DD: Planning

-

A process whereby the relevant facts are collected and analyzed, the assumptions and premises are made for the future. In light of these assumptions and premises, a plan of action believed necessary to achieve the desired results is visualized and formulated. It involves choosing the proper course of action from among alternatives and calls for decision making. All other functions of management depend on planning. Furthermore, management is a dynamic process and therefore so is planning - the process is continuous in light of overlapping functions and changing environment.

Importance:
  1. Makes personnel conscious of enterprise objectives
  2. Leads to economy in operations  
  3. Precedes control 
  4. Precious managerial instrument to provide for the future 
  5. Influences efficacy of other managerial functions 
Types of Plans:
  1. Business plans - a formal statement of:
    1. largely enforced business goals
    2. the reasons why they are believed attainable 
    3. the plan for reaching those goals 
  2. Marketing plans - keep changes in perception and branding as their primary goals 
  3. Operational plans - Describe the goals of an internal organization, working group or department 
  4. Project plans - goals of a particular project, and its place within the organization's larger strategic goals.
  5. Strategic plans - business plans that identify and target internal goals but provide only general guidance on how those plans can be attained. 
Planning Components: 
  1. Purposes/ mission 
  2. Objectives 
  3. Policies 
  4. Procedures, methods and rules 
  5. Budgets
  6. Programme
  7. Strategy 
Forecasting: Analysis and interpretation of the future conditions in relation to operations of the enterprise. 
Steps:
  1. Identifying and developing the structure 
  2. Forecasting future course of business 
  3. Analysis of deviations 
  4. Improving the existing forecasting procedure 
Decision making: signifies actual selection of a course of action from among a number of alternatives. Various situations can be divided into three possible conditions:
  1. Certainty - where the decision maker knows exactly what will happen.
  2. Risk - Some information is available but it isn't sufficient to answer all questions about the outcome.
  3. Uncertainty - No way of measuring the likelihood of the various alternatives.
Principles of Decision Making
  1. Principle of Definition - real problem has to be defined with minute attention.
  2. Principle of Evidence - Decisions should be based on evidence and adequate facts to back the judgment. 
  3. Principle of Identity - Perspectives on the same fact differ from person to person, and the relative importance of such facts differ from year to year. 
A hierarchy of decisions can be established in terms of the commitment, scope and risk involved in each decision. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave an opinion!

Popular posts from this blog

Throwback: Waltzing to the Tune of Rhetoric

-
Written September 7, 2010 A dark series of squiggles make their way down and across the page, in that order. Cheap poetry and lame jokes are the order of the day. For once the silence has retreated and is content to watch from the top row of the bleachers. For once there's no raining on the court while the ball's in play. There's a rose that lies at the back of my locker, wilted and fading away. It's a rose I don't expect to see in bloom again. It's a rose I've put aside, but one I cannot bear to throw away. Perhaps I should consign it to the bonfire I've made in my backyard, out of all the relics from the past. Perhaps keeping it in my locker is dangerous, for it might bloom again. Roses such as this one have been known to bloom more beautiful than before, long long after they withered away into nothing more than thin brown sticks and faded and detached petals. And in my excitement, I might just reach out and grab it again, forgetting th
Read more

Sweet Summer Child: A Love Letter

-
Image
Photo by  Petr Ovralov  on  Unsplash Written December 9, 2016 I am not a gifting person. Years ago, someone suggested I write them something about love as a gift instead. I made many starts, completed nothing. Perhaps happiness doesn't inspire me the way sorrow does. Then last year came the first and only love letter I've ever written. Does it mean more if you write letters? May I? Dearest. When I met you, the only taste I remembered any more was the taste of ashes in my mouth. When I met you, the sun had cracked open, and loss was everywhere.  When I met you, you were a shadow, hidden among shadows, a nervous joke whispered on the winds of my thoughts.  When I met you, I was looking for a friend.  Then I met you, and the sun rose again, whole and healthier than before.  I met you, and the joke turned to undying laughter on my lips.  I met you, and I knew longing again, my soul unable to bear its weight.  I did not know you existed, and in the wee hours o
Read more

Book Review: State of Fear by Michael Crichton

-
I don't usually have high hopes for action thrillers by white male authors. They're bound to involve super-efficient macho male protagonists, female leads whose greatest selling point is their attractiveness to the male leads, and the a plot that is basically all over the place. But, you know, you don't usually care because your flight is late by three hours and you need to kill time. I picked up State of Fear because I was chilling at my aunt's place and my phone was low on charge. I'd very wisely left my charger at my friend's place, so there wasn't anything else I could do except read. And the collection my uncle had left behind was mainly a bunch of atheist propaganda and also action thrillers by white males. *Snore* As I had recently had someone praise The Lost World  to me, I decided to give Michael Crichton a try. (I outgrew Jackie Collins by the time I was 13.) The book wasn't even engaging enough to prompt me to ask my aunt whether I cou
Read more