• Address and completely answer Bryson, Bryson, and Crosby's five essential questions questions below) concerning the evaluation of strategic objectives as they pertain to Netflix Inc.

1. Look at your goals. Are there any reasonable alternatives or visions that you may want to consider addressing your strategic issues to help you achieve your goals in a best-case scenario? The purpose of asking yourself this question is to be brutally honest with the goal(s) selected. This honesty will provide insight on whether the goals are realistic and fit with the organization, or if the goals could be stated better. Remember, goals become initiatives, and initiatives require actions. Actions must be specific, clear, and relevant. Strategic planning goals may sound wonderful on paper; however, goals on paper do not pay the bills. Rather, goals on paper that are sound in abilities and resources turn into effective initiatives led with precision by change agents (i.e., employees who will be carrying out proposed actions). Here, you have the opportunity to ensure consistency, quality, and relevance of strategic goals to organizational capabilities, resources, and purpose.
2. What barriers of analysis could interfere with your perspective of alternatives or visions that you may want to consider in achieving your best-case scenario? The reason this question is being asked is to get strategic managers thinking of what could prevent the strategic goals from being achieved. Think of it as what could go wrong with achieving such goals. Why? Because it is not a matter if something will go wrong, but rather when. The art of strategy is not one-dimensional. It requires preparation upon preparation. A plan for a plan. This question asks you to think back on your strategic goals and determine where things are going to go wrong with your goals and how you will prepare for such barriers.

Not only is this essential for the livelihood of strategic objectives, but those objectives will fail if there is no preparation to support the initiatives in best-case and worst-case scenarios. Furthermore, when establishing strategic vision buy-in (you will learn more about this in modules to come), change agents will have concerns. If management has not already planned for those concerns, that will limit confidence and motivation in carrying out change initiatives. Think of it this way: Employees/change agents of strategic initiatives want to see and trust that management is being realistic. Why carry out change initiatives if there is no preparation or challenges have not been considered? That is why management needs to prepare on all sides of strategic initiatives and carry out those supported initiatives. Think of it like this: Strategic planning is preparing employees/change agents of an organization to go to battle. If leadership has not thought through the initiatives or missions that need to be completed, not only is leadership misleading its organization, but it is also putting its employees/change agents professional careers at jeopardy. Therefore, getting it right starts with an in-depth knowledge about every aspect of strategic initiatives and what needs to happen, what could get in the way, and how to handle the situation when it gets tough or deviates from the planned situation.

3. What significant proposals may have to occur in order to achieve such perspectives of alternatives and barriers? Here, the art of strategy is tested. Think of all of the objectives that you have created. They sound solid. Now, how do you get your objectives from strategy to action? Action requires careful and purposeful thought. Furthermore, strategic planning professionals recognize that they do not know everything about every position within their organization. However, they do know that they need insight from people within positions that will require action to carry out strategic objectives. This requires a team of people who can help to serve by bringing insight of actions and capabilities that fit with the strategic objectives. Strategic planning professionals will have to propose such knowledge from staff to help bring valuable and essential perspectives to overcome specific prospective barriers.
4. What significant actions (with current management and staff) must happen in the next 12 months in order to implement strategic planning proposals? This, again, is a double, triple, or quadruple check of the who, what, where, and why actions that need to happen in order for strategic objectives to become successful actions. This is not just simple action, but rather thoughtful actions over the course of 12 months, ultimately requiring strategic planners to think of the different phases in which objectives and actions will occur. For example, if a strategic objective is to hire 14 new researchers over the course of next 12 months, there needs to be a work breakdown of what needs to happen to make that a reality: a job description, screening process, interviewing, and onboarding and training of candidates. Furthermore, take into account prospective attrition of candidates, so there should be a reserve of candidates to ensure that 14 are actually hired. This helps you to keep focus on the present and over the next 12 months.
5. That being said, what significant actions must occur within the next six months to implement strategic plans, and who would be responsible for the implementation? Based on your specific goals, is there a person, team, or department that would be in charge of implementing strategic objectives? Here, the idea is breaking the actions from the previous question down to more workable pieces. In project management, this is known as granulate. It involves breaking down the macro view of a project to a micro view of the actions that are necessary to carry out big-picture objectives. What truly needs to happen to get this objective off paper and into action? How can this be done? What should happen initially to build momentum for actions to stick, and how will you motivate others throughout the process to ensure consistency, stability, and follow-through of actions?

• Identify what, if any, areas need to be revised. Why? How does this contribute to a more effective and sound strategic plan?

• Also identify and discuss specific sources that could help with this particular analysis to minimize subjective barriers of perception regarding unrealistic or vague objectives.