Total Quality Management. Chapter 5. Strategic Management: Planning and Execution for Competitive Advantage

CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITY Locked Out of the Process Alex Parker is the quality director at CompuTech Inc. His is a middle-management position. CompuTech's senior executives have announced that they intend to hire a strate- gic planning consultant to develop a plan for the company. Planning will begin in about 2 months. It will take place in the conference center of a local resort and will involve only executive-level managers and the consultant. Parker has several ideas he would like to propose. In addition, he wants to make sure that quality is treated as a strategic issue during the planning process. Unfortunately, Parker and his fellow middle managers have not been invited to participate. They are locked out of the process. What do you think of CompuTech's approach to strate- gic planning? Would you change the process in any way? If so, how? If the process remains as it is, how can Parker get his ideas included