Essentials of Good Planning Part - I

As is evident from different theories of business management, that planning is the fundamental and inseparable aspect of any business thus its significance cannot be undervalued. All objectives are achievable only after an effective and efficient planning.

Every organization tries to make its planning comprehensive and operational. Its top management devotes a considerable time and effort in order to intellectualize an effective plan. A plan is considered as effective based on certain criteria. However, in simple terms an effective plan is one which is capable of accomplishing the pre-determined objectives of the business with given time and resources.

Some of the essential traits that make planning effective are discussed under:

SIMPLE: Usually, it is witnessed that simple plans are easily understandable and comprehensible thus making it stress-free to implement and adopt. Planning should be simple in order to be understood by employees at various level as it is implemented in the organization from the top most to the lower most level. Planning should be constructed in such a manner so that its technicalities can be operational for all the management levels and departments. In other words, it can be said that a more technical planning cannot be properly comprehended by the non-technical lower-level staffs thus making its implementation challenging, leading to unanticipated consequences and complications in the future.

CLEAR OBJECTIVES: Planning is done with the primary aim of achieving the pre-determined objectives of any organization. Objectives are the end result for which planning is done. However, if objectives are not clear and certain, an effective planning cannot be done. In more simple way, we can say that objectives are the destinations where we want to reach at the end and planning provides the route map to reach that destination. If the destination is uncertain, designing a map is pointless.

FUTURISTIC: Plans are always prepared for accomplishing certain task, achieving certain goals, etc. Therefore, planning is a future oriented process. An effective planning process must consider the future goals, future needs as well as the resources with the organization, predictable future business conditions, competitive edge, etc.

TIME BOUND: Planning by any organization should be done on a time bound basis, i.e. time should be allocated for each and every activity. A time schedule should be pre-determined for the execution of plans at various levels.  Also, the sequence of the activities with average time taken to complete such activity should also be clearly apportioned.

FLEXIBLE: An effective planning is one which provides a considerable flexibility to adopt and modify the plans according to the business circumstances arising in the future course of action. A rigid planning is not suitable and profitable in this ever-changing business world.

EFFICIENT:  Efficiency here means ‘economical’, ‘low cost’ or ‘in-a-budget’. An essential aspect of an effective planning is efficiency. A good planning should be the one which helps the organization in achieving its pre-determined objectives with minimum cost. 

NOTE: Few more points would be discussed on the topic “Essentials of Good Planning” in the next Blog post.