ABSTRACT
This chapter provides something of the flavour, complete with breakthroughs and setbacks, which one experiences while going through the complete corporate planning process in an averaged sized group of companies. The company was founded by Mr Woodcock in 1926 when he invented a method of controlling the flow of hot metal in steel mills. In January of Year 1 the group chief executive invited the finance director and the four divisional managing directors and an outside consultant to join him in a planning team. The seminar was held in April. It was attended by the planning team and sixteen others, a total of twenty-three. The planning team met two weeks after the seminar. Before turning to the main item on the agenda they considered if any of the internal or external items raised at the seminar should be investigated in further depth before they themselves considered them.
