Planning
Planning is a management function that involves defining goals, establishing strategies to achieve the goals and developing activities to combine and organize activities. The main 4 reasons for planning is it provide direction, reduce uncertainty, minimise waste and set standard rules.
Provide direction to managers and non-managers. When employees know where the organisation or work unit is going and what they must contribute, they can coordinate their activities and cooperate with each other to achieve the goals of the organization.
Reduce uncertainty by forcing managers to look ahead, anticipate and consider the impact of change, and develop appropriate responses.
Minimises waste and redundancy by planning work activities early and when means and ends are made clear through planning, inefficiencies can be eliminated.
Set standards in controlling by developing goals and plans. Actual performances are compared with goals through controlling and correct actions are taken.
Planning and performance resulted in positive relationship which produce high profits for the company. The combination of planning and implementing results in better yields. Sometimes environmental factors such as government rules constrain the outcome and reduce the impact of planning. Without planning, there would not be anything to organize or control, it involves 2 main elements: Goals and Plan.
Goals are the outcome of individual or group organizations. Often referred as objectives. It provides direction and evaluation performance criteria to measure work achievements.
Plans are the rules on how goals are to be attained and how resources are to be allocated. There are 4 different type of plans breadth, time frame, specificity and frequency of use.
Breadth plan involves strategic plans versus operational plans. Strategic plans apply to the whole organization. It establishes