We see that all building blocks at all management levels come back again and again. Different issues or management topics apply to each building block on a strategic, tactical and operational level. Should we, for example, take the “people” building block, we see that, on a strategic level, management demand consists of determining the required competences over a 3 to 5 year period as well as other issues. Multiple-year human resources and deployment planning is involved on a tactical level. Management demand on an operational level is mainly related to recruitment and selection, personal and team development and occupational health and safety.

Every ball that a manager must keep in the air, therefore, has three manifestations. What is really inconvenient in relation to this is that there is both a vertical relationship between the building blocks of one type as well as a horizontal relationship between the different building blocks. Strategic, tactical and operational management must, after all, run synchronously in relation to, for example, resources on a vertical level. But even on a horizontal level, permanent harmonisation is required between planned results and required people and resources in relation to, for example, the tactical level.

The management framework acts as a compass in this book. We navigate through the most important management issues based on this framework. There are (international) reference models for many of these issues. A few are shown in the figure below.

Vertically, a few important and specific aspect-focused reference models have been positioned (“blue frames”). The 'people' aspect area, for example, is covered at all management levels by Investors in People (ISBN 90–140–6812–3). A component of the “resources” aspect area is information and ICT. ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is the world standard in this area supplemented by IPW (Process-oriented Working Methods; see Quint and ISBN 0–11–330015–8 as well as other sources).

The most important reference model in the 'structure' aspect area are the ISO9000:2000 standards and definitions of quality and process management. ISPL (Information Services Procurement Library) has applies for many years now as the world standard for the last aspect area 'chains' or 'purchasing'.

Horizontally, we see the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) on a strategic management level and the INK/EFQM management model that covers all management levels. The scope and most starting points of the management framework and the INK management model are identical. The crucial difference is that the management framework assumes a process-focused management on all levels a priori. INK/EFQM bases itself on a step-by-step growth and only identifies this condition in phase 2 (for a further analysis of differences see).