Planning

Planning is an important part of everyday life as well as in the professional world. Things such as planning your day to allow time to get to the shops or pick up the kids and any other tasks require you to plan your time, although for regular life it is commonly done in your head, however a common example of everyday life planning in a written form is the shopping list.

In uni life, student diaries allow students to plan ahead and mark when assignments are due or when an exam takes place and thus how to allocate enough time to prepare for it.

In our collaborative effort, planning becomes an essential part of working in a team as we need to plan when we will have certain tasks completed, time and places to meet as well as the allocation of our tasks discussed earlier which is a form of planning our work.

In the professional world, in my personal experience, each week a list of all current jobs is prepared and ranked in order of preference and due date. I am then required to follow this plan to complete the work. Without this planning, dates would be missed, jobs overlooked and in general a far more disorganised practice would be run.

So what does it mean exactly to plan? Simply to organize what you need to do ahead of time and allocate the time in between to achieve your desired outcomes.

Some examples of well known planning:

· The season draw of the football codes, released before the season starts plans every match, venue, date and time with which a game will be played.

· WW2 D-Day invasion – this major military offensive was planned as the allies big attack against the enemy and is one of the larger logistical planning tasks undertaken.

· The tube railway system in London – a plan copied by many as its well organised structure is the yard stick for railway planning.

So essentially good planning allows the smooth running (or at least attempted smooth running) of a task and gives a structured organisation for all to adhere to.

References:
http://articles.bplans.com/index.php/business-articles/writing-a-business-plan/What-Makes-a-Good-Plan?/
viewedMon May 26, 2008