Pass the WGU Courses and Certificates Principles-of-Management Questions and answers with ValidTests

The last step in the strategic planning process is strategic control. This involves monitoring and evaluating the execution of the strategic plan to ensure that the organization is achieving its objectives and making necessary adjustments.

Strategic Management Process:

The strategic management process includes developing the firm's vision and mission, strategic analysis, setting objectives, creating and implementing strategies, and finally, measuring and evaluating performance.

Strategic control is the step where managers assess whether the strategies and plans are being effectively implemented and whether they are leading the organization towards its goals​​.

Purpose of Strategic Control:

It ensures that the organization is moving in the right direction and that the strategic plans are yielding the desired outcomes.

It involves setting performance standards, measuring actual performance, comparing it with the standards, and taking corrective actions if necessary​​.

Components of Strategic Control:

Performance Measurement: This involves tracking the progress of strategy implementation through key performance indicators (KPIs).

Feedback and Adjustment: Based on performance data, managers provide feedback and make adjustments to strategies to address any deviations from the planned objectives​​.

The process used to verify that deliverables are correct and complete is known as Quality Control. Quality control involves the operational techniques and activities used to fulfill requirements for quality. It includes activities such as measuring, examining, and testing to gauge one or more characteristics of a product or service and the comparison of these with specified requirements to determine conformity.

Quality Control(Answer A): This process is a part of the quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements. It involves monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance​​.

Quality Assurance(Answer D): This process is about ensuring that quality standards and processes are adhered to, and that the final products meet those standards. While it helps prevent defects by focusing on the process used to make the product, it is not directly involved in verifying the deliverables themselves​​.

Quality Collaboration(Answer B) andQuality Cooperative(Answer C): These terms are not standard processes in quality management as defined in the principles of management, thus making them incorrect choices for this question.

The textbook clearly states that quality control involves the steps taken to monitor results and ensure that they meet the required standards, making it the correct choice for verifying that deliverables are correct and complete​​.

The first step of the control process is setting performance standards.

Setting Performance Standards(Answer B): This step involves establishing the criteria against which performance will be measured. These standards serve as the benchmark for assessing actual performance and determining any necessary corrective actions​​.

Measuring Performance(Answer C) andComparing Performance Against Standards(Answer D): These steps come after setting performance standards.

Taking Corrective Action(Answer A): This is the final step in the control process.

To stimulate conflict and get a different perspective, bringing in outsiders is the most appropriate technique.

Bringing in Outsiders(Answer A): This technique involves introducing new individuals who have different viewpoints, which can stimulate conflict and provide new perspectives that might be overlooked by the current team. It helps in shaking up the status quo and encouraging innovative thinking​​.

Appointing a Devil's Advocate(Answer B): While also effective in stimulating conflict, this technique involves someone within the group challenging ideas to ensure thorough evaluation. However, it might not provide as fresh a perspective as bringing in outsiders.

Authoritative Command(Answer C) andCompromise(Answer D): These are more about resolving conflict rather than stimulating it.