Planning gives organizational activity meaning and direction. It helps managers decide what the organization wants to achieve and how people will work toward those results. This lesson explains the basic components of a plan and why planning is an ongoing intellectual activity.
For example, a company might set the goal of improving employee participation in board decisions. An action statement could be to appoint an employee representative to the board. The goal describes the intended outcome; the action describes a way to pursue it.
All flashcards
What is planning?
Planning is the process by which managers establish goals and specify how those goals are to be attained.
What are the two basic components of a plan?
Outcome or goal statements identify the desired results, while action statements identify the means or activities for pursuing those results.
What is retrospective thinking?
It is thinking about past events and experiences, often to learn from earlier results or decisions.
What is prospective thinking?
It is thinking about future opportunities, impending threats, and the conditions the organization wants to create.
Why is planning considered continuous?
Plans need to be monitored and sometimes modified as conditions change, new information appears, or new opportunities and threats emerge.
Quiz questions
How can planning help an organization facing a turbulent external environment?Answer: It provides a systematic way to anticipate developments and prepare responses.
How can planning increase economic efficiency?Answer: It can help an organization use time, money, and other resources more effectively.
What role does a plan play in organizational control?Answer: It sets expectations that managers can use to assess later activity and results.
Which statement describes the range of ways managers may plan?Answer: Planning may be written and formal or integrated into everyday decisions.
Why can organizational growth increase the need for planning?Answer: More complex internal activities make it harder to coordinate work across the organization.
Based on Principles of Management by David S. Bright, Anastasia H. Cortes, Eva Hartmann, K. Praveen Parboteeah, Jon L. Pierce, Monique Reece, Amit Shah, Siri Terjesen, Joseph Weiss, Margaret A. White, Donald G. Gardner, Jason Lambert et al. (OpenStax), licensed CC BY 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.