FOUNDATION OF
PLANNING
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What Is Planning?
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A primary functional managerial activity that involves:
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Defining the organization’s goals
Establishing an overall strategy for achieving those
goals
Developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate
and coordinate organizational work.
Types of planning
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Informal: not written down, short-term focus; specific
to an organizational unit.
Formal: written, specific, and long-term focus,
involves shared goals for the organization.
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Why Do Managers Plan?
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Provides direction
Reduces uncertainty
Minimizes waste and redundancy
Sets the standards for controlling
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How Do Managers Plan?
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Elements of Planning
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Goals (also Objectives)
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Desired outcomes for individuals, groups, or entire
organizations
Provide direction and evaluation performance criteria
Plans
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Documents that outline how goals are to be
accomplished
Describe how resources are to be allocated and
establish activity schedules
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Characteristics of Well-Designed Goals
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Written in terms of
outcomes, not actions
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Specifically defines how the
outcome is to be measured
and how much is expected.
Clear as to time frame
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Challenging yet attainable
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Focuses on the ends, not
the means.
Measurable and
quantifiable
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Written down
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Low goals do not motivate.
High goals motivate if they
can be achieved.
Focuses, defines, and
makes goal visible.
Communicated to all
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Puts everybody “on the
same page.”
How long before measuring
accomplishment.
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Example of Company’s Goals
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Example 1: Company’s goals for 2015
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Become internationally recognized
Improve product quality
Increase revenue and profit
Improve customer’s satisfaction
Example 2: A production team
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Improve quality
Improve productivity
Ensure high safety level
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Procter & Gamble’s OGSM Technique
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What needs to be done
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Objectives
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written statement of compelling business needs
Goals
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numerical target and scorecard to track progress
toward meeting objectives
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Procter & Gamble’s OGSM Technique (cont.)
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How we will achieve our objectives
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Strategies
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written statement of specific actions that must be
taken to meet objectives
Measures
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numerical measures to track progress on executing
specific actions
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Balanced Goals from Different Perspectives
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Financial Perspective
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Customer Perspective
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Satisfaction, market share, repeated customers
Internal Perspective
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Profitability, Return on Investment
System, operation, capability
Learning Perspective
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New technology, management, ideas,
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Characteristics of Good Plan
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Prediction of environmental trends
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Goals
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Feasible but stretching
Actions
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SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic,
and time
Resources
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Scenarios
Specific, clear, integrated, fit with goals
Changes: flexible and creative
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Example: A Business Plan
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Business objectives
Functional objectives:
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Resources
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Finance, marketing, HR, production, R&D, ...
Finance, HR, management, IT, ...
Actions
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Case: Bookstore
From Management and Planning perspective,
explain:
 Why the Bookstore succeeded in early days?
 Why did it fail later?
 What do you learn?
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Team Project: Your Team’s Goals and Plans
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