Some famous phrases
Peter Drucker
Considered the father of modern management: " Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately generate hard work." "Long-term planning is not thinking about future decisions, but about the future of present decisions"
Tom peters
One of the world's most renowned business and management intellectuals: " The more time we spend on planning, the less time we need to spend on implementation."
Sun Tzu
The Art of War: “ You should never attack in anger and in a hurry. It is advisable to take time in planning and coordinating the plan. ”
Ernesto CHE Guevara
Against bureaucratism: “By occupying the entire complex apparatus of society, the fields of Action of the“ administrative guerrillas ”collided with each other, producing continuous friction, orders and counter-orders, different interpretations of the laws,… After a year of painful experiences, we concluded that it was essential to completely modify our style of work… using planning techniques… ”
Planning (what do you eat that with?)
When and where was planning born? Undoubtedly, its origin dates back to the mere birth of thought, far away, next to the origin of reasoning, in the same timeline, planning was born as part of the human genome. For some this statement is somewhat daring but I assure you that thanks to the instinct of armored survival with planning, the Neanderthal managed to survive and perform its leading role in the evolutionary chain of our species.
I assure you that, since the man became a rational being, even when he still did not communicate but through paintings on the cave walls, since he thought about how to obtain food for the day and preserve it for the others in whom inclement weather did not allow him to go hunting or fishing; Since he thought about how to defend himself and protect life, man already planned how to win the fight, how to survive, even when he consciously did not know that this was called planning.
And so, far from fulfilling the law of the strongest, rather the law of the best planner was fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled.
If we carry out a somewhat exhaustive search, we find that the historical origin of the concept of planning must be linked to that of strategy, which in turn comes from the military field (from the Greek stratego, made up of stratos (army) and ego (leader)): “If I am able to determine the enemy's dispositions while at the same time hiding mine, then I can concentrate my forces, and theirs must be divided. And if I concentrate while he divides, I can use all my strength to attack a fraction of his. "Said the Chinese classic, the mythical Taoist sage» The master of the valley of the devil «, recognized as the greatest theoretician of the art of strategy, Sun Tzu (the Art of War, Chapter 6. Emptiness and Present) three centuries before our era.
The warlike origin is going to leave marked to the strategy, and by extension to the planning, like that which has to take charge of the conflicts between antagonistic elements.
In more recent times and until the first decades of the 20th century, both the company and the public administrations had been organizing, at best, following the criteria of military logic: vertical hierarchy, tax authority and rigidity in compliance with the normative plans that were elaborated; and thus, in the change of model towards strategic planning, the influence of the two world wars can be seen, both in the operation of the economy and in politics.
Now, associating the emergence of planning with the emergence of human reasoning is not so far-fetched since Planning is simply a rational process that requires the organized intelligence of the BE to be able to be executed. This is also based on the fact that as humanity has developed, Planning has been perfected and with it the methods used to prepare plans aimed at meeting the objectives set for the future, which shows, without place Doubts, that although planning is as old as the human being, it is symbiotically united, becoming, like oxygen, something inseparable that is part of it.
In this way, and according to experts and specialists in the field, Planning dates back to the 1950s as a result of two currents of thought:
- The first, driven by the development of program and budget planning in the aftermath of World War II, The second stream originated from the Harvard Business School, where the importance of having a global corporate strategy was emphasized.
And so in a simplistic way, when mixing the two currents, at the end of the 50s the famous Strategic planning arose, took a major push in the 60s and 70s, in the 80s it was neglected and revived in the 90s.
My dear reader, there are many scholars who have paid attention to this process, to that accumulation of activities that allow us to prepare for the future, there are a considerable number of authors and subject specialists who have written about it, but for reasons Practices we will only refer to some elements that, in my opinion, will allow us to carry out a low and brief flight on the historical evolution of Planning.
And so we find the famous Marx and his inseparable friend Engels who firmly refer in isolated paragraphs to planning (Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875), Capital (1867 - 1885 - 1894)). Engels in his Anti-Dühring (1878) theoretically outlines socialism and states:
“The proletariat takes public power and, through it, turns the social means of production into public property, which escape the bourgeoisie's hand. With this act, it frees the means of production from the condition of capital that they had until then and gives their social character full freedom to prevail. From now on, social production is already possible according to a plan drawn up in advance ”.
As Msc points out. Norma Sánchez Paz in her article «Fundamentals and General Planning Methods» (University of Holguín "Oscar Lucero Moya" Faculty of Economic Sciences, Cuba), with the triumph of the Proletarian Revolution led by Lenin in Tsarist Russia in 1917, began to create the concrete conditions to put into practice the theoretical conceptions of Marx and Engels on the possibility of driving the economy through a plan and thus the famous GOELRO plan arises (according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The GOELRO plan (in Russian: план ГОЭЛРО) is the Russian abbreviation of the "State Commission for the Electrification of Russia", it was the first Soviet plan carried out for recovery and economic and national development It became the prototype of the subsequent Five-Year Plans drawn up by Gosplán.It is one of the most ambitious electrification plans ever carried out, whereby energy and lighting were brought into the homes of several million people, mostly farmers, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the countryside and the cities.) referring to the electrification of the country, scientifically argued and that despite having been called Lenin on one occasion "The dreamer of the Kremlin" due to the magnitude of the tasks included in it (according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: 1920 science fiction writer HG Wells met Lenin and was briefed on the overall electrification plan, finding these plans impractical.In his article "Russia in the Shadows" dedicated to this journey, Wells talks about these plans:through which energy and lighting were brought to the homes of several million people (mostly peasants, in an attempt to eliminate the gap between the countryside and the cities) related to the electrification of the country, scientifically argued and that despite Lenin had once been called "The Dreamer of the Kremlin" because of the magnitude of the tasks included in it (according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In 1920 the science fiction writer HG Wells met Lenin and was Informed about the overall electrification plan, finding these plans impractical.In his article "Russia in the Shadows" dedicated to this trip, Wells talks about these plans:through which energy and lighting were brought to the homes of several million people (mostly peasants, in an attempt to eliminate the gap between the countryside and the cities) related to the electrification of the country, scientifically argued and that despite Lenin had once been called "The Dreamer of the Kremlin" because of the magnitude of the tasks included in it (according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In 1920 the science fiction writer HG Wells met Lenin and was Informed about the overall electrification plan, finding these plans impractical.In his article "Russia in the Shadows" dedicated to this trip, Wells talks about these plans:in an attempt to eliminate the gap between the countryside and the cities) referring to the electrification of the country, scientifically argued and that despite having been called Lenin on one occasion "The Kremlin dreamer" due to the magnitude of the tasks that he included (according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In 1920 the science fiction writer HG Wells met with Lenin and was briefed on the general electrification plan, finding these plans impractical. In his article "Russia in the Shadows" Dedicated to this trip, Wells talks about these plans:in an attempt to eliminate the gap between the countryside and the cities) referring to the electrification of the country, scientifically argued and that despite having been called Lenin on one occasion "The Kremlin dreamer" due to the magnitude of the tasks that he included (according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In 1920 the science fiction writer HG Wells met with Lenin and was briefed on the general electrification plan, finding these plans impractical. In his article "Russia in the Shadows" Dedicated to this trip, Wells talks about these plans:The Free Encyclopedia: In 1920 the science fiction writer HG Wells met Lenin and was briefed on the general electrification plan, finding these plans impractical. In his "Russia in the Shadows" article dedicated to this trip, Wells talks about these plans:The Free Encyclopedia: In 1920 the science fiction writer HG Wells met Lenin and was briefed on the general electrification plan, finding these plans impractical. In his "Russia in the Shadows" article dedicated to this trip, Wells talks about these plans:
The fact is that Lenin, who as a true Marxist denies everything "utopian" in the end fell into an utopian utopia, the utopia of electrification. He does everything in his power to create huge power plants in Russia of immense power, which will give all the provinces enough energy for lighting, transport and industry. He said this in order to have a double experience in the electrified area. Can you imagine a bolder project in this country of vast plains and forests, inhabited by illiterate peasants, deprived of sources of water and energy, people with no knowledge of technology, in areas where commerce and industry are almost extinct? These electrification projects are currently taking place in the Netherlands, and are being discussed in England,One can easily imagine that in these densely populated countries with the highly developed industrial sector, electrification will be successful, profitable, and generally beneficial. But this type of project in Russia can be seen as a super-fantasy…. »), interesting, I would have liked to see Wells's face when he learned that the GOELRO plan was fulfilled and to add insult to injury, to further frustration and embarrassment, for him, said plan, thanks to the planning and its correct follow-up and control, was accomplished ahead of schedule.I would have liked to see Wells's face when he found out that the GOELRO plan was fulfilled and to make matters worse, to make him more frustrated and embarrassed, for him, this plan, thanks to the planning and its correct monitoring and control, was fulfilled before as planned.I would have liked to see Wells's face when he found out that the GOELRO plan was fulfilled and to make matters worse, to make him more frustrated and embarrassed, for him, this plan, thanks to the planning and its correct monitoring and control, was fulfilled before as planned.
Norma Sánchez Paz continues saying: … the results obtained by the then Soviet Union and the socialist countries in the field of the economy through the planned direction motivated, both in developed capitalist countries and in newly independent countries, that economists, increasingly in greater numbers, they will deal with the theoretical and practical issues of economic planning and that today those who possess the most disparate political ideologies and the most opposed systems praise planning and affirm that they use it to guide the growth of their countries.
Norma concludes this point by saying: It is logical to suppose that the principles of socialist and capitalist planning do not coincide, nor are the interests the same. In socialism it is planned to improve economic results for the benefit of society, while in capitalism it is done with similar objectives of improving profit levels but for the benefit of the business owner capitalist, since private property stops any attempt at profit. social that could arise…
And so, in England it is called indicative planning, in Italy it is called normative planning, in Germany budget-financial planning is used and in the United States the planning-programming-budget system is used.
Excellent, all this seems very good to me, but, what do we understand by Planning? What is it supposed to be? Well, according to Jiménez " Planning is a decision-making process to achieve a desired future, taking into account the situation current and internal and external factors that can influence the achievement of objectives ", if each of these elements identified in the planning process is analyzed, some authors agree that it is a process to establish goals or objectives and determine the means to achieve them (Steiner, Mercado, Stoner, Goodstein).
Alfred Dupont Chandler expert in business organization tells us that planning is: "the determination of the basic aims and objectives of an organization in the long term, the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources."
H. Igor Ansoff is considered the pioneer of the introduction of the culture of strategic thinking in the business and academic world, he tells us that planning is: “the process of coupling between an organization and its environment”.
Professor James Brian Quinn (recognized authority in the field of strategic planning and management of technological change) tells us that planning is: “the plan that integrates the main goals of an organization, establishes policies to follow and sequences of actions, in a cohesive whole ”.
Strategic Management professor Robert M. Grant tells us that planning is: "the unifier that provides coherence and direction to the actions and decisions of an organization."
The Argentine pedagogue, philosopher, sociologist and essayist Ezequiel Ander Egg tells us:
- "Substantially, planning is an effort to influence the course of certain events, through the deliberate action of some social actors; formally, it means influencing in an organized and formalized way on certain processes and actions leading to the achievement of certain objectives and proposed goals; Operationally, it is expressed in the use of certain procedures, with the purpose of introducing organization and rationality to a set of activities considered pertinent to the achievement of certain goals and objectives ”
Let's get on the helicopter and stop in our position of Manager, for us planning is nothing more than a process of creation and preparation of decisions regarding the future of the system to direct (in the short, medium and long term), with what future cooks decisions
This process is based on a forecast, on a projection previously studied and elaborated according to specific methods and they are amalgamated, based on specialized competences, according to the areas of the system; for example: financial planning (budget), personnel planning (staff, assignments, vacations, training, benefits), planning of the production of goods or services, maintenance planning (predictive, preventive, corrective), etc., etc., etc.
Footnotes:
- Jiménez CW (1982). Introduction to the study of administrative theory, Mexico; FCE.Steiner, GA (1969). Top management planning, Mac Millan. New York. Salvador H. Market (1996). Small and Medium Business Administration (Growth Strategies), Editorial Pac, SA de CVStoner, James AF (1996). Freeman, R. Edward and Gilbert, Daniel R. (Jr). Administration, 6th ed., Prentice Hall, México.Goodstein, Leonard D., (1998). Applied Strategic Planning, Mexico, Editorial Mc Graw Hill.
