Assignment: Write a two paragraph (or more) analysis of the following question – Which is more important, a well thought out strategic plan or a comprehensive strategic planning process? What does strategic planning look like in your organization? Describe your experience, both good and bad, with strategic planning.

Materials that may be helpful with this question includes the Harvard Business Review article “Strategic Plans are Less Important than Strategic Planning” and Gamble, Chapter 1 in the textbook pages 7-8, and Gamble, Chapter 2 pages 25-27.

Then, read and post a reply to two of your classmates regarding their thoughts on strategic planning. Is their experience with strategic plans and strategic planning similar to yours or very different? What thoughts can you share with your classmates about the strategic planning process?

Rule: Post one (1) original thread and two (2) replies to other threads for a total of three (3) posts on the discussion board. Your original thread must be unique to you and your employer’s circumstances. You can discuss either a current or a former employer.

Example: Strategic Planning and Hurricanes at TAMU-CC:

When I joined the faculty of Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, I was immediately exposed to the University’s Continuity of Learning Plan. The plan, I was told, was to prepare for the eventuality of a natural disaster striking our campus, likely a hurricane, and the strategic plan for the University to respond. In very broad terms, the plan was for the University to evacuate everyone and to move all University classes online via Blackboard. Students would be moved seamlessly from a face-to-face classroom format to online, and there would be no disruption in the learning endeavor. The Continuity of Learning Plan was crafted by the University with broad universal input, and all students, faculty and staff were kept updated on the Continuity of Learning Plan and its updates.

In August of 2017, right before the start of fall classes, TAMU-CC was evacuated on short notice and the University was shut down. The TAMU-CC campus narrowly missed a direct landfall by Hurricane Harvey, and communities immediately north of Corpus Christi were devastated. Faculty, students and staff took property damage in varying amounts, and electricity was cut off to many. The University also lost power and backup power. More critical, key servers that ran University computing failed in the storm, causing key computing resources to fail. Fortunately, damage to the University itself was relatively minor, and major flooding of the campus did not occur, although minor flooding was an issue.

How well did the University Continuity of Learning Plan do? There was some good and some bad in the actual execution. On the positive side, the evacuation of campus and the securing of key University resources performed exactly to plan. Preparation prior to landfall was very close to the actual University strategic plan. On the other hand, two critical weaknesses were exposed. A majority of the University faculty were unprepared to execute the movement of their courses to Blackboard. Some of this was due to the timing of the storm; even faculty who regularly teach online were unprepared for fall classes. Nevertheless, an event during a regular term would likely have resulted in a serious outage of course availability. The second devastating weakness was the vulnerability of University computing resources to a relatively minor windstorm event. There was no storm surge in the Corpus Christi bay, and there were only tropical storm force winds on campus during hurricane landfall. University computing was out for almost one week after the storm.

This description closely mirrors the discussion in the Harvard Business Review article by Kenny (2016). In “Strategic Plans are less Important than Strategic Planning”, Kenny talks about strategic plans being a work in progress. That is certainly the case for the University Continuity of Learning Plan. The key for TAMU-CC will be to learn from the Hurricane event and to address the key gaps that we have identified. The textbook (Gamble, et. al, 2017, p.7) also talks about adaptive reactions to unanticipated developments. Because the University had a strategic plan, the President and key University staff were better able to respond to the aspects of the Hurricane event that were not foreseen. This enabled the University to reopen with only a one-week delay from schedule. Complete recovery from the storm will be a longer-term effort.

References

Gamble, J., Peteraf, M., & Thompson, A. (2017). Essentials of Strategic Management, 5^th Edition. NY, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Kenny, G. (2016, June 21). “Strategic Plans are Less Important than Strategic Planning.” Harvard Business Review. Retrieved at hbr.org.

Assignment 1

Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper comparing juvenile courts with adult courts. Include the following in your paper:

• Select a U.S. Supreme Court case from Ch. 4 of The Juvenile Justice System, or another relevant juvenile court case.
• Describe your case and the legal issues facing the juvenile and the court.
• Analyze the possible outcome of the case if the juvenile were an adult and tried in adult court.
• Include an overview of the juvenile justice system, with a comparison of the key differences between juvenile and adult courts, including roles and language differences.
• Describe the adjudication process by which a juvenile is transferred to the adult court system, and why the transfer did not occur in your chosen case.
• Include a summary of the analysis discussion you had with your collaborative group.

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

Assignment 2; the attachment is in reference to assignment 2

Compute the risk assessment score for each of these individuals using two of the risk assessment devices you located in your Collaborative Activity this week.

Create a 10- to 12-slide Microsoft^® PowerPoint^® presentation with detailed speaker notes in which you include the following:

• Summarize your risk assessment.
• Compare the results you obtain for each individual from the two different assessments.
• Indicate what additional information you would have liked to have had.
• Recommend a potential correctional strategy for each of the individuals.

Format your presentation consistent with APA guidelines.

Assignment 2: Program Evaluation

In this assignment, you will be considering a case study and then applying what you have learned in this module about research and evaluation.

Case Study

Beginning in March last year, a year-long media-based campaign was aired on radio and television and in print in British Columbia. Aimed at smokers in the age group of twenty to thirty years, it is intended to influence them in ways that will lead them to stop smoking.

The logic model for the smoking cessation campaign is quite simple and reflects the prevailing views about program theory that are relevant to this kind of campaign. Given below is a part of that logic model, focusing on outcomes. The components, implementation activities, and outputs are not shown, but they focus on the amounts of media coverage on the radio and television and in newspapers. The campaign is intended to last a year and is intended to be implemented in segments. The first segment begins in March and ends in April, the second one is being implemented in July and August, and the third in October and November.

As you can see from the logic model, the campaign is intended to initially reach a group of smokers in British Columbia (awareness of the campaign) and, once they are aware of the campaign, to increase their knowledge of smoking-related issues that might appeal to persons in that age group.

One television advertisement, for example, shows a man standing outside a bar smoking a cigarette. As he inhales, he ages. As he exhales, he becomes younger again. The message is that if you quit smoking, most of the effects on your body are reversible. A website is provided so that viewers can get information to help them quit. Exposure to these messages is intended to affect attitudes toward smoking (to make them develop a view that smoking is not good for them and that they want to change their behaviors). Attitude change is expected to lead to changes in behaviors: attempts to quit, cutting back on smoking, and actually quitting.

The Evaluation

The evaluation of this province-wide program is intended to determine whether the program logic works as intended, i.e., whether people are aware of the campaign, whether the campaign increases their knowledge, whether their attitudes change, and, finally, whether they try or succeed in quitting smoking.

The evaluation of the planned smoking cessation campaign in British Columbia is focused on the effectiveness of the campaign. More specifically, the evaluation is intended to address these questions:

• What impact, if any, did the mass media campaign have on:
  • Awareness of the campaign itself.
  • Knowledge of the consequences of smoking.
  • Attitudes toward smoking.
  • Smoking-related behaviors.

The key issue for the evaluation design is to determine how the campaign affected the aforementioned attributes of persons who have self-identified as smokers.

Given that the campaign is province-wide, it will be difficult to find a control group that has not been exposed to the campaign. Given the costs of the campaign, the evaluation will need to focus on British Columbia and not try to find a comparison group in another province.

Population surveys of British Columbia residents suggest that approximately 15%–20% of the people in the age group of twenty to thirty years smoke. These smoking rates vary from one region to another and with sociodemographic characteristics of British Columbia residents.

Tasks:

Design an evaluation report that will be able to assess whether the smoking cessation campaign was successful. An important part of any proposed design is to assess whether the program theory actually worked the way it was intended, i.e., whether persons became aware of the campaign, whether their knowledge increased, whether their attitudes then changed, and whether attitude changes led to smoking cessation behaviors.

To ascertain whether the campaign impacts smokers in the way the program logic is intended, it is important to design an evaluation that actually tracks the way the campaign influences smokers over time. Ideally, the evaluation team wants to be able to see whether the program was visible; if it was, whether knowledge increased; if that happened, whether attitudes changed; and if attitudes changed, whether changes in behavior have been reported.

In a 2- to 3-page paper, explain the following:

• What are the main features of your evaluation design?
• How would it be implemented?
• How does the design deal (if it does) with possible rival hypotheses (internal validity threats)?
• How does the design address statistical conclusions, construct, and external validity?