♜Strategic Management: Principles (Definitions)

[Administrative principles:] "A subfield of the classical management perspective that focuses on the total organization rather than the individual worker, delineating the management functions of planning, controlling, organizing, commanding, and coordinating." (Timothy J  Kloppenborg et al, "Project Leadership", 2003)

"A general, instructive, concise, and memorable statement that suggests a way of reasoning or acting that is effective and proven to reach a certain goal within an organizational context." (Martin J Eppler, "Managing Information Quality" 2nd Ed., 2006)

"Defines the underlying general rules that an organization uses to utilize and deploy all business and IT resources and assets across the enterprise." (Tilak Mitra et al, "SOA Governance", 2008)

"A basic statement of truth, especially with respect to a goal or intent. " (Bruce P Douglass, "Real-Time Agility", 2009)

"Formally, a fundamental law, doctrine, premise, or assumption. Informally, a rule or code of conduct." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"Organizing principles are directives for the design or arrangement of a collection of resources that are ideally expressed in a way that does not assume any particular implementation or realization." (Robert J Glushko, "The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition" 4th Ed, 2016)

♜Strategic Management: Objectives (Definitions)

"A statement of an attainable, time-targeted, and measurable desired result the enterprise seeks to meet to achieve its goals." (David C Hay, "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map", 2010)

"Building blocks of strategy. They set out what the business is trying to achieve. They are action-oriented statements that define the continuous improvement activities that must be done to be successful." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed. , 2011)

"Something toward which work is to be directed, a strategic position to be attained, or a purpose to be achieved, a result to be obtained, a product to be produced, or a service to be performed." (Cynthia Stackpole, "PMP® Certification All-in-One For Dummies®", 2011)

"Specific goals that managers choose to measure and monitor, to motivate employees to carry out organizational strategies." (Leslie G Eldenburg & Susan K Wolcott, "Cost Management 2nd Ed", 2011)

"The definition of an organization's intended achievements in terms of business results interpreted from various perspectives financial, customer, infrastructure, products and services, or by cultural outcomes that are measurable." (Project Management Institute, "The Standard for Portfolio Management" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"The goal broken down into manageable tasks so that you can carry them out and measure for success. It is more precise and capable of both attainment and measurement." (Paul C Dinsmore et al, "Enterprise Project Governance", 2012)

"These set out the measures of success that you will apply to achieving your goal - typically in terms of time, cost (or budget or resources) and quality standards." (Mike Clayton, "Brilliant Project Leader", 2012)

"Something toward which work is to be directed, a strategic position to be attained, a purpose to be achieved, a result to be obtained, a product to be produced, or a service to be performed." (For Dummies, "PMP Certification All-in-One For Dummies" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"A result to be achieved" (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"Step in time used to demonstrate the progress made toward reaching a goal (e.g., “increase capability usage by 30% by the end of 2014 in order to support the expected increase in market share")." (Gilbert Raymond & Philippe Desfray, "Modeling Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF", 2014)

"A set of goals. Used as part of an assessment to determine what needs to be accomplished to validate a control." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"Something toward which work is to be directed, a strategic position to be attained, a purpose to be achieved, a result to be obtained, a product to be produced, or a service to be performed." (Project Management Institute, "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)", 2017)

"A concise statement describing specific, critical, actionable and measurable things an organization must do in order to effectively execute its strategy and achieve its mission and vision. Objectives often begin with action verbs such as increase, reduce, improve, achieve, etc. Whereas the vision and mission statements provide an organizing and mobilizing 'rallying cry', objectives translate the vision and mission into measurable and actionable operational terms." (Intrafocus) 

♜Strategic Management: Goals (Definitions)

"[long-term goals] Plans that managers intend to achieve over a long time period (longer than one year); used to monitor long-term organizational performance." (Leslie G Eldenburg & Susan K Wolcott, "Cost Management" 2nd Ed., 2011)

"Targets established by management for variables that are critical to success. Progress is monitored and reported through diagnostic control systems. Also see strategic objectives." (Leslie G Eldenburg & Susan K Wolcott, "Cost Management 2nd Ed", 2011)

"A statement that qualifies desired results. It is the end toward which efforts are directed. It is normally general and timeless, yet attainable." (Paul C Dinsmore et al, "Enterprise Project Governance", 2012)

"States the over arching purpose of the project - what you seek to achieve. Also known as 'aim'." (Mike Clayton, "Brilliant Project Leader", 2012)

"The definition of an organization's intended achievements in terms of business results may be interpreted from various perspectives - financial, customer, infrastructure, products and services, or by cultural outcomes that are measurable." (Project Management Institute, "Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3)" 3rd Ed. , 2013)

"High-level declaration of the intent or direction of an organization; translated into objectives." (Gilbert Raymond & Philippe Desfray, "Modeling Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF", 2014)

"A desired state or result of an undertaken. Goals should be measurable and defined in time so that the progress can be monitored." (IQBBA)

"An observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed time-frame." (Intrafocus) 

♜Strategic Management: Strategy Map (Definitions)

"A strategy map is a tool that enables an organization to articulate its strategy through a series of cross-functional cause-and-effect relationships." (Ralph F Smith, "Business Process Management and the Balanced Scorecard: Using Processes as Strategic Drivers", 2007)

"A specific version of a strategy plan that adheres to the Balanced Scorecard methodology. Strategy maps depict objectives in multiple perspectives with corresponding cause and effect linkages." (Intrafocus)

"A strategy map is a visual representation of an organization’s overall objectives and how they relate to one another. The map is created during the strategic planning process and is used as a primary reference material during periodic strategy check-in and review meetings." (ClearPoint Strategy) [source]

"A Strategy Map provides a visual representation of the organization’s strategy. It is a powerful communication tool that enables employees to understand the company’s strategy and translate it into actions they can take, to ensure the achievement of strategic objectives." (The KPI Institute) [source] 

♜Strategic Management: Gap Analysis (Definitions)

"In the managerial planning process, this is the analysis taken following an exercise to determine what improvements in the process are required." (Robert McCrie, "Security Operations Management 2nd Ed.", 2006)

"An assessment of a system in comparison with another system or a set of requirements, listing those items that are not common between them." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A technique to evaluate the current portfolio mix of components and determine changes needed so components may be added, changed, or terminated to rebalance the portfolio." (Project Management Institute, "The Standard for Portfolio Management" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"Describes the difference between current results and consequences and desired results and consequences." (Joan C Dessinger, "Fundamentals of Performance Improvement 3rd Ed", 2012)

"A formal analysis of the differences between what the policy or regulation requires and what’s actually being done in the organization. Used to generate a list of action items required to become compliant with the policy or regulation." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"A comparison between the actual outcome and the desired outcome." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance" 2nd Ed., 2015)

♜Strategic Management: Competitive Advantage (Definitions)

"The relative advantage that one product or product line has over those products offered by other companies." (Steven Haines, "The Product Manager's Desk Reference", 2008)

"An advantage a company has over its competitors, which is gained by providing consumers with greater value through product or service offerings." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

"A strategic advantage held by one organization that cannot be matched by its competitors. This advantage may or may not be sustainable and, if not, may eventually be replicated by its competitors." (Evan Stubbs, "Big Data, Big Innovation", 2014)

"A strategy whereby companies position themselves ahead of competitors either by charging less or by differentiating their services or products from those of their rivals. " (DK, "The Business Book", 2014)

"The characteristics of an organization that differentiate it from other organizations in the same sector and that cannot easily be replicated. This differentiation may potentially provide the basis for competitive advantage. From a strategic management perspective it is the differentiated competences that are significant because they can be most easily managed strategically through training and development. Thus it is usually a distinctive network of competences that are most likely to provide competitive advantage. These distinctive competences are usually also core competences, but core competences are not necessarily distinctive." (Fran Ackermann et al, "Visual Strategy: Strategy Mapping for Public and Nonprofit Organizations", 2014)

"A sustainable, strategic advantage that an organization possesses over its industry rivals." (Andrew Pham et al, "From Business Strategy to Information Technology Roadmap", 2016)

"The unique set of assets, capabilities, positions and environmental circumstances that enable an organisation to consistently out-perform its competitors in its chosen strategic outcomes." (Duncan Angwin & Stephen Cummings, "The Strategy Pathfinder 3rd Ed.", 2017)

"A firm possesses a competitive advantage over its direct competitors when it earns (or has the potential to earn) a persistently higher rate of profit." (Robert M Grant, "Contemporary Strategy Analysis" 10th Ed., 2018)

♜Strategic Management: Governance (Definitions)

"Addresses the need for a mechanism to ensure compliance with the laws, policies, standards, and procedures under which an organization operates."  (Dominic Cadbury, "UK, Commission Report: Corporate Governance", 1992)

"Organizational chains of responsibility, authority, and communication for executing measurement and control mechanisms to effectively drive the organization and enable people to perform roles their respective roles and responsibilities." (Murray Cantor, "Estimation Variance and Governance", 2006) 

"In general, a term that describes the task of 'making sure that people do what’s right'." (Nicolai M Josuttis, "SOA in Practice", 2007)

"Addresses the need for a mechanism to ensure compliance with the laws, policies, standards, and procedures under which an organization operates." (Tilak Mitra et al, "SOA Governance", 2008)

"System by which organizations [or systems] are directed and controlled." (ISO/IEC, ISO/IEC 38500:2008 "Corporate governance of information technology" , 2008)

"The way we make and act on decisions about managing a shared resource for the common good. Resources can be people, processes, and technology." (Allen Dreibelbis et al, "Enterprise Master Data Management", 2008)

"(1) Planning, influencing, and conducting the decision-making affairs of an enterprise. (2) The processes and systems that ensure proper accountability for the conduct of an enterprise’s business." (David G Hill, "Data Protection: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance", 2009)

"A kind of direction from a directive describing the boundaries and direction for a business process." (David C Hay, "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map", 2010)

"The 'checks-and-balances' method that keeps risks in check; a review of measurements, mitigation methods, and risk monitoring results over a period of time." (Annetta Cortez & Bob Yehling, "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Risk Management", 2010)

"The discipline of tracking, managing, and steering an IS/IT landscape. Architectural governance is concerned with change processes (design governance). Operational governance looks at the operational performance of systems against contracted performance levels, the definition of operational performance levels, and the implementation of systems that ensure the effective operation of systems." (David Lyle & John G Schmidt, "Lean Integration", 2010)

"[...] simultaneously refers to the art of governing, of running an enterprise and of defining its strategy. This term denotes the process of practicing this art, as well as the means implemented for governing: decision rules, suitable information, supervision and checks, relationships nurtured between leaders, administrators, employees and shareholders, where applicable. By extension, governance can be expanded to cover a wider circle, including for example suppliers." (Humbert Lesca & Nicolas Lesca, "Weak Signals for Strategic Intelligence: Anticipation Tool for Managers", 2011)

"Consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, processes, and decision rights for a given area of responsibility. For example, corporate governance can involve policies on privacy, internal investment, and the use of data." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"The process of managing change. Involves steering or directing the content, the people who create it, and the systems that support it through both the day-to-day and long-term content lifecycles." (Charles Cooper & Ann Rockley, "Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy" 2nd Ed., 2012)

"The ability to ensure that corporate or governmental rules and regulations are conformed with. Governance is combined with compliance and security issues across computing environments." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"The process of establishing and enforcing strategic goals and objectives, organizational policies, and performance parameters." (PMI, "Software Extension to the PMBOK® Guide" 5th Ed., 2013)

"Governance is the oversight of process, such as strategy or content life cycle, including policy and management." (Elaine Biech, "ASTD Handbook" 2nd Ed., 2014)

"Set of measurement, management, and steering processes for a business domain or IS that provides the expected level of result." (Gilbert Raymond & Philippe Desfray, "Modeling Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF", 2014)

"The combination of processes and structures implemented by the board to inform, direct, manage, and monitor the activities of the organization toward the achievement of its objectives." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"Set of measurement, management, and steering processes for a business domain or IS that provides the expected level of result." (Gilbert Raymond & Philippe Desfray, "Modeling Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF", 2014)

"The framework for directing and enabling an organization through its established policies, practices, and other relevant documentation." (Project Management Institute, "Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide", 2014)

"The process of ensuring compliance with corporate or governmental rules, regulations, and policies. Governance is often associated with risk management and security activities across computing environments." (Judith S Hurwitz et al, "Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics", 2015)

"The process through which an organization’s processes and assets are directed and controlled." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"A broad term referring to the establishment of policies and guidelines, along with continuous monitoring of their proper implementation, by the members of the governing body of an organization." (Jonathan Ferrar et al, "The Power of People", 2017)

"Consists of the systems by which the board ensures that its policies are being effectively implemented. Usually this includes systems to monitor and record what is happening, to identify instances in which policy is not being followed, and to take corrective action in those cases." (Marci S Thomas & Kim Strom-Gottfried, "Best of Boards" 2nd Ed., 2018)

"Generally refers to the management of the business organization itself. Includes the company’s organizing documents, the records of its owners and managers, and the steps required to maintain the company in good standing with the state where it is organized." (Alex D Bennett, "A Freelancer’s Guide to Legal Entities", 2018)

"The mechanisms by which decisions about the [semantic] model and its development, application and evolution are made and executed." (Panos Alexopoulos, "Semantic Modeling for Data", 2020)

"Ensures that stakeholder needs, conditions and options are evaluated to determine balanced, agreed on enterprise objectives to be achieved; setting direction through prioritization and decision making; and monitoring performance and compliance against agreed-on direction and objectives." (ISACA)

♜Strategic Management: Roadmap (Definitions)

"An abstracted plan for business or technology change, typically operating across multiple disciplines over multiple years." (David Lyle & John G Schmidt, "Lean Integration", 2010)

"Techniques that capture market trends, product launches, technology development, and competence building over time in a multilayer, consistent framework." (Gina C O'Connor & V K Narayanan, "Encyclopedia of Technology and Innovation Management", 2010)

"Defines the actions required to move from current to future (target) state. Similar to a high-level project plan." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[portfolio roadmap:] "A document that provides the high-level strategic direction and portfolio information in a chronological fashion for portfolio management and ensures dependencies within the portfolio are established and evaluated." (Project Management Institute, "The Standard for Portfolio Management" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"Forward-looking plans intended to be taken by the security program over the foreseeable future." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"Within the context of business analytics, a defined set of staged initiatives that deliver tactical returns while moving the team toward strategic outcomes." (Evan Stubbs, "Delivering Business Analytics: Practical Guidelines for Best Practice", 2013)

"High-level action plan for change that will involve several facets of the enterprise (business, organization, technical)." (Gilbert Raymond & Philippe Desfray, "Modeling Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF", 2014)

"An action plan that matches the organization's business goals with specific technology solutions in order to help meet those goals." (David K Pham, "From Business Strategy to Information Technology Roadmap", 2016)

"The Roadmap is a schedule of events and Milestones that communicate planned Solution deliverables over a timeline. It includes commitments for the planned, upcoming Program Increment (PI) and offers visibility into the deliverables forecasted for the next few PIs." (Dean Leffingwell, "SAFe 4.5 Reference Guide: Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises" 2nd Ed., 2018)

"A product roadmap is a visual summary of a product’s direction to facilitate communication with customers, prospects, partners, and internal stakeholders." (Pendo) [source]

"A Roadmap is a plan to progress toward a set of defined goals. Depending on the purpose of the Roadmap, it may be either high-level or detailed. In terms of Enterprise Architecture, roadmaps are usually developed as abstracted plans for business or technology changes, typically operating across multiple disciplines over multiple years." (Orbus Software)

"A roadmap is a strategic plan that defines a goal or desired outcome and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it." (ProductPlan) [source]

♜Strategic Management: Risk Mitigation (Definitions)

"A planning process to identify, prevent, remove, or reduce risk if it occurs and define actions to limit the severity/impact of a risk, should it occur." (Lynne Hambleton, "Treasure Chest of Six Sigma Growth Methods, Tools, and Best Practices", 2007)

"The act of developing advance plans or taking immediate actions to minimize, or prevent known or unknown events (risks) from adversely impacting a strategy or business objective." (Steven G Haines, "The Product Manager's Desk Reference", 2008)

"A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to reduce the probability of occurrence or impact of a threat. " (Project Management Institute, "The Standard for Portfolio Management" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"Reducing a risk by controlling its likelihood, its cost, or its threats, through the use of security measures designed to provide these controls." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference, Second Edition, 2nd Ed.", 2013)

"The process through which decisions are reached and protective measures are implemented for reducing risk to, or maintaining risks within, specified levels." (ISTQB)

♜Strategic Management: Business Strategy (Definitions)

"Business strategy is the determination of how a company will compete in a given business, and position itself among its competitors." (Kenneth R Andrews, "The Concept of Corporate Strategy", 1980)

"The organization's business strategy is a set of objectives, plans, and policies for the organization to compete successfully in its markets. In effect, the business strategy specifies what an organization's competitive will be and how this advantage will be and sustained." (Scott M Shafer & ‎Jack R Meredith, "Introducing Operations Management: Wall Street Journal", 2003)

"A business strategy is a set of guiding principles that, when communicated and adopted in the organization, generates a desired pattern of decision making. A strategy is therefore about how people throughout the organization should make decisions and allocate resources in order accomplish key objectives." (Michael D Watkins, "Demystifying Strategy: The What, Who, How, and Why", Harvard Business Review, 2007) [source]

"A business strategy identifies how a division or strategic business unit will compete in its product or service domain." (John R Schermerhorn Jr, "Management" 12th Ed., 2012)

"Business strategy is essentially the art and science of formulating. plans to align resources, overcome challenges, and achieve stated objectives." (Carl F Lehman, "Strategy and Business Process Management", 2012)

"Business strategy is the strategic initiatives a company pursues to create value for the organization and its stakeholders and gain a competitive advantage in the market." (Michael Boyles, "What is business strategy & why is it important?", Harvard Business School Online, 2022) [link]

♜Strategic Management: Balanced Scorecard (Definitions)

"An evaluation method, created by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, that consists of four perspectives (customer, learning, business, and financial) and is used to evaluate effectiveness." (Teri Lund & Susan Barksdale, "10 Steps to Successful Strategic Planning", 2006)

"A strategic management system that connects activities to strategic goals and measures how much the activities contribute to achieving those goals. It provides a broader view of the business than merely looking at financial data. Devised by management theorists Robert Kaplan and David Norton." (Steve Williams & Nancy Williams, "The Profit Impact of Business Intelligence", 2007)

"A type of scorecard application that tracks an organization's progress from various perspectives simultaneously." (Ken Withee, "Microsoft® Business Intelligence For Dummies®", 2010)

"A formal approach used to help organizations translate their vision into objectives that can be measured and monitored using both financial and non-financial performance measures." (Leslie G Eldenburg & Susan K. Wolcott, "Cost Management" 2nd Ed., 2011)

"A performance measurement approach that links business goals to performance metrics." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"A management tool that measures and manages an organization's progress toward strategic goals and objectives. Incorporates financial indicators with three other perspectives: customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth." (Joan C Dessinger, "Fundamentals of Performance Improvement" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"A balanced scorecard tallies organizational performance in financial, customer service, internal process, and innovation and learning areas." (John R Schermerhorn Jr, "Management" 12th Ed., 2012)

"First proposed by Kaplan and Norton in 1992, the balanced scorecard focused on translating strategy into actions, and promoted a move away from traditional financial measures. Instead, organizations were encouraged to develop a broad range of financial and nonfinancial lead and lag measures that provided insight into overall operating performance." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"One of the widely adopted performance management frameworks is the balanced scorecard technique designed by Kaplan and Norton. Balanced scorecards involve looking at an enterprise (private, public, or nonprofit) through four perspectives: financial, customer, learning and growth, and operations." (Saumya Chaki, "Enterprise Information Management in Practice", 2015)

"A tool for linking strategic goals to performance indicators. These performance indicators combine performance indicators relating to financial performance, consumer satisfaction, internal efficiency, and learning and innovation." (Robert M Grant, "Contemporary Strategy Analysis" 10th Ed., 2018)

"A balanced scorecard (BSC) is a performance measurement and management approach that recognizes that financial measures by themselves are not sufficient and that an enterprise needs a more holistic, balanced set of measures which reflects the different drivers that contribute to superior performance and the achievement of the enterprise’s strategic goals. The balanced scorecard is driven by the premise that there is a cause-and-effect link between learning, internal efficiencies and business processes, customers, and financial results." (Gartner)

"A strategic tool for measuring whether the operational activities of a company are aligned with its objectives in terms of business vision and strategy." (ISQTB)

"An integrated framework for describing strategy through the use of linked performance measures in four, balanced perspectives ‐ Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Employee Learning and Growth. The Balanced Scorecard acts as a measurement system, strategic management system, and communication tool." (Intrafocus) 

♜Strategic Management: Risk Management (Definitions)

"An organized, analytic process to identify what might cause harm or loss (identify risks); to assess and quantify the identified risks; and to develop and, if needed, implement an appropriate approach to prevent or handle causes of risk that could result in significant harm or loss." (Sandy Shrum et al, "CMMI: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement", 2003)

"The organized, analytic process to identify future events (risks) that might cause harm or loss, assess and quantify the identified risks, and decide if, how, and when to prevent or reduce the risk. Also includes the implementation of mitigation actions at the appropriate times." (Richard D Stutzke, "Estimating Software-Intensive Systems: Projects, Products, and Processes", 2005)

"Identifying a situation or problem that may put specific plans or outcomes in jeopardy, and then organizing actions to mitigate it." (Teri Lund & Susan Barksdale, "10 Steps to Successful Strategic Planning", 2006)

"The process of identifying hazards of property insured; the casualty contemplated in a specific contract of insurance; the degree of hazard; a specific contingency or peril. Generally not the same as security management, but may be related in concerns and activities. Work is done by a risk manager." (Robert McCrie, "Security Operations Management" 2nd Ed., 2006)

"Systematic application of procedures and practices to the tasks of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and controlling risk." (Tilo Linz et al, "Software Testing Practice: Test Management", 2007)

"Risk management is a continuous process to be performed throughout the entire life of a project, and an important part of project management activities. The objective of risk management is to identify and prevent risks, to reduce their probability of occurrence, or to mitigate the effects in case of risk occurrence." (Lars Dittmann et al, "Automotive SPICE in Practice", 2008)

"A structured process for managing risk." (David G Hill, "Data Protection: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance", 2009)

"The process organizations employ to reduce different types of risks. A company manages risk to avoid losing money, protect against breaking government or regulatory body rules, or even assure that adverse weather does not interrupt the supply chain." (Tony Fisher, "The Data Asset", 2009)

"Systematic application of procedures and practices to the tasks of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and controlling risk." (IQBBA, "Standard glossary of terms used in Software Engineering", 2011)

"The process of identifying what can go wrong, determining how to respond to risks should they occur, monitoring a project for risks that do occur, and taking steps to respond to the events that do occur." (Bonnie Biafore, "Successful Project Management: Applying Best Practices and Real-World Techniques with Microsoft® Project", 2011)

"Risk management is using managerial resources to integrate risk identification, risk assessment, risk prioritization, development of risk-handling strategies, and mitigation of risk to acceptable levels (ASQ)." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement ", 2012)

"The process of identifying negative and positive risks to a project, analyzing the likelihood and impact of those risks, planning responses to higher priority risks, and tracking risks." (Bonnie Biafore & Teresa Stover, "Your Project Management Coach: Best Practices for Managing Projects in the Real World", 2012)

"A policy of determining the greatest potential failure associated with a project." (James Robertson et al, "Complete Systems Analysis: The Workbook, the Textbook, the Answers", 2013)

"Controlling vulnerabilities, threats, likelihood, loss, or impact with the use of security measures. See also risk, threat, and vulnerability." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference, Second Edition" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"A process to identify, assess, manage, and control potential events or situations to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of the organization's objectives." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"Managing the financial impacts of unusual events." (Manish Agrawal, "Information Security and IT Risk Management", 2014)

"Systematic application of policies, procedures, methods and practices to the tasks of identifying, analysing, evaluating, treating and monitoring risk." (Chartered Institute of Building, "Code of Practice for Project Management for Construction and Development, 5th Ed.", 2014)

"The coordinated activities to direct and control an organisation with regard to risk." (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"The process of reducing risk to an acceptable level by implementing security controls. Organizations implement risk management programs to identify risks and methods to reduce it. The risk that remains after risk has been mitigated to an acceptable level is residual risk." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"Risk management is a structured approach to monitoring, meas­uring, and managing exposures to reduce the potential impact of an uncertain happening." (Christopher Donohue et al, "Foundations of Financial Risk: An Overview of Financial Risk and Risk-based Financial Regulation, 2nd Ed", 2015)

"Systematic application of procedures and practices to the tasks of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and controlling risk. " (ISTQB, "Standard Glossary", 2015)

"The practice of identifying, assessing, controlling, and mitigating risks. Techniques to manage risk include avoiding, transferring, mitigating, and accepting the risk." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance, 2nd Ed", 2015)

"The discipline and methods used to quantify, track, and reduce where possible various types of defined risk." (Gregory Lampshire, "The Data and Analytics Playbook", 2016)

"The process of identifying individual risks, understanding and analyzing them, and then managing them." (Paul H Barshop, "Capital Projects", 2016)

"Coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with regard to risk." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"Process of identifying and monitoring business risks in a manner that offers a risk/return relationship that is acceptable to an entity's operating philosophy." (Tom Klammer, "Statement of Cash Flows: Preparation, Presentation, and Use", 2018)

"Coordinated activities to direct and control an organisation with regard to risk." (ISO Guide 73:2009)

"Risk management is the identification, assessment and prioritisation of risks [...] followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimise, monitor and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximise the realisation of opportunities." (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

♜Strategic Management: Enterprise Architecture (Definitions)

"[Enterprise Architecture is] the set of descriptive representations (i. e., models) that are relevant for describing an Enterprise such that it can be produced to management's requirements (quality) and maintained over the period of its useful life. (John Zachman, 1987)

"An enterprise architecture is an abstract summary of some organizational component's design. The organizational strategy is the basis for deciding where the organization wants to be in three to five years. When matched to the organizational strategy, the architectures provide the foundation for deciding priorities for implementing the strategy." (Sue A Conger, "The new software engineering", 1994)

"An enterprise architecture is a snapshot of how an enterprise operates while performing its business processes. The recognition of the need for integration at all levels of an organisation points to a multi-dimensional framework that links both the business processes and the data requirements." (John Murphy & Brian Stone [Eds.], 1995)

"The Enterprise Architecture is the explicit description of the current and desired relationships among business and management process and information technology. It describes the 'target' situation which the agency wishes to create and maintain by managing its IT portfolio." (Franklin D Raines, 1997)

"Enterprise architecture is a family of related architecture components. This include information architecture, organization and business process architecture, and information technology architecture. Each consists of architectural representations, definitions of architecture entities, their relationships, and specification of function and purpose. Enterprise architecture guides the construction and development of business organizations and business processes, and the construction and development of supporting information systems." (Gordon B Davis, "The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of management information systems"‎, 1999)

"Enterprise architecture is a holistic representation of all the components of the enterprise and the use of graphics and schemes are used to emphasize all parts of the enterprise, and how they are interrelated." (Gordon B Davis," The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of management information systems"‎, 1999)

"Enterprise Architecture is the discipline whose purpose is to align more effectively the strategies of enterprises together with their processes and their resources (business and IT)." (Alain Wegmann, "On the systemic enterprise architecture methodology", 2003)

"An enterprise architecture is a blueprint for organizational change defined in models [using words, graphics, and other depictions] that describe (in both business and technology terms) how the entity operates today and how it intends to operate in the future; it also includes a plan for transitioning to this future state." (US Government Accountability Office, "Enterprise Architecture: Leadership Remains Key to Establishing and Leveraging Architectures for Organizational Transformation", GAO-06-831, 2006)

"Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of a company's operation model." (Jeanne W. Ross et al, "Enterprise architecture as strategy: creating a foundation for business", 2006)

"Enterprise-architecture is the integration of everything the enterprise is and does." (Tom Graves, "Real Enterprise-Architecture : Beyond IT to the whole enterprise", 2007)

"Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company's operating model. The operating model is the desired state of business process integration and business process standardization for delivering goods and services to customers." (Peter Weill, "Innovating with Information Systems Presentation", 2007)

"Enterprise architecture is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise's future state and enable its evolution. The scope of the enterprise architecture includes the people, processes, information and technology of the enterprise, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment. Enterprise architects compose holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them." (Anne Lapkin et al, "Gartner Clarifies the Definition of the Term 'Enterprise Architecture", 2008)

"Enterprise architecture [is] a coherent whole of principles, methods, and models that are used in the design and realisation of an enterprise's organisational structure, business processes, information systems, and infrastructure." (Marc Lankhorst, "Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis", 2009)

"Enterprise architecture (EA) is the definition and representation of a high-level view of an enterprise‘s business processes and IT systems, their interrelationships, and the extent to which these processes and systems are shared by different parts of the enterprise. EA aims to define a suitable operating platform to support an organisation‘s future goals and the roadmap for moving towards this vision." (Toomas Tamm et al, "How Does Enterprise Architecture Add Value to Organisations?", Communications of the Association for Information Systems Vol. 28 (10), 2011)

"Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline for proactively and holistically leading enterprise responses to disruptive forces by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired business vision and outcomes. EA delivers value by presenting business and IT leaders with signature-ready recommendations for adjusting policies and projects to achieve target business outcomes that capitalize on relevant business disruptions. EA is used to steer decision making toward the evolution of the future state architecture." (Gartner)

"Enterprise Architecture [...] is a way of thinking enabled by patterns, frameworks, standards etc. essentially seeking to align both the technology ecosystem and landscape with the business trajectory driven by both the internal and external forces." (Daljit R Banger)

🔭Data Science: Policies (Just the Quotes)

"Every economic and social situation or problem is now described in statistical terms, and we feel that it is such statistics which give us the real basis of fact for understanding and analysing problems and difficulties, and for suggesting remedies. In the main we use such statistics or figures without any elaborate theoretical analysis; little beyond totals, simple averages and perhaps index numbers. Figures have become the language in which we describe our economy or particular parts of it, and the language in which we argue about policy." (Ely Devons,Essays in Economics", 1961)

"There are, indeed, plenty of ways in which statistics can help in the process of decision-taking. But exaggerated claims for the role they can play merely serve to confuse rather than clarify issues of public policy, and lead those responsible for action to oscillate between over-confidence and over-scepticism in using them." (Ely Devons,Essays in Economics", 1961)

"The formal structure of a decision problem in any area can be put into four parts: (1) the choice of an objective function denning the relative desirability of different outcomes; (2) specification of the policy alternatives which are available to the agent, or decisionmaker, (3) specification of the model, that is, empirical relations that link the objective function, or the variables that enter into it, with the policy alternatives and possibly other variables; and (4) computational methods for choosing among the policy alternatives that one which performs best as measured by the objective function." (Kenneth Arrow,The Economics of Information", 1984)

"Often, though, a policy or systems analyst is stuck with a bad model, that is, one that appeals to the analyst as adequately realistic but which is either: 1) contradicted by some data or is grossly implausible in some aspect it purports to represent, or 2) conjectural, that is, neither supported nor contradicted by data, either because data do not exist or because they are equivocal. [...] A model may have component parts that are not bad, but if, taken as a whole, it meets one of these criteria, it is a bad model." (James S Hodges, "Six (or So) Things You Can Do with a Bad Model", 1991)

"Management is not founded on observation and experiment, but on a drive towards a set of outcomes. These aims are not altogether explicit; at one extreme they may amount to no more than an intention to preserve the status quo, at the other extreme they may embody an obsessional demand for power, profit or prestige. But the scientist's quest for insight, for understanding, for wanting to know what makes the system tick, rarely figures in the manager's motivation. Secondly, and therefore, management is not, even in intention, separable from its own intentions and desires: its policies express them. Thirdly, management is not normally aware of the conventional nature of its intellectual processes and control procedures. It is accustomed to confuse its conventions for recording information with truths-about-the-business, its subjective institutional languages for discussing the business with an objective language of fact and its models of reality with reality itself." (Stanford Beer,Decision and Control", 1994)

"Garbage in, garbage out' is a sound warning for those in the computer field; it is every bit as sound in the use of statistics. Even if the 'garbage' which comes out leads to a correct conclusion, this conclusion is still tainted, as it cannot be supported by logical reasoning. Therefore, it is a misuse of statistics. But obtaining a correct conclusion from faulty data is the exception, not the rule. Bad basic data" (the 'garbage in') almost always leads to incorrect conclusions" (the 'garbage out'). Unfortunately, incorrect conclusions can lead to bad policy or harmful actions." (Herbert F Spirer et al,Misused Statistics" 2nd Ed, 1998)

"A sub-area of machine learning concerned with how an agent ought to take actions in an environment so as to maximize some notion of long-term reward. Reinforcement learning algorithms attempt to find a policy that maps states of the world to the actions the agent ought to take in those states. Differently from supervised learning, in this case there is no target value for each input pattern, only a reward based of how good or bad was the action taken by the agent in the existent environment." (Marley Vellasco et al,Hierarchical Neuro-Fuzzy Systems" Part II, Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence, 2009)

"There are three possible reasons for [the] absence of predictive power. First, it is possible that the models are misspecified. Second, it is possible that the model’s explanatory factors are measured at too high a level of aggregation [...] Third, [...] the search for statistically significant relationships may not be the strategy best suited for evaluating our model’s ability to explain real world events [...] the lack of predictive power is the result of too much emphasis having been placed on finding statistically significant variables, which may be overdetermined. Statistical significance is generally a flawed way to prune variables in regression models [...] Statistically significant variables may actually degrade the predictive accuracy of a model [...] [By using] models that are constructed on the basis of pruning undertaken with the shears of statistical significance, it is quite possible that we are winnowing our models away from predictive accuracy." (Michael D Ward et al,The perils of policy by p-value: predicting civil conflicts" Journal of Peace Research 47, 2010)

"Using random processes in our models allows economists to capture the variability of time series data, but it also poses challenges to model builders. As model builders, we must understand the uncertainty from two different perspectives. Consider first that of the econometrician, standing outside an economic model, who must assess its congruence with reality, inclusive of its random perturbations. An econometrician’s role is to choose among different parameters that together describe a family of possible models to best mimic measured real world time series and to test the implications of these models. I refer to this as outside uncertainty. Second, agents inside our model, be it consumers, entrepreneurs, or policy makers, must also confront uncertainty as they make decisions. I refer to this as inside uncertainty, as it pertains to the decision-makers within the model. What do these agents know? From what information can they learn? With how much confidence do they forecast the future? The modeler’s choice regarding insiders’ perspectives on an uncertain future can have significant consequences for each model’s equilibrium outcomes." (Lars P Hansen,Uncertainty Outside and Inside Economic Models", [Nobel lecture] 2013)

"Comparisons are the lifeblood of empirical studies. We can’t determine if a medicine, treatment, policy, or strategy is effective unless we compare it to some alternative. But watch out for superficial comparisons: comparisons of percentage changes in big numbers and small numbers, comparisons of things that have nothing in common except that they increase over time, comparisons of irrelevant data. All of these are like comparing apples to prunes." (Gary Smith,Standard Deviations", 2014)

"it stands, in the context of computational learning, for a family of algorithms aimed at approximating the best policy to play in a certain environment" (without building an explicit model of it) by increasing the probability of playing actions that improve the rewards received by the agent." (Fernando S Oliveira,Reinforcement Learning for Business Modeling", 2014)

"We know what forecasting is: you start in the present and try to look into the future and imagine what it will be like. Backcasting is the opposite: you state your desired vision of the future as if it’s already happened, and then work backward to imagine the practices, policies, programs, tools, training, and people who worked in concert in a hypothetical past" (which takes place in the future) to get you there." (Eben Hewitt,Technology Strategy Patterns: Architecture as strategy" 2nd Ed., 2019)

"Once we know something is fat-tailed, we can use heuristics to see how an exposure there reacts to random events: how much is a given unit harmed by them. It is vastly more effective to focus on being insulated from the harm of random events than try to figure them out in the required details" (as we saw the inferential errors under thick tails are huge). So it is more solid, much wiser, more ethical, and more effective to focus on detection heuristics and policies rather than fabricate statistical properties." (Nassim N Taleb,Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails: Real World Preasymptotics, Epistemology, and Applications" 2nd Ed., 2022)

♜Strategic Management: Strategy (Definitions)

"Strategy can be defined as the determination of the long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals." (Alfred D. Chandler Jr., "Strategy and Structure", 1962)

"Strategy is the pattern of objectives, purposes or goals and major policies and plans for achieving these goals, stated in such a way as to define what businesses the company is in or is to be in and the kind of company it is or is to be." (Edmund P Learned et al, "Business Policy: Text and Cases", 1965)

"Strategies are forward-looking plans that anticipate change and initiate actions to take advantage of opportunities that are integrated into the concept or mission of the company." (William A Newman & J. P Logan, "Strategy, Policy, and Central Management", 1971) 

"Strategy is the basic goals and objectives of the organization, the major programs of action chosen to reach these goals and objectives, and the major pattern of resource allocation used to relate the organization to its environment." (Dan E Schendel & K J Hatten, "Business Policy or Strategic Management: A View for an Emerging Discipline", 1972)

"Strategy is a unified, comprehensive, and integrative plan designed to assure that the basic objectives of the enterprise are achieved." (William F Glueck, "Business Policy, Strategy Formation, and Management Action", 1976) 

"Strategy is the forging of company missions, setting objectives for the organization in light of external and internal forces, formulating specific policies and strategies to achieve objectives, and ensuring their proper implementation so that the basic purposes and objectives of the organization will be achieved." (George A  Steiner & John B. Miner,"Management Policy and Strategy", 1977)

"Strategy is a mediating force between the organization and its environment: consistent patterns of streams of organizational decisions to deal with the environment." (Henry Mintzberg, "The Structuring of Organizations", 1979)

"Strategy is defined as orienting 'metaphases' or frames of reference that allow the organization and its environment to be understood by organizational stakeholders. On this basis, stakeholders are motivated to believe and to act in ways that are expected to produce favorable results for the organization." (Ellen E Chaffee, "Three Models of Strategy," Academy of Management Review Vol. 10 (1), 1985) 

"Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities. [...] Strategy is creating fit among a company’s activities." (Michael E Porter, "What is Strategy?", Harvard Business Review, 1996)

"General direction set for the organization and its various components to achieve a desired state in the future, resulting from the detailed strategic planning process." (Alan Wa Steiss, "Strategic Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations", 2003)

"An organization's overall plan of development, describing the effective use of resources in support of the organization in its future activities. It involves setting objectives and proposing initiatives for action." (ISO/IEC 38500:2008, 2008)

"An organized set of initiation programs and projects undertaken in order to achieve the organization ’ s vision." (Terry Schimidt, "Strategic Management Made Simple", 2009)

"This is a plan of action stating how an organisation will achieve its long-term objectives." (Bernard Burnes, "Managing change : a strategic approach to organisational dynamics" 5th Ed., 2009)

"The essential course of action attempted to achieve an enterprise’s end - particularly goals. Moreover, a strategy must be to carry out exactly one mission. In general, strategies address goals, and tactics address objectives." (David C Hay, "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map", 2010)

"A broad-based formula for how a business is going to accomplish its mission, what its goals should be, and what plans and policies will be needed to carry out those goals."  (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"denotes, by an extension of military language, the development of a policy by the enterprise (its objectives, structure, and operation), defined on one hand on the basis of its strengths and weaknesses and, on the other hand, taking into account threats and opportunities identified in its environment." (Humbert Lesca & Nicolas Lesca, "Weak Signals for Strategic Intelligence", 2011)

"A comprehensive plan that states how a corporation will achieve its mission and objectives." (Thomas L Wheelen & J David Hunger., "Strategic management and business policy: toward global sustainability" 13th Ed., 2012)

"The proposed direction an organization will achieve over the long term, through the configuration of resources in a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations." (Paul C Dinsmore et al, "Enterprise Project Governance", 2012)

"A strategy is a comprehensive plan guiding resource allocation to achieve long-term organization goals." (John R Schermerhorn Jr, "Management" 12th Ed., 2012)

"The definition of the model’s goals, the high-level approach to achieve these goals, and the decision making mechanisms to execute this approach." (Panos Alexopoulos, "Semantic Modeling for Data", 2020)

"Strategy is a style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an intensive implementation system, the science of insuring future success." (Pete Johnson)

"Strategy is the way an organization seeks to achieve its vision and mission. It is a forward-looking statement about an organization’s planned use of resources and deployment capabilities. Strategy becomes real when it is associated with: 1) a concrete set of goals and objectives; and 2) a method involving people, resources and processes." (Intrafocus)