Planning - Characteristics of planning- Advantages & Disadvantages - steps in planning - types of plan

1. “Planning”
Dr. M. Umamageswari
Assistant Professor (Agricultural Economics)
JSA College of Agriculture & Technology
(Affiliated to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University)
Ma. Podaiyur, Tittagudi Tk. ,
Cuddalore District – 606 108

2.  Management is an integral part of living and
is essential wherever human efforts are to be
undertaken to achieve desired objectives.
 Management is a set of principles relating to
the functions of planning, organizing,
directing, and controlling, and the
applications of these principles in harnessing
physical, financial, human and informational
resources efficiently and effectively to
achieve organizational goals.

4.  It is future oriented and determines an organization’s
direction.
 It is a rational and systematic way of making decisions
today that will affect the future of the company.
 It involves the predicting of the future as well as
attempting to control the events. It involves the ability to
foresee the effects of current actions in the long run in
the future.
 Peter Drucker “Planning is the continuous process of
making present entrepreneurial decisions systematically
and with best possible knowledge of their futurity,
organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out
these decisions and measuring the results of these
decisions against the expectations through organized and
systematic feedback”

5.  External factors :
 shortages of resources; both capital and material,
 general economic trend eg. interest rates & inflation
 dynamic technological advancements
 increased governmental regulation
 unstable international political environments, etc.
 Internal factors :
 limited growth opportunities due to saturation
requiring diversification,
 changing patterns of work force,
 more complex organizational structures,
 decentralization etc

6.  Organizing requires a formal structure of authority and
the direction and flow of such authority through which
work subdivisions are defined, arranged and co-ordinated
so that each part relates to the other part in a united and
coherent manner so as to attain the prescribed
objectives.
 It follows, therefore, that the function of organizing is
concerned with:
 Identifying the tasks that must be performed and grouping
them whenever necessary
 Assigning these tasks to the personnel while defining their
authority and responsibility.
 Delegating this authority to these employees
 Establishing a relationship between authority and
responsibility
 Coordinating these activities

7.  Staffing is the function of hiring and
retaining a suitable work-force for the
enterprise both at managerial as well as non-
managerial levels. It involves the process of
recruiting, training, developing,
compensating and evaluating employees, and
maintaining this workforce with proper
incentives and motivations.

8.  It is concerned
with leadership, communication, motivation and
supervision so that the employees perform their
activities in the most efficient manner possible, in
order to achieve the desired goals.
 leadership -issuing of instructions and guiding the
subordinates about procedures and methods.
 Communication must be open both ways so that the
information can be passed on to the subordinates and
the feedback received from them.
 Motivation - highly motivated people show excellent
performance with less direction from superiors.
 Supervising subordinates would lead to continuous
progress reports as well as assure the superiors that
the directions are being properly carried out.

9.  The function of control consists of those
activities that are undertaken to ensure that
the events do not deviate from the per-
arranged plans.
 It involves:
 Establishment of standard performance.
 Measurement of actual performance.
 Measuring actual performance with the pre-
determined standard and finding out the
deviations.
 Taking corrective action.

10.  According to Koontz & O’Donell, “Planning is
deciding in advance what to do, how to do
and who is to do it. Planning bridges the gap
between where we are to, where we want to
go. It makes possible things to occur which
would not otherwise occur”.

11.  Planning is goal oriented
 Planning is looking ahead
 Planning is an intellectual process.
 Planning involves choice & decision
making.
 Planning is the primary function of
management / Primacy of Planning.
 Planning is a Continuous Process.
 Planning is all Pervasive.
 Planning is designed for efficiency.
 Planning is Flexible.

14.  Operational, tactical and strategic plan
 Proactive and reactive plan
 Formal Vs informal plan
 Functional and Corporate plan

15.  Short – range plans
 Made in a specific and detailed manner.
 Usually done at lower levels.
 primary concern is efficiency (doing things
right) rather than effectiveness (doing the
right things).
 It involves gathering information, evaluating
alternatives and choosing the most effective
courses of action.
 It is usually guided by a set of single use
plans and standing plans.

16.  Standing plans focus on organizational
situations that recur repeatedly.
 It include policies, procedures and rules.
 Single use plans are also used to guide
managerial decisions and to obtain
uniformity of action, but they serve these
purposes only for a specified period of time.

17.  It is concerned with day to day operations.
 Usually functional aspects of the production
of goods and services are covered in
operational plans.
 Examples : Market plans, production plans
and financial plans

18.  Less detailed than the short-range plans.
 They are concerned with implementing strategic
plans by coordinating the work of different
departments in the organization.
 They try to integrate various organizational units
and ensure commitment to strategic plans.
 Based on results obtained by implementing short
range plans, a mid term review is undertaken.
 The success or failure of operational plans is
assessed and the need for readjustment is
indicated.
 This helps in shifting the gears whenever pitfalls
occur while implementing the short range or
long range plans.

19.  The determination of how the organizational
objectives will be achieved is referred to as
long range strategic plan.
 Essentially, strategy is a plan of action that
will define the way in which goals can be
accomplished.
 It links the human and other resources of an
organization on the one hand, with the
challenges and risks posed by the outside
world, on the other.

20.  Planning period - long term-long range if the
planning environment is stable.
 It may be five to ten years or more.
 In India, cement, petroleum, paper,
petrochemicals plan for a period of five
years, whereas chemicals and textiles plan
for a period of three years

21.  In proactive plans consideration is given for the
future changes and it forces the managers to be
dynamic, active and creative.
 Through proactive plan mangers take the
initiative and attempt to shape the future and
create a more desirable environment.
 It helps the managers to command the future
rather than commanded by it.
 In reactive plan we do not give consideration to
what we desire the future to be like and as a
result the future of the organization is left to
the vagaries of societal forces.

22.  A Formal plan “A written, documented plan
developed through an identifiable process”
 Formal planning is hard mental work and it
forces the managers, to observe the rule “look
before you leap” strictly.
 When planners do not record their thoughts
but carry them around in their minds, informal
plan results in.
 Informal plan managers do not plan for
contingencies and there is no provision for
anticipated situations. They merely wait for
the lightning to strike.