In the field of public administration, there are countless stories of planning fiascoes. For example, one popular story of poor planning cites the highway department that built a bridge that connected to nothing on the other side of the river. The expected road on the other side was never constructed. Planning is the first rule to wise public management. It seems an obvious presumption and yet, as Mintzberg (1973, p. 38) tells us, managers frequently do not plan carefully. Managers too often spend their time dealing with day-to-day crises rather than planning strategically.
This research examines the concept of strategic planning in public administration. The historical evolution of strategic planning in tracked through the field of public administration, and its contemporary application is scrutinized.
Planning is one component of well-crafted public administration Planning as a managerial function is a prelude to organizing, staffing and other elements of implementing public works. The planning function is the activity that helps managers anticipate specific problems in program implementation and operations. The planning function itself may be broken down into sub-categories: management by objectives, forecasting, operations research, and risk analysis, to name a few.
The general concept of planning first became recognized as an important function of public administration in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The efficient development of major urban centers required accurate assessments of infrastructural needs--such as roads, bridges, water and sewage--as well as for housing and land use. Following the Great Depression, New Deal policies ushered public administration planning into the forefront of social reconstruction, given the policiesÆ emphasis on economic and social planning (Vieg, 1942, pp. 63-65). A little more than a decade later, World War II also contributed to the rising importance of planning in public admini...