Planning, Control, Communication, and Decision-Making in Organizations

Posted on Aug 13, 2024 in Other subjects

Planning: The process of determining how an organization will achieve its goals. Planning Classifications: Managers utilize two primary types of planning: strategic and operational. Strategic planning focuses on achieving the organization’s overall goals, while operational planning outlines the implementation of strategic plans in daily operations. Both types of planning are linked to the organization’s mission, which defines its purpose and reason for existence. Strategic and operational plans differ in their time horizon, scope, and level of detail.

Relationship between Planning and Control: Planning provides standards (indicators) for measuring performance. If there is a significant deviation between actual and planned performance, corrective action can be taken. Budgets are a clear example of plans used as control standards.

Stages in the Development of Planning:

  1. STEP 1: Identifying needs and the desire to address them through computer solutions. A short document outlining the draft is created and approved by management or a relevant committee.
  2. STEP 2: Defining specific objectives, expected results, timelines, estimated costs, and the resources to be employed.
  3. STEP 3: The project manager, with the support of a technical team, defines the project’s contents, functional analysis, expected workload, and development methodology in detail.
  4. STEP 4: Based on the functional analysis, volumes, workload, timing, and resources are determined, leading to a formal contract between the client and computer users, often known as a load binder or”spec sheet”
  5. STEP 5: Technicians perform organizational analysis and programming specifications.
  6. STEP 6: Application programming and testing are conducted.
  7. STEP 7: Successful tests lead to provisional acceptance, resulting in user and exploitation manuals.
  8. STEP 8: Application implementation is a critical phase requiring strict monitoring to ensure proper operation. A review of project results is conducted.
  9. STEP 9: After several months of operation, a balance is needed to assess the real benefits the application has produced for the company.
  10. STEP 10: After a year or two, an audit of the application is conducted to determine if it remains appropriate or if modifications are needed.

Control: A crucial step in administration. Even with great plans, an appropriate organizational structure, and efficient management, executives cannot assess the organization’s true situation without a mechanism to monitor and report whether facts align with objectives.

Requirements for Good Control:

  • Correction of Faults and Errors: Control must detect and identify errors in planning, organization, or direction.
  • Forecast Future Failures or Errors: Control should anticipate and detect current errors to prevent future errors in planning, organization, and direction.

Importance of Control:

  • Create Better Quality: Process failures are detected and corrected to eliminate errors.
  • Confronting Change: Change is an inevitable part of any organization’s environment.
  • Produce Faster Cycles: Recognizing consumer demand for design, quality, or improved delivery time is one thing, but speeding up the cycles involved in developing and delivering these new products and services to customers is another. Today’s customers expect not only speed but also products and services tailored to their needs.
  • Add Value: Control adds value to the organization.
  • Facilitate Delegation and Teamwork: Control facilitates delegation and teamwork.

Basis of Control: Control is based on the following activities:

  • Planning and Organizing
  • Doing
  • Evaluating
  • Improving

Control Areas: The main areas of control in a company are:

  • Production Areas: For industrial companies, the production area is where products are made. For service providers, the production area is where services are provided. The main controls in the production area include:
  • Production Control: The goal of this control is to schedule, coordinate, and implement measures to achieve optimal performance in units produced. It indicates the manner, time, and place most suitable for achieving production targets, meeting the needs of the sales department.

Communication: Effective communication requires a transmitter, a receiver, a message, and a channel through which to send the message. If any of these elements fail, interference occurs, and communication cannot be established. A common code is used by both the sender and receiver to transmit a message (either linguistic or nonlinguistic).

Barriers:

  • Physical: Physical barriers (e.g., cards)
  • Semantic: Changes in meaning
  • Physiological: Disabilities or organic defects
  • Psychological: Yelling, threatening
  • Management: Management barriers

Process of Communication:

  1. Development of an idea
  2. Coding
  3. Transmission
  4. Reception
  5. Decoding
  6. Acceptance
  7. Use
  8. Feedback

Making Decisions: Decision-making in an organization is limited to a group of individuals supporting the same project. The selection process is a crucial task. Functions: Decision-making in an organization permeates four administrative functions:

  • Planning: Selecting problems and objectives
  • Organization: Establishing the structure and roles of individuals within the organization
  • Direction: Influencing individuals to comply with organizational and group goals
  • Control: Measuring and correcting individual and organizational performance to achieve plans

Ingredients for Decision-Making:

  • Information
  • Knowledge
  • Experience
  • Analysis
  • Trial

Importance of Decision-Making: Through the use of a good trial, decision-making indicates that a problem or situation is deeply valued and considered to choose the best course of action among different alternatives and operations.