THE PLANNING PROCESS:Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats

<< THE PRODUCTIVITY:Responding to the Productivity Challenge, Domestic Productivity

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT:Planning for Quality, Controlling for Quality >>

Introduction to Business MGT 211

Lesson 36

THE PLANNING PROCESS

Planning is the process by which you determine whether you should attempt the task, work out

the most effective way of reaching your target, and prepare to overcome unexpected

difficulties with adequate resources. It is the start of the process by which you turn empty

dreams into achievements. It helps you to avoid the trap of working extremely hard but

achieving little.

Planning is an up-front investment in success- by applying the planning process effectively you

can:

�

Avoid wasting effort: It is easy to spend large amounts of time on activities that in

retrospect prove to be irrelevant to the success of the project. Alternatively you can

miss deadlines by not assessing the order in which dependent jobs should be carried

out. Planning helps you to achieve the maximum effect from a given effort.

�

Take into account all factors, and focus on the critical ones:

This ensures that you are aware of the implications of what you want to do, and that you are

prepared for all reasonable eventualities.

�

Be aware of all changes that will need to be made:

If you know these, then you can assess in advance the likelihood of being able to make those

changes, and take action to ensure that they will be successful.

�

Gather the resources needed:

This ensures that the project will not fail or suffer for lack of a critical resource.

�

Carry out the task in the most efficient way possible:

So that you conserve your own resources, avoid wasting ecological resources, make a fair

profit and are seen as an effective, useful person. The formal procedure of applying the

planning process helps you to:

�

Take stock of your current position. Identify precisely what is to be achieved.

�

Detail precisely and cost the who, what, when, where, why and how of achieving your

target.

�

Assess the impact of your plan on your organization and the people within it, and on the

outside world.

�

Evaluate whether the effort, costs and implications of achieving your plan are worth the

achievement.

�

Consider the control mechanisms, whether reporting, quality or cost control, etc. that

are needed to achieve your plan and keep it on course. Pareto You may have heard of

one approach to the Pareto principle: that 80% of a job is completed in 20% of the

time. Another application in an non-planning environment is that 80% of the effort tends

to achieve 20% of the results. By thinking and planning we can reverse this to 20% of

the effort achieving 80% of the results. We may even decide that it is more efficient not

to attempt the remaining work at all!

134

Introduction to Business MGT 211

How to Spot what needs to be done

Planning may be done on a routine basis or may need to be carried out as a result of new

ideas, poor performance or pressure from customers or the organization's environment. This

section examines how you can clarify the problems and opportunities that face you.

New Ideas --- One simple approach to generating ideas is to look at what irritates you in your

life and what seems unnecessarily laborious and tedious. Often this will prompt ideas for

improvements, whether these are administrative changes in your organization or are ideas for

new consumer products or services.

SWOT Analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

A more systematic method is to use SWOT Analysis to detail and examine your organization's

Strengths and Weaknesses, and to examine the Opportunities and Threats it faces. Often

carrying out an analysis using the SWOT framework will be enough to reveal the changes

which can be usefully made. To carry out a SWOT Analysis for yourself or your organization,

write down answers to the following questions:

Strengths:

� What are your advantages?

� What do you do well?

� Consider this from your own point of view and from the point of view of your

customers or the people who rely on you. Don't be modest, be realistic. If you are

having any difficulty with this, try writing down a list of your or your organization's

characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths!

Weaknesses:

� What could be improved?

� What is done badly?

� What should be avoided?

� Again this should be considered form an internal and external basis - do your

customers perceive weaknesses that you don't see? Do your competitors do any

better? Again it is best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths at this stage

in the planning process.

Opportunities

� Where are the good chances facing you?

� What are the interesting trends?

� Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

� Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and industry-specific scale.

� Changes in government policy related to your field.

� Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, etc.

Threats

� What obstacles do you face?

� What is your competition doing?

� Are the required specifications for your products and services changing?

� Is changing technology threatening your position?

� Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?

� Carrying out this analysis is will often be illuminating - both in terms of pointing out

what needs to be done, and in pointing out that problems may be smaller than initially

anticipated

135

Table of Contents: