This unit is list recognition. The BASK names eight strategic planning analysis frameworks, and the questions test whether you know which items are on that list and which framework fits a described task.
The eight named frameworks
PESTLE analysis, SWOT analysis, industry analysis, location-specific analysis, scenario planning, growth-share matrix, real time, blue ocean. That is the whole list, verbatim.
- The balanced scorecard is NOT on it. It is the classic wrong answer in a "which does not appear" item.
- Lists from other areas get offered as distractors: job enrichment, job enlargement, job rotation, work simplification is the job-design list (Employee Engagement & Retention). ADDIE, SAM, action mapping, Bloom's taxonomy, 70-20-10, VAK is Learning & Development. Lead, lag, match, lead-lag, banding, compa-ratio is Total Rewards.
Matching framework to task
- PESTLE: scans external political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental forces. New privacy legislation, an aging labor pool, rising energy costs are all PESTLE.
- SWOT: the only one on the list that spans both sides, pairing internal strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats. If a stem says "external only", SWOT is too broad.
- Scenario planning: builds distinct plausible futures and a response for each. Two staffing plans for two possible outcomes is scenario planning, not PESTLE. PESTLE names the drivers; it does not produce alternative futures.
- Location-specific analysis: conditions tied to one site or geography, such as local labor supply, wage levels and commuting patterns.
- Industry analysis: competitive structure outside the firm.
- Growth-share matrix: sorts business units by market share and growth.
- Blue ocean: creating uncontested market space.
Porter's Five Forces
Porter's original framework, published in a 1979 Harvard Business Review article: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitutes, rivalry among existing competitors. Do not answer with the PESTLE factors.