Today, international studies of managers who develop and implement operational plans show that the following key competencies are required for this process:

Planning                                   Risk management
Delegating                                Networking
Involving others                         Innovating
Consulting                                 Communicating
Influencing and persuading         Monitoring
Evaluating                                 Setting objectives
Building consensus

These reflect the entwined issues of complexity and collaboration.

When seeking a competitive advantage, many opportunities for improvements exist in pieces, with different people, in different parts of a business. These may be the pieces of better customer satisfaction, higher quality, cross-functional process tightening, problem solving, innovation and internal entrepreneurship.

One piece of the puzzle presents itself to one person or team. Another piece of information or insight can only be seen at another level of the organization (perhaps where a specific job is being done).

Management may be distanced (by time, place or communication) from other managers or employees who hold key pieces of information or insights. All the pieces, together, can make significant differences to the business process.

The organization that finds many of the pieces does better than its competitors. It finds the productivity, effectiveness, creativity, and employee engagement that are the leading edge of profitability, often by using collaborative processes during operational planning.**

**CPS offers custom programs in both operational planning and internal entrepreneurship. All programs are eligible for state funding.