Levels of planning
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There are several levels of planning due to the time horizon:
- Strategic planning, otherwise long-term, the development of which is estimated for more than 5 years
- Long-term planning, lasting from 2 to 5 years, are mainly tasks that foster some higher goal
- Medium-term planning, whose duration is usually estimated from several months to a year, is an auxiliary task in obtaining long-term goals
- Short-term planning otherwise operational, duration up to three months, are short, concise tasks that usually do not take much time
- Current planning, there are daily tasks or maximum occupations up to one week, mainly these are various types of meetings and basic tasks to be carried out during the day
We can also distinguish:
- planning on corporate level (strategic planning)
- departmental planning - on particular function or department
- operational Planning - of basic business processes
- workplace planning - of tasks of particular employee
Type of planning
- operative - is the basic element of work organization. This type of planning includes a short term (for example month) and directly sets tasks for contractors of various level. There must be a strong relationship between operational planning and the current organization of the implementation of economic tasks. Operational planning is often called current or executive planning.
- Strategic planning includes problems that require a longer period of resolution (for example a several years).The effects of actions in the strategic planning process are permament and difficult to reverse. Affects changes in the size of the business and structure. Strategic planning serves to achieve long-term goals.
- Tactical planning - covers a wide range of activities of an economic. This planning applies to a period longer than operative planning (for example one year). Tactical plan is divided into: a technical part (defining the cash outlays and the financial result of the activity),the financial part (the postulated costs of obtaining income from business activity)[1].
Methods of planning
Methods of planning - depending on the type of plan, the issues covered by the plan and the industry and the size of the business entity preparing the plan apply a variety of planning methods[2]:
- Bilans method - it consists in compiling, in the form of a balance sheet, future needs for economic goods or services. The balance sheet method can determine the demand and sources of its coverage with respect to labor resources, materials and raw materials capacity.
- Proportion method includes two varieties:the extrapolation method consists in adopting the current trends in the development, the constant proportion method is based on the assumption that the current relationship between two planning polygons does not change
- Simplex method - is used to find for an optimal solution for specific planned quantities (for example: production that gives the highest profit or the lowest consumption of production factors)
This method is often useful in planning single projects (production of new products, investment programming, planning renovaions)
Local level planning
During establishing a plan for a larger organization, it is important to separate plan and responsibility into smaller local units.
The main functions of level planning[3]:
- The overall plan should be adapted so that it can easily be divided into smaller area plans
- Plans at the lower levels should be arranged in such a way that after submission they are one
- To integrate and co-ordinate the multitude of lower level proposals into one conssistent local-level plan that is meeting the goals, objectives and targets from higher as well as lower levels, that can be implemented location of the development activities (horizontal linking)
- Planning at the local level is basically based on the premise that a local level plan would reflect as much will and community wisdom as possible, and people know better that "strangers" are their problems and how best to solve these problems using local resources.
References
- Dzurik, A.A., Theriaque, D.A., (2003). Water Resources Planning, Rowman & Littlefield.
- Grenning, J. (2002). Planning poker or how to avoid analysis paralysis while release planning. Hawthorn Woods: Renaissance Software Consulting, 3, 22-23.
- Pandey, A.K., (1990). Local Level Planning and Rural Development, Mittal Publications.
Footnotes
Author: Patrycja Garbacik
