Effective Planning Process

The essence of success for any manager is effective planning. In fact planning is the most important management function. The achievement of any successful manager depends, how well he plans.  The sales manager has to plan to increase their sales, Advertising manager has to plan his campaign to drive the desired results and Logistics Manager plans to make sure that the material reaches to customers on time.

WHAT IS PLANNING:

In simple language it is the answer of questions:

• What is to be done?
• How it should be done?
• When is to be done?
• By Whom it should be done?

So how one should plan?  The planing process starts with setting up the objectives. Once the objectives are achieved, then you start identifying the ways to achieve the objectives.The planner define the resources required to accomplish the task. Once the resources are identified, a timeline it set to achieve the desired objectives. After the identification of resources, the alternaive actions are determined and evaluated. Once the all actions are evaluated, the right action is selected and then implementation takes place.

In this process of planning, most of planner forget an important step to make the plan successful: The Monitoring System and Assessment Method. The monitoring and assessment system help us in effective implementation of planning and if required then guide us for modification in original plan to achieve our goals.

FEATURES OF SUCCESSFUL PLANNING:

• Planning needs to be goal oriented
• Good Planning requires time bound actions
• Planning needs to be flexible,
• Planning is the beginning and not an end,  the plans must have modification feature
• Planning must result in decision making

BENEFITS OF PLANNING:

• Planning helps in reducing time required to achieve the goals
• Helps in effective direction
• Helps in reducing the wasteful activities
• Helps in controlling  & coordination of actions
• Helps in decision making
• Helps in managing risks and uncertainties

LIMITATIONS OF PLANNING:

• Sometime planing leads to rigidity
• Planning may involve huge cost
• Planning may not work in dynamic environment
• Planning is not a guarantee to success
• Planning can be time consuming

Even after having some of the limitations, Planning is still a must tool for each of the successful manager. The effective planning defines the correct actions to achieve the organisational goals.It helps  in efficient utilization of available resources. The realistic planning helps in achieving the organisational goals in most competitive way. Hence go on and plan to achieve the goals you have set!