market movements, capital liquidity, inflation prospects, exchange rate movements, workforce availability, discretionary income levels, etc.)
  • Societal Values and Ethics (risk taking propensity, family dynamics and behavior, cultural “in” behaviors, taboo activities, media focus, religious behaviors, ethical limitations on business, etc.)
  • Technology Elements (materials technology advances, electronics advances, communications advances, infrastructure access [communication, electricity, etc.], energy advances, etc.) 
    
    And an important and too often forgotten element:
  • Demographic Changes (age distribution and trend, absolute population size and trend, birth and death rates, gender proportion and trend, ethnic mix and trend, location/mobility and trends.)
• Identify, as explicitly as possible, all the relevant stakeholders that have an interest in Tesla Motors, and how Tesla should manage them as part of a strategy.
• Research your stakeholder list initially this way, to ensure complete coverage:
  • General Ecosystem Stakeholders (the ones that are behind the specific P.E.S.T. influences, includes the press, interest groups, the public at large, communities, shareholders, etc.)
  • Industry Level Stakeholders (direct local competitors, potential substitute companies, other competitors or potential competitors outside your current markets, lenders, alliance or potential alliance partners, trade associations, suppliers in the entire supply chain, customers and their end-users, potential customers or end users, etc.)
  • Internal Stakeholders (these are the people who influence the company from inside, including the board of directors, senior leadership, management, skilled employees at any level, other employees, contract workforce, outsourced workforce, potential new recruits, etc.)
  • Potential New Stakeholders (at any level, but which may become stakeholders as you consider new strategic actions and activities)
• Then, reorder and rank the stakeholder list in order of “influence priority,” where stakeholders at the top of the prioritized list require more of Tesla Motor's attention because they can/will influence your strategic choices for the future the most.

By Day 3

Post an assessment of the stakeholder environment for Tesla (and the U.S. automobile industry) that includes a comprehensive and prioritized list of stakeholders and explains who the key stakeholders are that Tesla Motors must pay attention to and why; and then offers specific strategies for how Tesla must seek to manage or otherwise, legally and ethically, influence these stakeholders.

General Guidance: Your original post, due by Day 3, will typically be approximately 1 single-spaced page in length (cut and pasted into the Discussion) as a general expectation/estimate. Refer to the Week 4 Discussion 1 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 5

Respond to at least two colleagues' analyses in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your colleague's analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

 

 

Discussion 2: Capstone Forum: Assignment With Peer Review: Stakeholder and General Force Analysis for Your Capstone Organization

Now it is time to apply key insights learned from this week's case analysis and Discussion about stakeholder assessment and its relationship to P.E.S.T. analysis, this week's readings, and other resources to help you think about how you might answer the question, where will you play? (Who will you serve, and who will either help or compete against you?)

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week's case study and peer discussion and reflect and make notes on the following: What insights did you gain, and what did you learn from this week's resources your case analysis and peer discussion that you can apply to your Strategy Playbook for your chosen organization? What conceptual and strategic differences are important between the case example and your organization (focus on the concepts analyzed this week)? What assumptions do you need to make in order to use the strategy concepts appropriately?
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography. Given your chosen organization, what concepts, tools, and readings from the Program Capstone Bibliography are most relevant to helping guide how you might recommend improving the company? How and why are they relevant?
• Locate and maintain access to publicly available information about your organization.

By Day 5

Post a polished and synthesized entry into the discussion area, which will also be the basis for an entry into the final draft of your Strategy Playbook for Extraordinary Results. At minimum you should add the following to your discussion post and Strategy Playbook:

• An evidence-based and cohesive set of specific and actionable recommendations for actions (based on application of this week's strategy concepts), that your selected organization can take that will clearly enable your organization to achieve its strategic goals, sustain and grow its business, and remain viable and healthy.
  • HINT: You should provide a preliminary argument that defends your recommendations. Consider why your recommendations are SMART- specific, measurable, achievable (that is realistic and feasible, and timely (relevant and important).
• A related set of metrics that will enable your selected organization to measure the effectiveness of your recommended actions.
  • HINT: These metrics could then be used in the comprehensive final draft of your strategy playbook diagram, which is part of your final Strategy Playbook.

General Guidance: Your original Discussion post for the Capstone Forum will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages, excluding references. Refer to the Week 4 Discussion 2 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Note: After you receive input from your colleagues, in the next few days you should revise your original post to reflect input that you think is helpful and strengthens your position. This final revised version from this week's Capstone Forum will become the third formal entry into your Strategy Playbook appendix. Title this section “Stakeholder Analyses for XYZ [Insert Organization Name],” and be sure to keep a version of your response in your Strategy Playbook template. As a best practice you should plan to review your playbook throughout the course as you continue to build your components. You may find that you have new ideas and items that further improve your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 7

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your colleague's analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

 

 

Discussion 1: Case Study With Discussion: Options for Growth in a Competitive Ecosystem—Apple

Observers often consider the competitive ecosystem of the smartphone and mobile electronics industry to be a “red ocean” industry. Many rivals engage in direct competition with each other, with increasingly less room to differentiate one product from the others. In such industries, consumers often have the power to drive prices down as rival firms have few other ways to compete. Increased competition leads to thinner profit margins as rivals drop prices further and further.

Yet, even in these conditions, some innovative companies find a strategy to exploit opportunities for growth that rivals cannot easily imitate. For example, in the airline industry, Southwest Airlines and Virgin Airlines have found room to grow, even in the fiercely competitive “red ocean” ecosystem of the airlines industry. This week, you examine a case study of Apple, Inc., which both established a “blue ocean” space in the smartphone industry, and has found room to grow in what is becoming an increasingly global and competitive space.

The essence of the five-force, competitive analysis is to examine whether one might find it attractive or not to compete in a given industry, and where, specifically, there might be “dominant positions” within an industry, and to identify the forces that shape the potential to make money in an industry, given a particular “competitive position.” That is, how will you win? (How will you create unique value?)

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week's case study. You can, and should, scan it multiple times.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography.
• Review the figure below to re-familiarize yourself with the elements of a five-forces analysis, which you have used in a couple of other contexts within the MBA program.

 

By Day 3

Post a polished, researched, and well documented response to the following prompts:

• A detailed explanation of the critical competitive forces (and their underlying dynamics) in the smartphone industry that may threaten Apple based on a relevant five-forces analysis and other concepts you've learned from your MBA program. Be sure to explain how and why you've focused on the critical forces that you've identified.
• A detailed explanation of the potential for new entry and/or effective substitute competition, based on a relevant blue ocean strategy analysis and other concepts you've learned from your MBA program. Be sure to explain how and why you've focused on a particular new entry or substitute threats to Apple.
• An explanation of the strategic implications of the competitive forces you identified above: what are the opportunities and threats to Apple's position in the ecosystem of the smartphone industry that it must factor into its strategy for the future, based on your analysis, and why? Provide evidence from the case and any other research you might do, and support your reasoning with references to this week's readings and from prior MBA program course concepts.

General Guidance: Your original post, due by Day 3, will typically be approximately 1 single-spaced page in length (cut and pasted into the Discussion) as a general expectation/estimate. Refer to the Week 5 Discussion 1 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 5

Respond to at least two colleagues' analyses in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from their analyses that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

 

 

Discussion 2: Capstone Forum: Assignment With Peer Review: Five-Forces and Blue Ocean Strategy Analysis for Your Organization

Now it is time to apply lessons learned from this week's case analysis and Discussion about competitive force assessment, this week's readings, and other resources, to help you think about how you might answer the question, how will you win? (How will you create unique value?)

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week's case study and peer discussion and reflect and make notes on the following: What insights did you gain, and what did you learn from this week's resources your case analysis and peer discussion that you can apply to your Strategy Playbook for your chosen organization? What conceptual and strategic differences are important between the case example and your organization (focus on the concepts analyzed this week)? What assumptions do you need to make in order to use the strategy concepts appropriately?
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography. Given your chosen organization, what concepts, tools, and readings from the Program Capstone Bibliography are most relevant to helping guide how you might recommend improving the company? How and why are they relevant?
• Locate and maintain access to publicly available information about your organization.

By Day 5

Post a polished and synthesized entry into the discussion area, which will also be the basis for an entry into the final draft of your Strategy Playbook for Extraordinary Results. At minimum you should add the following to your discussion post and Strategy Playbook:

• An evidence-based and cohesive set of specific and actionable recommendations for actions (based on application of this week's strategy concepts), that your selected organization can take that will clearly enable your organization to achieve its strategic goals, sustain and grow its business, and remain viable and healthy.
  • HINT: You should provide a preliminary argument that defends your recommendations. Consider why your recommendations are SMART-- specific, measurable, achievable (that is realistic and feasible, and timely (relevant and important).
• A related set of metrics that will enable your selected organization to measure the effectiveness of your recommended actions.
  • HINT: These metrics could then be used in the comprehensive final draft of your strategy playbook diagram, which is part of your final Strategy Playbook.

General Guidance: Your original discussion post for the Capstone Forum will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages, excluding references. Refer to the Week 5 Discussion 2 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Note: After you receive input from your colleagues in the next few days, you should revise your original post to reflect input that you think is helpful and strengthens your position. This final revised version from this week's Capstone Forum will become the fourth formal entry into your Strategy Playbook appendix. Title this section “Competitive Force Analysis for XYZ [Insert Organization Name],” and be sure to keep a version of your response in your Strategy Playbook template. As a best practice you should plan to review your playbook throughout the course as you continue to build your components. You may find that you have new ideas and items that further improve your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 7

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your colleague's analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your colleague might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

 

 

Discussion 1: Case Analysis with Discussion: KSF Analysis—Integrating Internal Resource and External Ecosystems Analyses: Trader Joe's and U.S. Food Retailing Revisited

In Week 3 you utilized the case study, “Trader Joe's” (Ager & Roberto, 2013), to analyze the current skills, competencies, and capabilities along Trader Joe's value chain, which included supplier- and customer-related activities. For this week's case analysis, you will use your prior work on the skills, competencies, and capabilities of Trader Joe's, but now you will re-analyze your findings relative to the implications of a quick run-through of both general force (P.E.S.T.) and competitive force (five-force) analysis of the food retail sector in the United States.

The goal of this week's analysis is to compare your current skill, competencies, and capabilities analysis of Trader Joe's with what your think the future Key Success Factors (KSFs) for the company will be, drawing on data you research about the industry.

To develop the KSFs, consider which core skills and capabilities Trader Joe's currently has (from your prior analysis). Then, based on a quick and less formal general P.E.S.T. and competitive ecosystem five-forces analysis, determine which critical skills, competencies, and capabilities Trader Joe's must develop or acquire in order to thrive over the next 5 years.

The logic of the KSF analysis requires you to bring strategic analysis of external issues together with an evaluation of internal skills and capabilities for the first time. Remember, ALL strategy comes down to (1) how you deploy your current skills, competencies, and capabilities, how you develop or redevelop those, and how you augment them via more investment/training, purchase, or acquisition; and (2) what you decide to do with those skills in the future.

So, this week you are moving into “future thinking” mode, and are considering “what are the Key Success Factors for the future?”

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the assignment.
• Review your analysis of Trader Joe's from Week 3 and review your original research on the company and industry.
• Conduct additional research on the U.S. food retailing industry to obtain some insights about future threats and opportunities in the industry.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the Capstone Program Bibliography.

By Day 3

Post a polished Key Success Factor analysis that responds to each of the prompts below:

1. Based on your projections for the implications of FUTURE five-forces of competition, P.E.S.T. (general environment), and stakeholder support (or stakeholder challenges), what essential skills, competencies, and capabilities will be CRITICAL in order for Trader Joe's to survive or thrive in the future? Why? Support your evaluation with evidence and reasoning linked to appropriate knowledge. 
   
   Note: These critical areas may be the same as in the past, BUT they may not. Think this through carefully and use your innovative and economic thinking skills from prior courses. You must become futurists to be good strategists, which means there IS some ambiguity about the bets you will be making (that's one of the responsibilities of senior leadership).
    
2. Identify critical gaps in the skills, competencies, and capabilities that Trader Joe's currently has versus what you think they will need in the future. Think about how Trader Joe's can bridge that gap. If Trader Joe's were to hire you as consultant to provide strategic direction in what specific skills, competencies, and capabilities the company should invest in or acquire (and how), which would you emphasize as critical and why?

 

 

Discussion 2: Capstone Forum: Assignment With Peer Review: KSF Analysis and Potential Strategic Pathways for Your Chosen Organization

Now it is time to apply lessons learned from this week's case analysis and discussion about Key Success Factor analysis, this week's readings, and other resources, to help you think about how you might answer the questions, how will you win? (how will you create unique value now, and in the future?), and which capabilities must be in place (to win in the future)? What skills, competencies, and capabilities do you need now and in the future?

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week's case study and peer discussion and reflect and make notes on the following: What insights did you gain, and what did you learn from this week's resources your case analysis and peer discussion that you can apply to your Strategy Playbook for your chosen organization? What conceptual and strategic differences are important between the case example and your organization (focus on the concepts analyzed this week)? What assumptions do you need to make in order to use the strategy concepts appropriately?
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography. Given your chosen organization, what concepts, tools, and readings from the Program Capstone Bibliography are most relevant to helping guide how you might recommend improving the company? How and why are they relevant?
• Locate and maintain access to publicly available information about your organization.

By Day 5

Post a polished and synthesized entry into the discussion area, which will also be the basis for an entry into the final draft of your Strategy Playbook for Extraordinary Results. At minimum you should add the following to your discussion post and Strategy Playbook:

• An evidence-based and cohesive set of specific and actionable recommendations for actions (based on application of this week's strategy concepts), that your selected organization can take that will clearly enable your organization to achieve its strategic goals, sustain and grow its business, and remain viable and healthy.
  • HINT: You should provide a preliminary argument that defends your recommendations. Consider why your recommendations are SMART-- specific, measurable, achievable (that is realistic and feasible, and timely (relevant and important).
• A related set of metrics that will enable your selected organization to measure the effectiveness of your recommended actions.
  • HINT: These metrics could then be used in the comprehensive final draft of your strategy playbook diagram, which is part of your final Strategy Playbook

General Guidance: Your original discussion post for the Capstone Forum will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages, excluding references. Refer to the Week 6 Discussion 2 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Note: After you receive input from your colleagues in the next few days, you should revise your original post to reflect input that you think is helpful and strengthens your position. This final revised version from this week's Capstone Forum will become the fourth formal entry into your Strategy Playbook appendix. Title this section “KSF Analysis Strategic Pathways and Recommendations for XYZ [Insert Organization Name],” and be sure to keep a version of your response in your Strategy Playbook template. As a best practice you should plan to review your playbook throughout the course as you continue to build your components. You may find that you have new ideas and items that further improve your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 7

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your colleague's analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

Note: For the third response option, exemplary responses should provide a synthesis of multiple peers' insights, findings, and analyses.

 

 

Discussion 1: Case Analysis With Discussion: Strategic Option Analysis and Feasibility Evaluation—The Weather Company

As Wolfe (2011) notes in Chapters 11 and 12 of his book, strategy development, communication, and execution are real-time, ongoing processes. A strategy is never “done,” as everything both internal and external to the organization is in a constant flux and change—requiring the strategy, and the playbook for the future, to be modified and improved.

A critical part of the “strategy evolution process” is to evaluate and check the assumptions and reasoning bases for strategies. Are the emerging strategies consistent with the Soulful Purpose of the organization; are they affordable; and can the appropriate skills, competencies, and capabilities be leveraged or acquired to make various parts of the strategy work? How will the competition respond, and is the organization ready for it?

This week you explore the case of The Weather Company, which, in August 2013, presented their strategic plan that the senior leadership could help the company grow from $600 million in revenue to $1 billion or more by 2016. You will evaluate the proposed strategy, based on your cumulative knowledge from this course and your MBA program.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the assignment.
• Review the case analysis. You may want to scan it multiple times.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography.
• Use the criteria below to inform your analysis:

Note: The evaluation criteria below should be used to form your response: Do not, however, respond to these questions in a checklist format as your original response. Your response should be a single, persuasive narrative argument that is polished and could serve as the basis for a speech you might make to the board to either support or question the proposed strategy.

Strategy Evaluation Elements:

• Clarity of the Strategy
  • Does the strategy and associated initiatives have a "name" that evokes the strategy?
  • Is it easy to communicate what the strategy is and why it can work?
  • Is it likely that people inside the organization will understand and commit to the strategy?
• Consistency of Purpose (Context Level of Analysis)
  • Based on your reading of the case, is The Weather Company's proposed 2013 strategy consistent with its Soulful Purpose and its mission, vision, and values? How?
• Feasibility and Alignment (Activities and Relationships Level of Analysis)
  • What are the primary Key Success Factors that The Weather Company needs to excel at in the future? Do they have the internal skills, competencies, and capabilities to execute their strategy? (If not, does the plan do a good job of saying how they will acquire these?)
  • Are the basic elements of the proposed strategy feasible?
    • From a teamwork and healthy organization standpoint?
    • From a financial standpoint?
    • From a measurement/metrics standpoint?
  • Does the strategy appear to be internally aligned? Do the specific action plan steps support each other? How and Why?
• External Consonance and Potential Competitive Advantage
  • Is the proposed strategy consonant with the current and future needs of the external ecosystem and stakeholder needs? How and Why?
  • Does the strategy indicate any long-term strategic intent?
  • Does the proposed strategy position the company to perform activities differently than rivals do? How and why?
  • Does the proposed strategy lead to incremental change within the industry, or more fundamental change within the industry, or does it establish new positions outside the industry or in blue ocean spaces? How and why is the scope of the strategy appropriate?
  • Do you think the proposed strategy can create or preserve any advantages it may confer on the company? Which advantages, and how and why?

By Day 3

Post a polished and integrated analysis that answers this question: If you were on the board of directors at The Weather Company in 2013, would you approve the proposed strategy? Why or why not?

Be specific, and be sure to support your response with evidence from the case, and use appropriate concepts from the course and MBA program to make the strongest case you can.

General Guidance: Your original discussion post for the Capstone Forum will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages (cut and paste into the Discussion area), excluding references. Refer to the Week 7 Discussion 1 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 5

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your peers' analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

 

 

Discussion 2: Capstone Forum: Assignment With Peer Review: What Is the Strategy That Your Playbook Is Designed to Support?

Now it is time to apply lessons learned from this week's case analysis and discussion about strategy evaluation, this week's readings, and other resources, to help you think about how you might answer the question, what is the strategy your playbook is designed to support and how will you evaluate it?

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week's case study and peer discussion and reflect and make notes on the following: What insights did you gain, and what did you learn from this week's resources your case analysis and peer discussion that you can apply to your Strategy Playbook for your chosen organization? What conceptual and strategic differences are important between the case example and your organization (focus on the concepts analyzed this week)? What assumptions do you need to make in order to use the strategy concepts appropriately?
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography. Given your chosen organization, what concepts, tools, and readings from the Program Capstone Bibliography are most relevant to helping guide how you might recommend improving the company? How and why are they relevant?
• Locate and maintain access to publicly available information about your organization.

By Day 5

Post a polished and synthesized entry into the discussion area, which will also be the basis for an entry into the final draft of your Strategy Playbook for Extraordinary Results. Based on all of your previous week's work on the playbook, and based on the strategy evaluation content from this week, at minimum you should add the following to your discussion post and Strategy Playbook:

• Explicitly identify and provide a name for the company-wide strategy you recommend for your company and then explain the essential components of the company-wide strategy you recommend for your company.
• Evaluate the company-wide strategy that you recommend for your company.

General Guidance: Your original discussion post for the Capstone Forum will typically be 2 single-spaced pages, excluding references. Refer to the Week 7 Discussion 2 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Note: After you receive input from your colleagues in the next few days, you should revise your original post to reflect input that you think is helpful and strengthens your position. This final revised version from this week's Capstone Forum will become the fourth formal entry into your Strategy Playbook appendix. Title this section “Recommended Strategy for XYZ [Insert Organization Name],” and be sure to keep a version of your response in your Strategy Playbook template. As a best practice you should plan to review your playbook throughout the course as you continue to build your components. You may find that you have new ideas and items that further improve your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 7

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from the colleagues' analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
• Offer constructive ideas for how your colleagues might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote

Note: For the third response option, exemplary responses should provide

 

 

Discussion: Case Analysis With Discussion: Building the Living Organization and Executing Strategy in Real Time—Mozilla Corporation

Perhaps the most important challenge any organization faces over time is executing strategy effectively, and making strategic thinking a part of everyone's day-to-day life. All too often, strategy and strategic thinking is thought to be the exclusive domain of senior leadership (though they ARE the ones most responsible to see that there is a strategy!).

However, as you've seen through numerous readings in this course, and throughout your MBA program, the big-picture issues that strategy must deal with are just too voluminous, too complex, and too tied into the everyday work of everyone in the organization to leave it up to just a few people.

Keeping all the pieces of an organization aligned, keeping the people focused on the Soulful Purpose of the firm (and that includes the board of directors), is an ongoing and everyday activity. As Wolfe notes, “strategic planning is dead—long live strategy execution” (2001, p. 116).

This week you will explore strategy execution through an analysis of Mozilla Corporation, which is a for-profit entity that is part of the Mozilla Foundation (another hybrid organization like Google.org/Google, which you studied in Week 1).

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the assignment.
• Review the case analysis. You may want to scan it multiple times.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography.

By Day 3

Post responses to at least two of the prompts for Part A and all of the prompt for Part B:

Part A: Execution of Strategy at Mozilla

1. How would you describe Mozilla's cultural and organizational DNA? What, specifically, about the way Mozilla enacts strategy and executes its business plan provides it with such depth?
2. What do you think are the lessons from Mozilla for other knowledge-based organizations, especially in terms of strategy execution and the involvement of people throughout the organization?
3. In what ways is Mozilla more effective at executing strategy than Google.org (case from Week 1)? Why are they more effective?
4. What are the critical challenges that Debbie Cohen faces as chief of people at Mozilla, specifically in terms of strategy execution and alignment? What should she do to meet these challenges, and why?

General Guidance: Your original discussion post for Part A should be ½ single-spaced page (cut and paste into the Discussion area), excluding references. Refer to the Week 8 Discussion 1 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Part B: Getting Everyone to Participate in Strategic Thinking and Execution

Then, based both on the Mozilla case study and your general thoughts from this course, everyone must respond to this question:

Explain how the knowledge and effective practice of cross-functional strategic thinking can help individual stakeholders (people at all levels of the organization and others outside the organization) participate more fully in organizational efforts to improve long-term performance and overall stakeholder engagement.

General Guidance: Your original discussion post for Part B should be ½ single-spaced page (cut and paste into the Discussion area), excluding references. Refer to the Week 8 Discussion 1 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

Read a selection of your colleagues' posts.

By Day 5

Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

• Comment on what you learned from your colleague's analysis that is new to you.
• Comment on how your analysis might extend or improve his or her analysis.
• Provide your observations about your peers' comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.