Planning Department
Sami Abdulaziz
Planning is the first step in administrative work and the foundation for organizational success, as management asks several questions: (What do you want? What needs to be done? Where? How? And what resources are needed to complete the work?), followed by setting goals, establishing policies to achieve them, designing programs, and defining the necessary steps and rules within a specific timeframe.
The Importance of Planning: Planning is of paramount importance and can be described as predicting what the future will hold and preparing for it; and it is the primary path management follows as a means of solving its various problems. It is certain that poor planning leads to haphazard and improvised decision-making, resulting in the misuse of assets and financial resources and the futile waste of efforts.
The Role of Planning Management:
Managers focus on taking certain necessary administrative steps, the most important of which are:
– Understanding the current situation and building a solid foundation for planning through a sound and realistic scientific analysis of the organization’s history and the obstacles and challenges it has faced to reach its current state, while clarifying its commitments, strengths, and weaknesses, and anticipating senior management’s vision for theand the best ways to achieve it.
– Defining the organization’s objectives: Senior management establishes the general policy, or what is known as the "strategy." , and all departments set their own objectives in line with the organization’s strategy. Here, the organization’s planning department plays the largest and most prominent role in ensuring that departments work in an integrated manner to achieve the overarching goal without causing overlaps or administrative problems between the various sectors.
Management scholars have agreed on two types of planning:
– Goal Planning: As we have explained, every organization has general objectives from which specific objectives branch out. Each department sets these objectives and works to achieve them independently on the one hand, and in coordination with other departments on the other, provided that all departments operate under a single umbrella: the organization’s overall strategy.
– Operational Planning: Departments must operate in a systematic manner consistent with market realities, the organization’s actual capabilities, and the level of competition, while taking into account human resources, product reputation and quality, customer satisfaction, economic conditions, and liquidity.
There is no success without planning, and no progress without learning from past mistakes.
Planning Management
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