ting, leading and controlling the resources of the organization.
Planning is one of the most common sets of activities in management. Planning involves setting the direction for some process or project and then guiding the resources of the organizational system to follow that direction. Thus, planning an organization's business activities includes identifying the company's goals, objectives, and methods and determining the resources needed to carry out the company's responsibilities by the date needed for completion. McNamara points out that there are various types of planning in organizations, including strategy planning, business planning, project planning, staffing planning, advertising and promotions planning, among others. However, the factors common to these many kinds of planning are the various phases of planning and guidelines for carrying them out as effectively as possible.
Every organizational system consists of inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. Inputs include resources such as raw materials, money, technologies and people that are processed to achieve the goals set for the system. Resources include the people, materials, technologies and money, among other things, required to implement the strategies or processes. The costs of these resources are often depicted in the form of a budget. Outputs are the tangible results produced by processes in the system, such as products or services for consumers. Outcomes are another type of result such as creating more jobs for workers or enhancing the quality of life for customers.
Generally, the planning process works backwards through the system. Thus, management must first identify the results (outcomes and outputs) it wishes to achieve and then it will work backwards through the system to identify the processes needed to produce the desired results. By working backward, management will be able to identify precisely which inputs (or resources) are needed to car...