Planning

AN ACT OF FORMULATING a program for a definite course of action may be thought of as planning. The process of planning includes anticipating future occurrences and problems, exploring their probable impact, and detailing policies, goals, objectives, and strategies to solve the problems. This often includes preparing option documents, considering alternatives, and issuing final plans.

Planning is also a managerial function concerned with making forecasts, formulating outlines of things to do, and identifying methods to accomplish them. Planning involves the cognitive process of thinking about what you will do in the event of something happening and also includes the act of developing or creating a program for a definite course of action. The process of anticipating future occurrences and problems, exploring their probable impact, and detailing policies, goals, objectives, and strategies to solve the problems is required. With respect to goal attainment, planning involves the process of choosing who, what, how, when, and where for the plan.

The concept of planning is a continuing process of analyzing program data, making decisions, and formulating plans and contingency plans for action in the future aimed at achieving specified goals. Planning may also be thought of as the process of identifying the means, resources, and actions necessary to accomplish an objective. A well-crafted planning process contains milestones that correspond to the completion of each phase. This allows the project to maintain alignment with the development schedule. The process of producing a plan considers the aims to be achieved, how they will be achieved, who is involved in achieving them, and the necessary finances and resources. Outcomes of the plan must be specified together with relevant success criteria.

Plans may be made to achieve goals at differing population or organizational levels. They may also be developed to respond to specific types of goal attainment inquiries, such as a strategic plan to determine the focus or direction of effort, a project plan to respond to a time-limited effort, an operational plan to determine the resources necessary to achieve a goal, a financial plan to raise or manage funds, or an evaluative plan to determine the success of a response or intervention.

Plans often begin as abstract thoughts, which are later written down. They are generally stored so that they are quickly accessible as needed to multiple deci-sion-makers at multiple locations or differing times. Plans are often held as potential contingencies unless, and until, the need for developing and implementing them is foreseen. Plans vary in formality.

For example, business or organizational plans and military plans generally have a higher degree of formality and detail. Both detail and accessibility contribute to the plans' capacity for collaboration or execution if needed. Plans are the proposed or intended method of getting from one set of circumstances to another. They are frequently organized chronologically to move from a present situation toward the achievement of one or more future-oriented objectives or goals. Plans vary in complexity from the making of simple lists of tasks to complete to complex policy formulations with multiple complex outcomes over time.

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