Benefits of planning

SKILL: 4. Working both collaboratively and autonomously

TITLE: Benefits of planning

SUBTITLE: 

EQF LEVEL (INTERNAL REFERENCE):   3

Keywords: 

1 SMART

2 Objectives

3 Planning

4 Goals

5 Progress

Introduction: 

By the end of this LU, you will be able to understand the benefits of planning.

Content:

Planning is the process of setting goals and defining the required actions to achieve them. When it comes to the benefits of planning, we can list many, so let’s have a look at some examples of how planning benefits us both at a personal and professional level:

1. It facilitates management processes: It highlights the purposes of the different activities that you are going to be undertaking and makes the objectives clearer and more specific. At an organisational level, it helps the employees focus attentively on the goals of the company and brings order and rationality to it.
2. It minimises uncertainties: Since we are anticipating future events, it helps us reduce the uncertainties of the future and prepare for risks and unexpected turn of events. With the help of planning, we can forecast these risks and prepare accordingly.
3. It facilitates coordination: At an organisational level, all activities are directed to common goals. By planning, we avoid the duplication of efforts by different departments and it also helps us find work performance problems. 
4. It improves resource utilisation by determining where resources are most needed to provide the most benefit. 
5. It sets performance standards by defining desired outcomes and milestones to define progress, providing a standard for evaluating when things are progressing and when corrective measures are needed.
6. It provides an action plan  so everyone can work towards the same desired outcomes. Moreover, when a team is coordinated and focused on specific results, they are much more effective. 
7. It provides motivation and commitment: When people don’t have clear goals, they are not motivated. Planning reduces uncertainty, as we have seen before, and it indicates to everyone what they are supposed to accomplish. When someone understands and knows a goal, they are more likely to work towards it. 

https://pix4free.org/photo/12086/planning.html 

However, we also need to understand the drawbacks of planning:

1. It prevents action when we are so focused on planning but never actually implement those plans. This concept is called ‘death by planning’.
2. It leads to complacency: It can lead us to believe that we know where we are going and how to get there, causing us to fail in the monitoring of the plan. Planning is not a one-time process. We need to adjust the plans as they are being implemented.
3. It prevents flexibility: Sometimes we may feel that we must follow a plan even though we are seeing that it is not working while continuing to devote time and resources to ineffective actions.
4. It inhibits creativity: If we feel like we must follow a plan and that we will be judged by how we complete the tasks, creativity, initiative and experimentation will be inhibited. 

Resources:

• https://www.managementstudyguide.com/planning_advantages.htm
• https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-principlesofmanagement/chapter/reading-pros-and-cons-of-planning/ 

Language Point

Using “both…and” 

In English, “both” is used to mean ‘an equivalent to one and the other’. We use “both…and” to emphasise more the link between the two things. This makes an even clearer connection than using “and” on its own. We refer to this grammar structure as a linking expression. 

For example:

When it comes to the benefits of planning, we can list many, so let’s see some examples of how planning benefits us both on a personal and professional level.