الاستشارة والتدريب في مؤشرات الأداء الرئيسية

 

INTRODUCTION

Planning involves setting goals and figuring out ways of reaching them. Planning, considered the central function of management, pervades everything a manager does. In planning, a manager looks to the future, saying, “Here is what we want to achieve, and here is how we are going to do it.”

DEFINITION

1. Planning is a complex and comprehensive process involving a series of overlapping and interrelated elements or stage.

2.Planning is a mental exercise that requires imagination, foresight and sound judgement. It is thinking before doing. Planning is looking ahead, anticipating the future and deciding the course of action to be taken. Planning

3.Planning is deciding in advance what is to be done. It involves the selection of objectives, policies, procedures and programs from among alternatives.

FEATURES OF PLANNING

- Planning is goal-oriented.

 - Planning is future oriented. 

- Planning is an intellectual process.

- Planning is primary function.

– Planning is pervasive.

– Planning is continuous.

– Planning aims at efficiency.

IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING

- Making objectives clear.

 - Helps the organisation to keep on a right path.

- It reduces risk and uncertainty.

- It improves efficiency of operations.

- Provides the basis for control. 

- Facilitates decision making.

- Effective coordination.

PRINCIPLES OF PLANNING

- principle of contribution to objectives.

- principle of pervasiveness of planning.

- principle of limiting factors.

- principle of flexibility.

- principle of navigational change.

KINDS OF PLANNING

Planning can be classified in two different basis. On the basis of time dimension, planning is generally divided into:

1.Long-range planning: sets long-term goals.

2. Medium-range planning: concerned with determination of medium-term activities to accomplish long term objectives.

3. Short-range planning: concerned with determination of short-term activities to accomplish long term objectives.

On the basis of nature/level of planning, there can be the following types of planning:

1.Strategic planning, is establishing master plans that shape the destiny of the firm.

2.Tactical planning, planning translates strategic plans into specific goals and plans that are most relevant to a particular organizational unit.

3.Operational planning, identifies the specific procedures and actions required at lower levels in the organization, which means a day-to-day operations or the nuts and bolts of doing business.

On the basis of business’s functions, there can be the following type of planning:

Functional planning: it is prepared for various functional areas of business, like production planning, marketing planning, financial planning and manpower planning. It serves as a guide for people in a particular department of functional area of the enterprise.

THE PROCESS OF PLANNING

REF

1-M.SAKTHIVEL MURUGAN, Management principles and practices.

2-A.DUBRIN, Essentials of management.

3-OPENSTAX, Principles of management.