Planning is the fundamental process in management which moves gradually and a step- by-step approach is usually adopted. It involves the determination of objectives and outlines the future actions needed to achieve these objectives. The above diagram represents the planning process.
Operational plans are short-term (less than a year) plans developed to create specific action steps that support the strategic and tactical plans. They are usually developed by the manager to fulfill his or her job responsibilities. They are developed by supervisors, team leaders, and facilitators to support tactical plans. They govern the day-to-day operations of an organization. Operational plans can be: - Standing plans - Drawn to cover issues that managers face repeatedly, e.g. policies, procedures, rules. - Ongoing plans - Prepared for single or exceptional situations or problems and are normally discarded or replaced after one use, e.g. programs, projects, and budgets.
Tactical plans describe the tactics that the managers plan to adopt to achieve the objectives set in the strategic plan. Tactical plans span a short time frame (usually less than 3 years) and are usually developed by middle level managers. It details specific means or action plans to implement the strategic plan by units within each division. Tactical plans entail detailing resource and work allocation among the subunits within each division.
Strategic plans define the framework of the organization’s vision and how the Organization intends to make its vision a reality. It is the determination of the long-term objectives of an enterprise, the action plan to be adopted and the resources to be mobilized to achieve these goals. Since it is planning the direction of the company’s progress, it is done by the top Management of an organization. It essentially focuses on planning for the coming years to take the organization from where it stands today to where it intends to be. The strategic plan must be forward looking, effective and flexible, with a focus on accommodating future growth. These plans provide the framework and direction for lower level planning.
Plans commit the various resources in an organization to specific outcomes for the fulfillment of future goals.Many different types of plans are adopted by management to monitor and control organizational activities. Threesuch most commonly used plans are Hierarchical, frequency-of-use (repetitiveness) and contingency plans. Strategic plans •Involves analyzing competitive opportunities & threats, as well as the strengths & weaknesses of the organization, & determining how to position the organization to compete effectively in their environment. Tactical plans •Creates the blueprint for the lager strategic plan. These plans are often short term and are carried out by middle- level managers. Operational plans •Covers the entire organization’s goals & objectives and puts…
The importance of planning as the major constituent in the management process is universally accepted. Planning not only brings stability and certainty to business, it also brings in a unified sense of direction and purpose for the achievement of certain well- defined objectives. The basic reasons supporting systematic planning by managers are: Sense of Direction - Planning provides a unity of purpose. It brings together all resources towards achieving common goals. Without plans and goals, organizations will respond to everyday events in an ad-hoc manner without considering long- term possibilities. Resource Paucity - Resource crunch is a major challenge for organizations today. Managements are confronted with the task of optimizing outputs with limited human, material, and financial resources through intelligent planning; otherwise, wasteful inefficiencies would lead to higher prices and severe shortages. Uncertainty - Uncertainty is a major challenge even to the most intelligent planner. Organizations continually face micro and macro-economic uncertainty in the course of accomplishing their tasks. Planning helps managers anticipate such changes and meet these challenges. Besides the above, there are several practical reasons for formulating plans. - To focus organizational activity on a set of consciously created objectives. - To provide a systematic guide for future activities.…
Professor Henry Mintzberg, a great management researcher, after studying managers for several weeks concluded that, to meet the many demands of performing their functions, managers assume multiple roles. He propounded that the role is an organized set of behaviors. He identified the following ten roles common to the work of all managers. These roles have been split into three groups as illustrated in the following figure. Interpersonal Role Figurehead – Has social, ceremonial and legal responsibilities. Leader – Provides leadership and direction. Liaison – Networks and communicates with internal and external contacts. Informational Role Monitor – Seeks out information related to your organization and industry, and monitors internal teams in terms of both their productivity and well-being. Disseminator – Communicates potentially useful information internally. Spokesperson – Represents and speaks for the organization and transmits information about the organization and its goals to the people outside it. Decisional…
Planning is the most basic of all managerial functions which involves establishing goals, setting out objectives and defining the methods by which these goals and objectives are To be attained. It is, therefore, a rational approach to achieving pre-selected objectives. Planning involves selecting missions and objectives and the actions to achieve them. An important aspect of planning is decision making - that is, choosing the right alternatives for the future course of action. Organizations have to typically plan for long-range and short-range future direction. By forecasting and predicting the market and socio-political-economic trends, managers can plan to determine where they desire the company to be in future. Planning involves determining various types and volumes of physical and other resources to be acquired from outside, allocating these resources in an efficient manner among competing claims and to make arrangement for systematic conversion of these resources into useful outputs. Since plans are made to attain goals or objectives, every plan should lead to the…
Every organization as part of its life cycle constantly engages in the four essential functions of management – planning, leading, organizing and controlling. The foremost of this is planning. It is the part of management concerned with creating procedures, rules and guidelines for achieving a stated objective. All other managerial functions must be planned if they are to be effective. Managers at all levels engage in planning as objectives and goals have to be set up for the day-to-day activities as well as the broader long-term initiatives.
Decision making is a very important and complex process. In order to aid decision makers make the right choice, quantitative techniques are used that improve the overall quality of decision making. Following are some of the commonly used techniques: Decision Trees Decision Trees are tools that help choose between several courses of action or alternatives. They are: Represented as tree-shaped diagram used to determine a course of action or show a statistical probability. Each branch of the decision tree represents a possible decision or occurrence. The tree structure shows how one choice leads to the next, and the use of branches indicates that each option is mutually exclusive. A decision tree can be used by a manager to graphically represent which actions could be taken and how these actions relate to future events.…
