Week 3: Strategy, planning and schedule

I think the two key points of this chapter, are that an organisation should never be "stagnant", and that they should be constantly setting new objectives and goals, also known as "mission statements". Each mission statement will assist in the "evolutionary process" of the organisation and prevent complacency from setting in. Setting new mission statements every now and then is important because the market environment and audience tastes are constantly changing all the time.

This is quite related to the "GOST" guideline (Goals, Objectives, Strategies, Tactics) we learnt in class for public relations practice. Setting a mission statement is equivalent to setting an overall Goal for the organisation. The chapter also mentions about Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Key Result Areas (KRA), which are indicators for the organisation to measure their progress towards achieving the desired Goal. KPIs and KRAs can be considered Strategies. Lastly, the chapter also mentions about Lists, Flowcharts, Calendars and Gantt charts. These tools all fall under Tactics.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory in that a lot of preliminary planning and research has to be undertaken by the public relations team even before commencing on a project. Planning helps practitioners to be more organised and to make their strategies and tactics more effective.