Psychological aspects of planning

The High Cost of Planning

“…minimize risk 2. reduce uncertainty 3. avoid surprises 4. superimpose order 5. facilitate control In addition, Taylor (1983) states that planning may serve as an opportunity to motivate staff. Steiner (1974) observed that long-range planning "permits people to participate in the decision making processM-and thus encourages greater communication.…”

“…Unfortunately the complexity of planning obliges even the strategic planner to "ignore goals that cannot be quantified. " (Taylor, 1983). In one sense objectives are merely maps of the unknown-and cannot be confused with present moment reality with its substantial subjective component.…”

“…In identifying blocks to innovative planning Taylor (1983) calls "functional fixedness" the psychological barrier most likely to inhibit creative problem solving. Functional fixedness appears to inhibit improvisationor the "transfer of a response from an ordinary use to an unusual use.…”

Managing the planning process: A field study of the human side of planning

“…However, some efforts have been made to construct conceptual linkages between certain aspects of the planning process, and constructs and findings from the behavioural sciences. Based upon studies of human decision making, Taylor (1976) posits psychological variables for examining human behaviour during the process of implementing a planning system. He suggests that resistance to change, motivation, cognitive limitations, and blocks to innovation may be key variables for studying behaviour during this critical phase.…”

Corporate Planning and Operational Research

“…16 It does not matter whether these criticisms of OR models are true or not. Because of the variation in personality, intelligence, education, social environment, past experience, etc., each individual perceives a given set of events in different ways and will then evaluate his perceptions against an individual/organizational scale of values which again varies from individual to individual.…”