Welcome to PlanningSkills.COM

This website focuses on a wide variety of topics related to organization and individual planning situations. The primary focus is business planning.

Planning is an anticipatory decision making process that involves situation analysis, forecasting outcomes and events, evaluating alternative courses of action, anticipating consequences and considering implementation issues and contingencies. Planning often begins with asking one or more questions, for example: What if ...? Could we ...? Do we ...? Is it possible...? How should we respond ...? How can we ...? Is it feasible to ...?

In general, planning is a proactive process that is intended to help individuals, groups and organizations achieve performance objectives.

Featured Glossary Term

Identifying the cause or causes of a problem can be challenging, but root cause analysis attempts to find "the real cause of a problem" and deal with the cause rather than focus on the symptoms. Causal analysis often involves identifying a complex set of interrelationships and determining what interventions are possible.

Featured Planning Tip

Sceptics may question the value and importance of planning, but many leaders have attested to the importance of planning. For example,

"Plans are nothing; planning is everything." Dwight D. Eisenhower

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." Benjamin Franklin

"The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go." John Pierpont Morgan

"Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire." Napoleon Hill

"To be prepared is half the victory." Miguel de Cervantes

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” George S. Patton

"Strategic planning is worthless -- unless there is first a strategic vision." John Naisbitt

"We always plan too much and always think too little." Joseph A. Schumpeter