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The analysis presented in this thesis evaluates the contents of past Air Force strategic vision documents and studies the process used to create such documents. The thesis argument is that strategic vision document can fulfill important functions for an organization, and that greater attention to the process of creating these documents can result in a more effective final product. The author defines a strategic vision document as a formal, written product endorsed by the organization's senior leader that provides broad and motivational guidance for the organization in the present while providing sage direction for the future. Based on current literature addressing the subject, the author proposes a framework of three attributes and two functions for strategic vision statements. The attributes of such statements are a declaration of organizational identity, a disclosure of future goals, and a view of the methods by which goals will be met. The two functions of strategic vision are to unify internally and advocate externally. Within this framework the author examines three past Air Force strategic vision documents for content and details the known processes behind their creation and distribution: General Arnold's 1945 report Air Power and the Future, the 1990 White Paper The Air Force and US. National Security: Global Reach Global Power, and the 1992 White Paper Global Reach Global Power: The Evolving Air Force Contribution to National Security. Additionally, the author discusses the processes involved in two other official works, Global Presence and the on-going efforts aimed at creating a new Air Force strategic vision.

The management principles discussed in this research report are based on the concept of strategic quality management, which includes TQM. Total quality management is based primarily on the work of four individuals -- W. Edwards Deming. J. M. Juran. A. V. Feigenbaum, and Phil Crosby -- in the areas of statistics, organizational theory, industrial relations, management, and leadership. But there were others -- the influence of Tom Peters, Bob Waterman, H. J. Harrington, and David Garvin can also be seen throughout these pages. Total quality management covers the entire life cycle of an organization, including the organization's products or services. It is strategic to an organization because it deals not only with the internal environment but also the external environment. TQM goes beyond systems engineering to provide principles of organizational design, leadership, and human engineering. It is the system integrator in an organization, bringing together people, equipment, methods, and machines to effectively satisfy customer expectations. This monograph consists of two basic parts. The first part reviews the quality movement in the United States from the time of the industrial revolution up to and including strategic quality management. It will help readers understand how quality developed over the years and why particular programs failed. The second part contains a detailed TQM model. It comprises chapters on these elements: External Customer, Strategic Requirements Processing, Strategic Vision, Mission Analysis Improvement, The Organization, Suppliers, The Internal Process, The Measurement System, Continuous Improvement, and Direction/Feedback Loop. These elements represent activities that are crucial to an organization adopting the management principles of TQM.

Official USAF report to Congress on the current status of the United States Air Force, status of key procurement/acquisition programs, and the strategic vision of USAF senior leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of strategic vision formulation in general and in the U.S. Army, to suggest some areas in which the Army excels, and to recommend improvements in the Army processes which contribute to vision creation. In order to examine the process of formulating strategic vision, there is discussion of vision and of the visionary leader. This is because there are conflicting views about what vision is and is not and there is no established description of either the attributes of the visionary leader or the degree to which a leader personally must be visionary in order to create a strategic vision for an institution. The U.S. Army is one of those optimistic institutions in which it is widely believed that processes can be implaced to compensate for variations in the personal capacities of its leaders. This works well in many areas of leaders's responsibilities. It is needed also in vision creation.

This project is a study of strategic leadership and vision focused on the superb career of General Lucius D. Clay, a leader whose capabilities and contributions have been overlooked in the Army's current examination of strategic leadership. Turning to Clay's example is timely, as the true impact of his leadership and strategic vision as the first military governor of Germany and the first CINCEUR are finally being realized today with the German reunification and the end of the Cold War. General Clay has a unique career, and the path he took would be considered completely non-standard by today's measures. He had no advanced civil or military education and had virtually no time with or command of tactical units: two major discriminators for advancement in the officer corps of the 1990s. Fortunately, General Clay served in a series of extremely demanding and developmental positions that prepared him to create and implement a strategic vision and to lead the effort to establish post-war Germany. Like General Clay, future strategic leaders must have the potential for such intellectual activity and have that potential developed through a series of demanding and stretching experiences. This study suggests that the Army needs to revise and publish a coherent framework for its leadership doctrine and review its policies which impact on the development of strategic leaders.

This paper presents the concepts of vision and strategic leadership at senior levels as enumerated by several respected civilian and military leaders. The major focus of the paper, from a historical perspective, will be an analysis of the life experiences which included family background, education, character and personality, career path, accumulative knowledge, and the network of contacts that lead William J. 'Wild Bill' Donovan to become a visionary and strategic leader. It chronicles his life in four stages demonstrating his efforts towards realizing his visions, especially the development of a central intelligence agency for the United States. It attempts to prove that Major General William J. Donovan was a citizen soldier worthy of study by U.S. Army War College students and other senior leaders.

A frightening contradiction dominates the counterinsurgent environment: there is little indication that U.S. skill in this type of conflict has grown as rapidly as the strategic relevance of insurgency. This dangerous gap between capabilities and the extent of the threat, which first became evident during counterinsurgency's post-Vietnam Dark Ages, can be traced to a number of factors. Among the most pressing is the lack of a coherent planning process to link strategic, operational, and tactical responses and bring order to the erratic, ad hoc way that the United States currently approaches counterinsurgency. Since planning tools abound, the logical explanation for the lack of a counterinsurgent planning process is the misallocation of responsibility among government agencies. Presently the State Department, acting through ambassador-led country teams, has the lead role in counterinsurgency. But the State Department is, by nature, weak at long-range strategic planning. Clearly, then, some other agency must step forward, develop a method for coherent planning, and vigorously champion it in the bureaucratic morass that often surrounds counterinsurgency. The Army, which has given the most attention to the development of coherent planning methods for the orderly application of resources in conflict, is the logical choice for such an initiative. The objective should be the application of campaign planning to counterinsurgency. While the recent attention given campaign planning by the Army is healthy, nearly all of the effort has focused on the conventional Fulda Gap type of conflict; the architects of campaign planning have shied away from the bureaucratic and strategic complexities of counterinsurgency. As a result, campaign planning in its present form is not directly applicable to counterinsurgency. Adaptation is required. The sooner such a process begins, the sooner American ineptitude at counterinsurgency can be transcended., Published in Parameters: U.S. Army War College Quarterly, v19 p60-68, Sep 1989.

Governance processes in the public sector establish policies and institutionalize procedures for how organizations work together. Developing and sustaining these governance processes may be difficult. Efforts to develop a regional wireless interoperable communications network in the Phoenix metropolitan area resulted in a series of successes and failures. This thesis uses a classic case study framework to examine the governance development process from 1999 to 2015 among the City of Phoenix, City of Mesa and additional parties. Three distinct phases in the governance development process were identified and used to conduct a comparative analysis. Seven executives involved in the process were interviewed to provide insight and experience related to the governance development process across the three phases. The comparative case analysis illustrates factors that contributed to the success and failure of the network’s governance. Recommendations are provided that other agencies may employ in their own governance development to accelerate the process or avoid potential pitfalls and achieve successful outcomes more quickly. While the case study focuses on the establishment of an interoperable communications system, the principles and examples may apply to other technology or homeland security efforts to establish formal cross-jurisdictional governance structures., http://archive.org/details/buildingcollabor1094545830, Information Technology Project Manager, Phoenix Police Department, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.