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A history of strategic planning reviews the pitfalls of planning, showing how it can destroy commitment, discourage change, and breed a political atmosphere and arguing that managers must rethink the process.

Traces the history of strategic planning in American business and argues that the two concepts are mutually contradictory, as planning encourages stability, while strategy making is more fluid and open to change

In this definitive and revealing history, Henry Mintzberg, the iconoclastic former president of the Strategic Management Society, unmasks the press that has mesmerized so many organizations since 1965: strategic planning. One of our most brilliant and original management thinkers, Mintzberg concludes that the term is an oxymoron -- that strategy cannot be planned because planning is about analysis and strategy is about synthesis. That is why, he asserts, the process has failed so often and so dramatically. Mintzberg traces the origins and history of strategic planning through its prominence and subsequent fall. He argues that we must reconceive the process by which strategies are created -- by emphasizing informal learning and personal vision -- and the roles that can be played by planners. Mintzberg proposes new and unusual definitions of planning and strategy, and examines in novel and insightful ways the various models of strategic planning and the evidence of why they failed. Reviewing the so-called "pitfalls" of planning, he shows how the process itself can destroy commitment, narrow a company's vision, discourage change, and breed an atmosphere of politics. In a harsh critique of many sacred cows, he describes three basic fallacies of the process -- that discontinuities can be predicted, that strategists can be detached from the operations of the organization, and that the process of strategy-making itself can be formalized. Mintzberg devotes a substantial section to the new role for planning, plans, and planners, not inside the strategy-making process, but in support of it, providing some of its inputs and sometimes programming its outputs as well as encouraging strategic thinking in general. This book is required reading for anyone in an organization who is influenced by the planning or the strategy-making processes.

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments = xv
A Note to the Reader = xvii
Introduction : The “Planning School” in Context = 1
1. Planning and Strategy = 5
 What Is Planning Anyway? = 5
 Why Plan (According to Planners)? = 15
 Jelinek´s Case for Planning = 21
 And What Is Strategy? = 23
 Planners, Plans, and Planning = 29
 A Plan for This Book = 32
2. Models of the Strategic Planning Process = 35
 The Basic Planning Model = 36
  The Core ＂Design School＂ Model = 36
  Premises of the Design School = 37
  Premises of the Planning Literature = 39
  The Initial Ansoff Model = 43
  The Mainline Steiner Model = 46
 Decomposing the Basic Model = 49
  The Objectives - Setting Stage = 52
  The External Audit Stage = 54
  The Internal Audit Stage = 56
  The Strategy Evaluation Stage = 56
  The Strategy Operationalization Stage = 60
  Scheduling the Whole Process = 62
  A Missing Detail = 66
 Sorting Out the Four Hierarchies : Objectives, Budgets, Strategies, Programs = 67
  Hierarchy of Objectives = 71
  Hierarchy of Budgets = 72
  Hierarchy of Strategies = 74
  Hierarchy of Programs = 75
  The ＂Great Divide＂ of Planning = 78
 Forms of Strategic Planning = 81
  A. Conventional Strategic Planning = 82
  B. “Strategic Planning” as a Numbers Game = 83
  C. Capital Budgeting as Ad Hoc Control = 87
3. Evidence on Planning = 91
 Survey Evidence on “Does Planning Pay?” = 92
 Anecdotal Evidence = 97
  The General Electric FIFO Experience = 101
 Some Deeper Evidence = 104
  Sarrazin's Study of Exemplary Planning = 105
  Gomer's Study of Planning Under Crisis = 107
  Quinn's Findings on Planning Under “Logical Incrementalism” = 108
  The McGill Research on “Tracking Strategies” = 109
  Koch's Study of the “Facade” of French Government Planning = 115
  Some Evidence on the PPBS Experience = 116
  Some Evidence on Capital Budgeting = 122
  Concluding the Deeper Evidence = 133
 Planners' Responses to the Evidence = 135
  Faith : “There is no problem” = 136
  Salvation : “It's the process that counts” = 138
  Elaboration : “Just you wait” = 139
  Reversion : “Back to basics” = 151
  Pitfalls : “ Them not us” = 152
4. Some Real Pitfalls of Planning = 159
 Planning and Commitment = 160
  Commitment at the Top = 161
  Commitment Lower Down = 163
  “Decentralized” Planning = 164
  Planning and Freedom = 167
  Commitment Versus Calculation = 170
 Planning and Change = 172
  The Inflexibility of Plans = 173
  The Inflexibility of Planning = 175
  Planned Change as Incremental = 176
  Planned Change as Generic = 180
  Planned Change as Short Term = 182
  Flexible Planning : Wanting Things Both Ways = 183
 Planning and Politics = 188
  The Biases of Objectivity = 188
  The Goals Implicit in Planning = 191
  The Politics of Planning = 196
  Politics over Planning = 200
 Planning and Control = 201
  Obsession with Control = 201
  “Our age is turbulent, Chicken Little” = 203
  Strategic Vision and Strategic Learning = 209
  Illusion of Control? = 210
  Planning as Public Relations = 214
5. Fundamental Fallacies of Strategic Planning = 221
 Some Basic Assumptions Behind Strategic Planning = 221
  Missing Taylor's Message = 225
 The Fallacy of Predetermination = 227
  The Performance of Forecasting = 228
  The Forecasting of Discontinuities = 230
  Forecasting as Magic = 234
  Forecasting as Extrapolation = 236
  Forecasting and “Turbulence” = 237
  The Dynamics of Strategy Formation = 239
  Forecasting as Control (and Planning as Enactment) = 245
  Scenarios Instead of Forecasts = 248
  Contingency Planning Instead of Deterministic Planning = 251
 The Fallacy of Detachment = 254
  Seeing the Forest And the Trees = 256
  The Soft Underbelly of Hard Data = 257
  The Detachment of Planners from Strategy Making = 267
  The Detachment of Managers Who Rely on Planning from Strategy Making = 270
  Learning About Strengths and Weaknesses = 275
  “Marketing Myopia” Myopia = 279
  Attaching Formulation to Implementation = 282
  Connecting Thinking and Acting = 290
 The Fallacy of Formalization = 294
  The Failure of Formulation = 294
  Was Formalization Ever Even Tried? = 297
  The Analytical Nature of Planning = 298
  Intuition Distinguished = 303
  Do the Hemispheres Have Minds of Their Own? = 304
  Simon's Analytical View of Intuition = 308
  Flipping Intuition Across to Analysis = 311
  Planning on the Left Side and Managing on the Right = 315
  The Image of Managing = 318
  The Grand Fallacy = 321
6. Planning, Plan, Planners = 323
 Coupling Analysis and Intuition = 324
  The Planning Dilemma = 324
  Comparing Analysis and Intuition = 325
  Analysis and Intuition in Strategy Making = 329
  A Strategy for Planning = 330
  “Soft” Analysis = 331
 Role of Planning : Strategic Programming = 333
  Step 1 : Codifying the Strategy = 337
  Step 2 : Elaborating the Strategy = 339
  Step 3 : Converting the Elaborated Strategy = 340
  Conditions of Strategic Programming = 342
 First Role of Plans : Communication Media = 351
 Second Role of Plans : Control Devices = 354
  Strategic Control = 357
 First Role of Planners : Finders of Strategy = 361
  Logic in Action = 362
  Desperately Seeking Strategies = 363
  Unconventional Planners = 365
 Second Role of Planners : Analysts = 367
  Strategic Analysis for Managers = 368
  External Strategic Analysis = 373
  Internal Strategic Analysis and the Role of Simulation = 375
  Scrutinization of Strategies = 378
 Third Role of Planners : Catalysts = 380
  Opening Up Strategic Thinking = 381
  Role for Formalization = 384
  The Formalization Edge = 386
  Simons's Interactive Control = 388
  Playing the Catalyst Role = 389
 The Planner as Strategist = 391
 A Plan for Planners = 392
 A Planner for Each Side of the Brain = 393
 Planners in Context = 397
  Forms of Organizations = 397
  Strategic Programming in the Machine Organization = 398
  Right - and Left - Handed Planners in the Machine Organization = 401
  Strategic Programming Under Other Conditions = 402
  Strategic Analysis in the Professional Organization = 404
  Planning and Analysis in the Adhocracy Organization = 408
  Minimal Roles in the Entrepreneurial Organization = 410
  Performance Control in the Diversified Organization = 411
  Planning Under Politics and Culture = 412
  Planning in Different Cultures = 414
References = 417
Index = 445
About the Author = 459