Introduction

Increasing emphasis, in today’s organisations, is being placed on pro-actively planning for a better tomorrow. Since resources are limited, they must be allocated carefully to return the maximum value for the organisation. To achieve maximum value, supervisors and team members need skills in setting realistic goals, organising for action, developing tactical plans and reinforcing good performance.

Usually, beginning a project means thinking before doing. You would not want to build a garage, for instance, without considering the size of your car. Blueprints and essays both require a "plan".

The plan, though, can begin at several different points. People approach tasks in different ways, depending on their personalities, their purposes, and the time they must complete the task. In the ideal world, or in someone's ideal world, planning might begin by deciding on a topic and then move on to organising the ideas before the first exercise.

Planning Defined

Planning encompasses defining your departmental/team objectives or goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving these goals and developing a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities. It is concerned, then, with ends (what is to be done) as well as with means (how it is to be done).