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1.0 Planning
1.1 Explain why managers plan.
The management of the organization's future in uncertain environments is among the manager’s primary responsibilities. This imposes the need to be proactive. Managers need to make change happen and not reacting to change and must plan for change in order for the organization to reach its ultimate goal. To effectively accomplish this, managers need to plan to be able to;
o Avoid wasting effort:
Evaluate whether the effort, costs and implications of achieving your plan are worth the achievement. It is easy to spend large amounts of time on activities that in retrospect prove to be irrelevant to the success of the project. Deadlines can be missed by not assessing the order in which dependent jobs should be carried out. Planning thus, helps to achieve the maximum effect from a given effort.
o Take into account all factors, and focus on the critical ones:
It is important to be aware of the implications of what we want to do, and we prepared for all reasonable eventualities. Consider the control mechanisms, whether reporting, quality or cost control, etc. that are needed to achieve your plan and keep it on course.
o Be aware of all changes that will need to be made:
Assess the impact of the plan on the organization and the people within it, and on the outside world. If you know these, then you can assess in advance the likelihood of being able to make those changes, and take action to ensure that they will be successful.
o Gather the resources needed:
Take stock of our current position and identify precisely what is to be achieved. This ensures that the project will not fail or suffer for lack of a critical resource.
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