Planning is a fundamental stage of management.

it represents comprehensive thinking and comparison between different business models to choose the best and most compatible with the available capabilities along with the goals to be achieved.

What is planning?

Planning can be defined as defining the goals that the management seeks to achieve and drawing up plans and programs to achieve those goals, taking into account the available capabilities and the imposed restrictions surrounding the project.

It is also known as “predicting the future and drawing up plans, programs, and policies that ensure the achievement of the specific objectives of the project as efficiently as possible.”

In addition, it is also known that it is choosing from different alternatives to achieve the goals of the organization.

Planning depends on predicting the future, choosing between available alternatives, defining in advance what must be done along with the necessary procedures for its implementation, and when and how to implement, meaning that any precautionary process must include answering the following questions:

• What should be done? (what)
• Where will this project be performed? (where)
• When should this work be done? (when)
• How will this work be performed? (How)
• Why should this work be done? (Why)

Sections of planning:

1. Goals: They are the final points towards which the activity of the organization is directed to achieving the goals set for it, meaning that they are future goals that the entity seeks to achieve.

SMART Goals:

• Policies: It is a set of general rules that guide the decision-making process. It is also known as a set of alternatives and methods of work that all officials are committed to in exercising their competence to achieve the objectives of the project, such as production policies, marketing, financing, and personnel.
• Procedures: It is a set of instructions for the implementation and performance of a certain type of work, and it is always linked to the procedures. The idea of simplifying procedures as an entry point for the administrative reform process by studying the procedures for any of the products or services. This means studying the procedures, reorganizing them, modifying the sequencing process, and reducing time and steps, which leads to raising the efficiency of performance. Procedures are considered part of the plans because they aim to choose a specific method among several alternatives.

• Rules: Rules require taking a specific action in a specific situation. They are close to procedures as they guide the decision-making process, however, they don’t include sequential steps for implementing a specific action.
• Programs: Defining the method to implement the plan according to specific timelines.
• Budgets: It is the implementation of the plan in financial form during a specific period of time. Budgets are considered a planning process in addition to being a tool for control. The planning budget of the state or companies is prepared for a fiscal year.
• Strategies: The basic idea of the strategy is multiple activities dealing with defining policy-making, setting plans, leadership and management, in addition to organizing the use of the available resources within a framework that takes into consideration the priorities and best alternatives to achieve specific goals effectively.

The importance of planning:

• Planning is related to future which is uncertain and unclear, then planning becomes necessary to predict what the conditions surrounding the organization will be, in addition to preparing plans and programs to achieve the specific objectives of that organization under any expected future circumstances.
• Good planning leads to making better decisions regarding all project activities, whether in the field of production, marketing or financing.
• Good planning leads to improving the organization’s performance and raising its administrative efficiency.
• Good planning leads to coordinating efforts within the organization to enable it to achieve the objectives set for it more efficiently.
• Good planning leads to the optimal use of both material and human resources, which reduces costs and losses.
• Good planning is the basis for the control process. There is an integration between the functions of planning and control. There is no hope that the plan will succeed unless there is an effective control system.
• Good planning creates initiative managers, not the reactive managers.

Planning Responsibility:

• Planning is the responsibility of every manager in any organization and at all levels. It is the responsibility of the head of the department, the director and the general manager of the organization, thus the responsibility for planning increases at the higher levels.
• Usually, in large organizations, there is a planning department that assists all administrative levels to prepare plans and programs. The planning department sets the master plan, and if the senior management approves it, then it becomes in the form of instructions.

The planning process:

Types of planning:

Planning according to time frame:

1. Long-term planning, covering a period of more than five years.
2. Medium-term planning, covering a period of time between two and five years.
3. Short-term planning, covering a period of time less than two years.

It is noted that long-term planning is less detailed than the rest of the plans, also long-term planning is more prone to errors due to the difficulty of predicting the future conditions of the organization.

Planning according to managerial level:

• Planning at strategic level: It includes a specification of the general basic objectives that the project (or organization) seeks to achieve, and results from this basic plan of the project or the strategic plan of the project, which is the basis for planning at other administrative levels of the project.
• Planning at all administrative levels: Where planning is done at the administrative levels that carry out the activities of certain functions such as production, marketing, personnel, research and development.

Planning starts from the bottom up in the form of goals and they are distributed among the departments until it finally reaches the (Planning Department) and the (Board of Directors) until the goals of all departments and sections are reviewed to develop the master plan, then presented to the Board of Directors for approval and then execution, taking into account the feedback. However, if it is discovered that the plan did not achieve the goals or that the goals are exaggerated, corrective measures are implemented.

What are the most important components of effective planning?

There are a set of basic considerations that must be taken into account in order to ensure that planning is successful and effective:

• The senior management of the project must be convinced of the importance of planning in general and long-term strategic planning in particular.
• Good planning is linked to the existence of a framework of scientific principles and foundations upon which the administrative work is based. There is a strong relationship between planning and all other administrative functions of the project, for example: There is a strong relationship between planning and organization because proper and effective organization helps in good project planning, meaning that The existence of a sound organizational structure for the organization helps in implementing the plan of it, because it defines the terms of reference, responsibilities and organizational relations between all aspects of the project, and it also provides new channels of information and communication.
• Good and effective planning is linked to the existence of an organized and effective control system that ensures that what has been planned is implemented according to specific programs and at specific times necessary to implement the basic plan of the organization or project.
• The necessity of having a set of good procedural policies that represent specific guiding rules for business performance and decision-making in all different areas and activities of the project such as production, marketing and financing.
• The necessity of having a specialized department for project planning, in order to assist the administration in preparing plans, following up on their implementation, and evaluating the degree of their effectiveness.

There is no doubt that the success of the planning department in organizations depends on the availability of a group of specialists with a high level of skill and planning competencies, in addition to a good knowledge of data gathering, using computers, mathematics, and operations research and other methods used in management, such as linear programming and PERT’s model, which is a method of evaluating and reviewing programs.

Tactical and strategic planning:

Strategic Planning:

• The strategic planning is a comprehensive long-term action plan that defines the method of implementing the organization’s activities to achieve a long-term goal using certain resources in a changing environment.
• The strategy is designed in the light of the continuous analysis of the internal environment of the organization (available resources, strengths and weaknesses, as well as the local and external environment in terms of purpose and threats) facing a local or global organization, Thus strategic planning aims in general to adapt to the changes in the environment of the organization through the optimal use of the resources available to it and to take advantage of the strengths or to confront the external threats presented to it represented in the local environment surrounding the organization or the global external environment.
• Strategic planning includes defining the main objectives of the project as well as the main policies planned to be implemented over a relatively long period of time.
• Strategic planning is carried out at the highest administrative levels (the level of senior management), and it is a continuous planning process, but it takes place irregularly because it depends on new variables and surrounding conditions that affect the activity of the project as a whole.

Vision: The ambitions of the organization that cannot be achieved at the present time in light of its specific capabilities.

The mission of the organization: it is mostly a written document that represents the constitution of the organization and the main guide for making all decisions related to all the activities of the organization. It is usually given a relatively long period of time. The mission of the organization usually determines the nature of the activity in which the organization operates, as well as the characteristics of the products offered by the organization or services, in addition to clients of the organization who benefit from those services, as well as the technological framework that distinguishes the organization and from other organizations in the same activity.

Tactical planning:

Tactical planning includes setting plans for all activities and functions of the project that aim to achieve the objectives for each activity in detail within a short period of time.

Tactical planning is carried out at the lower administrative levels and carried out on a regular basis and on specific dates according to pre-established programs. In addition to that, that the level of certainty in strategic planning is less than tactical planning.