Critical thinking Essay
5/7/2012
Planning Essay
Planning is a critical aspect of an organisation, as it is one of the four functional areas within which one or more people, or a team of people, exercises management to achieve intended outcomes and to reduce unintended outcomes. The concept of failing to plan creates a plan to fail means that you don 't bother to plan before you start your work, then you might as well just go ahead and try to fail. This is often the case in an organisation, as planning helps to achieve goals set by the organisation. By understanding why an organisation may need to plan for certain scenarios, how planning can achieve its goals for the business and how the stakeholders involved are effected …show more content…
by planning and the consequences involved, it can be identified that organisation that are failing to plan will consequently plan to fail.
Why do organisations need to plan? Like in sports, proper preparations can prevent poor performance. When you consider all the things that you have to go through to achieve at the best of your abilities, planning out you time and resources is a critical aspect in management (Coulter, DeCenzo, Robbins, & Woods, 2011). The process of planning allows a manager of an organisation to establish a coordinated effort. The main way an organisation can plan for a coordinated method is through the use of a business plan.
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organisation or team attempting to reach those goals (Abrams, 2003). These formal strategic plans call for an explicit process for determining the firm 's long-range objectives, procedures for generating and evaluating alternative strategies, and a system for monitoring the results of the plan when implemented. During each of these steps involved in formal planning, it is important that a systematic procedure be used to gain commitment of those who will be affected by the plan.
Planning also allows the organisation to anticipate change, consider the impact of change and develop appropriate responses, planning reduces uncertainty. (Scott Armstrong, 1982) Similarly to how business planning can plan for an coordinated effort, business plans may also target changes within the organisation. Making changes in your business is a necessary part of continuously improving your people, products, services and performance. There are many reasons for change. The type of change you are experiencing, and your reasons for it, will influence the way you plan your change process.
Developing a business case to identify and describe your business changes will help you explain changes to your staff and keep your planning on track. A clear and well-reasoned business case for change can help you steer your way through your change process and will save time and effort once the process is underway (Queensland, 2011). These important planning steps are to be kept in mind when preparing your business case. When planning for change, you must think about your reasons for change. When developing a plan, the best way to analyse these reasons is to write down why you believe your business needs change and what you need to change (Coulter et al 2011). List the problems, risks, weaknesses or inefficiencies that you have identified as being threats to business growth. To insure that these changes are well planned, an organisation must establish change management objectives which should focus on the kind of change environment you want to create for your staff (Adelaide, 2010).
Your objectives might define the level of commitment, involvement and motivation you want to secure from your staff. An organisation needs to plan to create an overall strategy and plan for various scenarios. To create a successful business strategy and to plan for several scenarios, you need to plan, and when you plan you don 't fail.
There are two critically important aspects involved in the process of planning, which prevent the failure of an organisation, which are goals and plans. The goals of an organisation are often the desired outcomes that an organisation desires to achieve. These also help with the decision making and to set criteria for the outcomes of an organisation. Plans outline how these goals are going to be met, through executive summaries and analysis of opportunities. There are several types of goals, functional analysis, profitability and production goals (Cochrane & Kleiner, 1993). With functional analysis, the manager must make many types of goals for their organisation. It is important that the organisation attempts to attain all of these goals instead of just concentrating on a single area. Profitability is an extremely important type of goal for an organisation because this usually determines whether the firms continues to be operational or not. These goals are usually expressed in such terms as net income, earnings-per-share, return on investment, and other similar ratios. Profit goals are meant to satisfy equity holders, creditors, and those parts of the organisation seeking capital investment. The production goal is also an important goal for the organisation and is usually expressed in such terms as units produced per employee and cost per unit of employee. The production goal can be broken down into two sub-goals (Schneider, Brief, & Guzzo, 2008). These types of goals are meant to ensure stable employment, ease of scheduling, development of acceptable cost performance, and growth.
Managers also need plans to help them clarify and specify how the goals stated by an organisation will be achieved and met.
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals (Stanford University, 2011). A good business plan contains key aspects including an executive summary and an analysis of opportunity. An executive summary, sometimes known as a management summary, is a short document or section of a document, produced for business purposes, which is intended as an aid to decision making by managers and has been described as possibly the most important part of a business plan (Lavinsky, 2012). Opportunity analysis is the strategy of assessing the potential for a change or enhancement to enhance the generation of revenue. Setting goals and plans are important aspects of planning, which sets the basis for all the tasks managers do. Through the use of formal planning, managers can identify specific goals during a specific time period, and specific plans are written for these goal to be met. This elevates business failure, because managers can organise its proposed tasks to ensure the productivity of the organisation, which in return results in business …show more content…
success.
Effective use of planning systems in dynamic environments can allow managers to direct an organisation in the correct direction during turbulent times, which can prevent the organisation from failing due to correct planning. The external environment is ever-changing, with risks and uncertainty being faced upon each decision made by managers, which impacts the organisation tremendously. In uncertain environments, plans should be developed which are specific, but are also flexible. This flexibility allows an organisation to adjust its strategy to suite the external environment, thus reducing the risk of failure (Coulter et al 2011). Some aspects of the external environment include Multi-Generational challenges in workplace and Technological advances and workplace. Multi-generational challenges in the workplace is of great concern in an organisation, with various work habits which has been developed within each generation. In the workforce, each group often is characterized by age-specific traits. Older workers are considered loyal and usually have worked for one company for many years. Baby Boomers are looked upon as optimistic, competitive and impressed with titles. Generation Xers are viewed as less impressed with titles and interested in improving their skills. Generation Y/Millennials (Yers) are technologically savvy and want to know that the work they do makes a difference and is valuable (Landers, 2004) . Multigenerational workers ' differing skills, goals and viewpoints are contributing to more creative workplace environments, but they also are creating challenges for employees and for their managers. "One of the most common complaints Baby Boomers make about Gen Xers and Yers is, 'they don 't have the same work ethic, ' " (Landers, 2004). For Baby Boomers, work is more of an end in and of itself, but Gen Xers and Yers work to be able to fulfil other, more important priorities. If a manager encourages frequent communication - including telling Gen Xers and Gen Yers why certain projects are important - he can turn different work attitudes into a positive. Human resources managers must ensure there is a mutual agreement between the employer and employee for options that include telecommuting. Working from home, telecommuting or tele-work, requires motivation and discipline. Some employees lack these traits and would not be productive workers if allowed to work from the comfort of home.
The upshot to technological advances for human resources managers is the type of human resources information systems available to employers for a variety of purposes. Human resources departments are able to track applicants and manage the recruitment process more effectively. In addition, producing data and reports can be accomplished easily because of technology (Mayhew, 2012). Managers of an organisation must adapt to changes in the external environment to succeed in the business environment. Correct planning techniques and awareness of these changes of the external environment will prevent a business to fail.
There are various concepts and theories involved in planning, which explore the many elements of planning and its impact on the organisation. Managers must have a strong understanding of these concepts, as an organisation can either strive or die depending on how these concepts are implemented in the organisation. Good managers plan for many situations and outcomes to set goals for the business to achieve through the use of goal setting and business plans. They also use planning systems effectively to manage changes in the external environment. This effective planning implemented by managers allows the business to strive in its future prospects, while neglecting this forces the organisation to effectively fail, with the failure to plan is essentially creating a strong plan to fail.
I believe that I am a strong planner because I plan to succeed in anything I do. As I play golf I need to have strong time management, not only for play and practice but to tie in university life as well. Effective planning of time and resources allows me to achieve to my best and reduces my chances of failing in both worlds. To succeed in both, I must analyse and interpret certain situations. With university, I must analyse the subject cores and criteria to achieve my best and with golf I must analyse various factors including weather and geographical situations. I must also diagnose problems to achieve my best. To problem solve at university and golf, I must breakdown various elements of the tasks required and then debug the errors to achieve the most out of whatever I do. Goal setting is very important in my planning, because the goals for both university and golf are based on performance. Planning focuses on goal setting with goals based on achievement a priority, with university being based upon marks, and low scores or improved abilities in golf. Despite this, I must also improve on strategies, which can help me achieve to my potential, both in marks and performance on the course. A major area of improvement is communicating. Despite having communications with lecturers and coaches, I need to have stronger communication channels which will allow me to plan changes and build upon personal strengths. This can be improved by finding the correct communication channel, in this case the use of in-person communications. Through this I have found that I am a strong planner, but there are also areas where I can improve, to reach my potential, not just in planning, but as a person.
Bibliography
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