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"Management" (from Old
Frenchménagement "the directing",
from Latinmanu
agere "to lead by the hand") characterises
the process of leading and
directing all or part of an organisation,
often a business,
through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human,
financial, material, intellectual or intangible).
Early twentieth-century management writer Mary
Parker Follett defined management as "the
art of getting things done through people."
One
can also think of management functionally, as
the action of measuring a quantity on a regular
basis and of adjusting some initial plan,
and as the actions taken to reach one's intended
goal. This applies even in situations where planning
does not take place. From this perspective, there
are five management functions: planning, organizing, leading, co-ordinating and controlling.
For others though, this definition, while useful,
is far too narrow. The phrase "management is
what managers do" is also prevalent, conveying
the difficulty with which management is defined,
the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection
of managerial practices with the existence of
a managerial cadre or class.
Management
is known by some as "business administration", although
this then excludes management in places outside business,
eg charities and the public sector. University departments
that teach management are nonetheless usually called "business
schools". The term "management" may also be used
as a collective word, describe the managers of an organization,
for example of a corporation.
Strategic
or institutional management is the conduct of
drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional
decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its
long-term objectives.[1] It
is the process of specifying the organization's mission,
vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often
in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to
achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources
to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs.
A balanced
scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance
of the business and
its progress towards objectives.
Strategic management is a level of managerial activity
under setting goals and over Tactics.
Strategic management provides overall direction to the
enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization
Studies. In the field of business administration it
is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between
the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency".
According to Arieu (2007), "there is strategic consistency
when the actions of an organization are consistent with
the expectations of management, and these in turn are with
the market and the context."
“Strategic management is an ongoing process that
evaluates and controls the business and the industries
in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors
and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and
potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy
annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how
it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded
or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed
circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new
economic environment., or a new social, financial, or
political environment.” (Lamb, 1984:ix)[2]
Problem
solving is a mental process and is part of the larger problem process
that includes problem
finding and problem
shaping. Considered the most complex of all intellectual functions,
problem solving has been defined as higher-order cognitive process
that requires the modulation and control of more routine
or fundamental skills.[1] Problem
solving occurs when an organism or
an artificial
intelligencesystem needs
to move from a given state to a desired goal state.
Abstraction:
solving the problem in a model of the system before applying
it to the real system
Analogy:
using a solution that solved an analogous problem
Brainstorming:
(especially among groups of people) suggesting a large
number of solutions or ideas and combining and developing
them until an optimum is found
Divide
and conquer: breaking down a large, complex problem
into smaller, solvable problems
Hypothesis
testing: assuming a possible explanation to the
problem and trying to prove (or, in some contexts,
disprove) the assumption
Lateral
thinking: approaching solutions indirectly and
creatively
Means-ends
analysis: choosing an action at each step to move
closer to the goal
Method
of focal objects: synthesizing seemingly non-matching
characteristics of different objects into something
new
